Saying Goodbye

Even a year ago, I never would have believed I could fall out of love with Patrick.

We met on a summer night when I was only 13 and waiting for something to happen, already longing to get up in the middle of the night and just turn the doorknob and start walking: disappear one night and show up a few years later under a different name and a Broadway marquee.

Patrick was the perfect man, or what at 13 I expected the perfect man to be like: handsome, melancholy, sensitive, gifted, passionate. We grew together. We shared the same friends. I can't say I knew everything about him, but I knew him so well that there were things I knew about him that he didn't know about himself.

We were together for 16 years and even until last year I was as much in love with him as ever.

I had a vacation in Phoenix with my parents over the New Year, and when I got back, it just wasn't the same.

There was no reason. He did nothing wrong. Perhaps I'd just come to know him too well; perhaps  I couldn't think of any more secrets of his that I wanted to discover.  Perhaps I'd outgrown his melancholy. I started to stay away and when I did try to spend time with him, I found myself slack, unmotivated, even faintly repulsed. I could never stay long.

Clearly I was the one who grew away. Patrick has not changed. I know now that he never will. He will always be glad to see me - and in truth, when he crosses my mind, it's with a sweetness and a true affection.  I can imagine that someday, in months or years, I'll have a sudden urge and meet him again and find myself amazed to think I let things drift so long. I could fall in love with Patrick again. After all, he's handsome, melancholy, sensitive, gifted and passionate.

But for now, I have  Jonathan, who has eyes like lightning, and Asher, who's so unpredictable, and Vova, who's no good but is a genius, and Michael, who's beautiful but weak. None of them will stay forever; none will be the love of my writing life. That will always be Patrick - no matter how long we're apart.