The Oblivious

Artemis

I suppose in my life, I've been pretty lucky. I live in a house, I have dogs and friends and I go to school. Yet, as many people do, I looked for more. I yearned for danger and not the infinity of routine. A boy met me, and I met him. The next 5 years were hectic because we were oblivious to the fact that we were not a compatible couple, or even friends really. We were destructive and abusive in so many ways. We were never even officially a couple, we were people who loved each other but couldn't stand commitment.

He fell in love with another woman, I fell in love with another man. We drifted after awhile, though I should have seen love cannot drift so easily, but I was naive. Even though we saw other people, we still loved each other. By coincidence we saw each other again, and we started up what we had before. Yet I had no one, and he had a girlfriend. He told me that he would leave her for me because we had to be together, we could conquer the world and live on the edge, with no real home. This was a promise I then couldn't refuse, yet he still didn't break up with her after months. I was inpatient and yet, he seemed to be the angry one.
He was never physically abusive, yet the mental and emotional pain we both caused was horrible. He broke up with his girlfriend, but I couldn't handle how guilty I felt. I told him to go back to her, that maybe we weren't meant to be after all. We were living in fantasy, yet we had to see the reality. I left him behind, and I didn't look back. Half a year later, I am with my friend in the downtown area of where I live and on the streets I saw him. The man I left behind. He was homeless and at that moment, I knew that I couldn't leave him behind again, at least for now. He told me over a cup of hot soup that his father, who was abusive, had finally kicked him out. His mother lived across the country in a mental institution and wasn't any help. He went for the streets and here he was, his girlfriend long gone. It seemed as though we were meant to be in that exact moment, but I knew we weren't. He had to go back to his father and work their history out and then maybe, he and I would be together again. Just maybe.

A week later the local paper prints a story of a young man, who after months of homelessness comes back to his childhood home, and to his family. His father, strung out on some undisclosed drug, hallucinates and beats him to death.

I will miss you forever, and I love you my Hendrix. I am so sorry.