A Million Little Pieces

Next weekend, I'm getting together with the guy who destroyed my heart in the tenth grade. I haven't seen him in eleven or twelve years, but circumstances have conspired such that we find ourselves both living in the same city far from where we grew up.

Back in high school, this guy (let's call him Reefer Madness) and I were introduced by a mutual friend (let's call him Iago). Iago and I had gone to high school together and then he transferred to Reefer Madness's high school. Every once in awhile, I would get a phone call from Iago to hang out. I always suspected Iago had crush on me, but he was a flirtatious person, and he basically had a crush on every woman he knew, so it wasn't something that made me feel special or even singled out. I directed Iago's rampant libido toward my best friend at the time, Sniffles (not that he got anywhere with her), and, while he was intoxicated by the possibility of tapping Sniffles's ass, Iago got the idea of introducing Reefer Madness and me.

The problem was that Iago's idea was too good. Reefer Madness and I really liked each other. He told mutual friends of ours (other than Iago) how much he liked me and that he was going to ask me to be his girlfriend (God, we were so young then). At some point, Iago decided he didn't like this situation too much and Reefer Madness may have changed his mind about his feelings. So, Iago told me that Reefer Madness had decided he didn't like me anymore and he liked Sniffles instead. My little teenage heart was broken into a million little pieces. After that, I basically stalked Reefer Madness in a variety of ways of which I am now deeply ashamed. The only thing I can really say in my defense is that I couldn't process the idea that Reefer Madness would like me one day and like Sniffles the next, or that we could have such a promising future on the horizon that would be instantly gone.

Anyway, fast forward more than a decade, and here the two of us are, both living in a city far from home. I've known for a few months now that we are both living here, but I hadn't taken any action on that issue until yesterday. When I first moved here and discovered myself once again in close geographic proximity to my former love, I considered contacting him, but I decided against it. I figured that if he rejected me back in high school, he was unlikely to want to stroll down memory lane now and I would only embarrass myself and further convince him of my undesirability as a girlfriend by inviting him for coffee. I had put him out of my mind almost entirely until yesterday when, for no reason I could pinpoint, I couldn't get out of my mind the idea that I needed to get in touch with him.

I fought myself over this for a few hours until I finally decided that I really didn't have anything to lose by shooting him an email to say hello. I suffer from this condition that makes me think that while I have changed since high school, everyone else I haven't seen since then is exactly the same. It's a silly and moderately insulting way to think. I also reasoned that even if he didn't want to see me, he was unlikely to write me an email telling me what a loser I am. At worst, he would ignore my email, and nothing would ever come of it. At best, maybe I could add another friend to my stable here in my new town. So, I emailed him and told him I had heard that we were both living in the same town (read: I found out on Facebook), and that it might be fun to get together for coffee or a drink sometime and catch up.

To my surprise, he emailed me back relatively quickly and said it was good to hear from me and that it would be fun to get together some weekend and trade tales. I responded to ask if he wanted to try to make a plan for next weekend, but I have not heard back.

I talked to my mom about it, and I said that I am going to need to look as good as possible so that I can win here by showing him what a big mistake he made all those years ago (yes, I am that petty). My mom told me it wasn't about winning or losing, and I realized that she's right. It's about tying up the score. He's already won because I was totally in love with him and he turned me down. So, right now, it's Reefer Madness: 1, Me: 0. To actually win, I would have to, like, break off an engagement with him or something. And, unfortunately for me, the only way I'm going to tie up the score is through physical appearances because he's in town going to a prestigious medical school, so it's not like he ended up as trailer trash and I can shame him with my fancy job and material wealth.

Anyway, it remains to be seen whether we'll actually get together or not. I'm not sure I'll believe it until we're face to face. It'll be interesting to see what happens if we actually do get together. I wonder if we're going to talk about all the stuff that happened all those years ago. I don't intend to bring it up, but maybe he will. I'm not sure what else we'll have to talk about. Either way, it's crazy that we both ended up in the same place. I cried so much over this guy when I was in high school, and I can't believe I might see him again.