Whe one door closes...

My time with Jaylin came to its indubitable end...abruptly, inauspiciously--two nights ago. I should have known better than to indulge him this last time.

After JHU-5 cities, where Tommy urged me to chug what should not have been a copious amount of beer, I stumbled to the subway. Jay had wanted to see a movie that night but given that he is a buzz kill--we've become inseparable due to how hardpressed I've been for human interaction in unemployment than the merit of his company--I shouldn't have seen him that night. In true poor decision form, I texted him and he met me at Union Square.

My head began buzzing with the beginnings of an existential crisis: what is keeping me in New York? Usually, New York is enough to keep me in New York...but that night, I started contemplating aloud that nothing was holding me here.

Jaylin insisted my friends were...code for HE IS. But I counter with the truth that I am expendable in their realm...besides, moving away should hardly be likened to dying, yet it is and with good reason. (A point New York lovers will argue, I'll say it for another day)...so we go back and forth, him failing to comfort and growing weary of my bleak, sour outlook. Me horrified that I am opening up to him in this capacity but unable to drive this wreck back on track. He's only used to me happy and bubbly and carefree--this dark side, it scares him. He's not built for it. I know this, that's why I never chose him in the first place. But he doesn't get that, and I can't explain it...

Finally, we arrive at my doorstep and he can't bear me another minute but he presses on, "Just tell me you don't want to see me. That you don't want me to call you. That this, whatever this is, is over!''

In his voice I hear my own. In his words I hear my own. In another world, in another time, with another guy, I was him...

I'm sorry, I want to say, but my throat closes up. This isn't about you. This was never about you. But I say nothing. I don't give him the closure I've been deprived and in so doing, I gain nothing.

The truth is he personalized an issue that couldn't have had less to do with him. The truth was as simple as his last words to me, "It's always about you. I'm not good enough to date and I'm not good enough to be friends with. You get mad at me for seemingly no reason and I'm sorry. I'm always sorry."

Oh, Jay. I'm sorry too. I'm sorry for you.