Of Free Will and Consequences.

You know it's been at least fifteen years since the last time I saw you, but you've been in my thoughts.

I think on our time together, drinking under the stars, hanging out under the trees, pretending to be more than we were, trying to figure out what it was all about.

There are some days, even now when I would give almost anything to wrap my arms around you, to see your smiling eyes, to hear you laugh...

You know how I loved to hear you laugh...

It's a weakness of mine, I know.

I've been remembering you.

I remember when I was fifteen, and you were fourteen, that afternoon on the bus when you were choking on something in the back seat and nobody was paying attention. I remember pushing you up against the window, performing a sitting heimlich and getting you breathing again. You coughing and gasping your thanks as the tears formed in the corners of your eyes.

I remember how crushed you were the day you realized that you (like the rest of us) were not destined for fame or glory or glamour, and that, no matter where you went, you would never truly fit in.

I've been thinking about you a lot lately, and I'll admit that it's due in part to the fact that I know someone in this new life that kind of reminds me of you.

The same but different, isn't that always the case?

Different sense of humor entirely, and (no offense) a bit faster on the uptake than you were, but just as kind hearted, just as wonderfully stubborn, just as beautifully damaged and tragically flawed as you were all those years ago.

This one also seems to think I'm a better person than I am. I really hope she never has to learn otherwise, but watching her I see her following in your footsteps. It may be an inevitability.

You know that I always cared for you, that I always loved you (though we were never lovers), that I would have done anything... well almost anything if you'd asked it of me, if you'd really needed it.

But you never asked, you just chose your path, and wouldn't be turned from it by any of those who cared for you... All the while singing "Ja will provide" so that we couldn't hear the pain in your voice.

And I know I'm to blame, at least partly.

I shouldn't have moved on.

I shouldn't have closed my eyes.

I should have tried to do more, to stop you, to do something, to change something.

But I couldn't.

I couldn't even make myself watch.

They say nobody can know the future, and that's true I suppose, but I knew, even if it was just an educated guess.

I knew, and I turned my back because I was too weak to face it.

You who always tried to convince me that I wasn't a worthless evil fuck. That I had some shred of human decency... But in the end, which one of us is still here?

When the time came to prove it, I just couldn't seem to spare the time

Too caught up in my own bullshit.

I didn't even find out about your overdose until you'd been in the ground for two years.

And I know your other friends mourn with me.

And I know no one places any blame.

And I know your children don't even know my name.

And I can even bring myself to forgive you your selfishness, for thinking that you had the right to abandon the rest of us to go off chasing your dragon.

But I just can't seem to face down the fact that I was too weak to watch you destroy yourself, to add yourself to that ever growing list of people that the rest of us are stuck here mourning.

I just keep telling myself that people make choices, and have to face the consequences of those choices, and that I can only help people who want to be helped, and that it's not my right to interfere in someone else's life just because I lack the fortitude to face the pain of a world without them...

But the longer I live the more it all sounds like self serving bullshit.

I'd like to think that I've learned from this, from you, that I'll do it different this time, that I'll be able to make a difference, or that I'll be able keep my eyes open and see it through to it's logical conclusion... but I just don't think I'm strong enough, I'm not sure I ever was, or ever will be.

I neither ask nor expect your forgiveness, even if the dead were in the habit of granting it, I know I don't deserve it.

For what it's worth, I'm sorry I left you there when a better man would have stayed.

I'm sorry that I failed you, and the others.

I'm sorry that I couldn't be there when it might have done some good.

I'm sorry I couldn't make myself stay and watch you die.

I'm sorry O.

Missing you.