October 28, 2001
Maddening Life
Saturday morning, about ten until twelve. I was settling down to eat my cherry frosted pop tart, a literal minute after getting off of the phone with Kelsi, when it rang again. For the first time in days, I answered it without a hopeful thought in my head.
"Hello?" I said, mouth full of pop tart.
"Hey... Jill?"
"Ryan? Oh my God!"
I remember very little of what was actually said, remember only that he laughed, and that I burst into tears once I had hung up with him. He spoke to me for exactly twelve minutes.
And it was as though we just talked yesterday. We talked about nothing. But we talked.
And he had not gotten my letter about being unable to afford to go to his graduation. So I told him. And he says almost exactly what I would have expected him to say:
"How much do you need?"
"Ryan, you don't have to do that."
"If I had to I wouldn't."
He always says that. And I don't know what is going to happen now. I can't possibly spare the money to go and yet I can't allow him to pay for me. I was willing to do anything to see him last night at Kelsi's, at two o'clock in the morning and bawling my eyes out in her hallway whilst she and Cassy slept. She told me later she was awake. But I'm getting so used to crying alone.
Life is maddening. Hearing his voice made me only realize how much further away he is. Today, despite the fact that he told me he loved me yesterday, not by his pen but by his tongue, he is still a thousand miles away.
A thousand miles.
astera at borneo