What I feared has come to pass. A door has, if not slammed, at least closed, and left me stranded in the cold of my memories of hot, burning nights. Not that that has anything to do with anything that actually took place, though I’m not going to deny that it might have, but what else can I do, if I am not allowed to see her, or touch her, or kiss her, except write about her so that someone, somewhere, sometime, can read it and know just how much I love her? How can I stop my protestations when all that I feel is so real, especially when I know that her feelings are so close to my own, though she refuses to accept those feelings?

So, here I am, writing what I feel because there is no one I can call or talk to or hold on to. Nothing is more painful than knowing all this, but nothing is more invigorating than knowing that she may read this and change her mind. Who can say? I certainly am not a foreteller of the future, though I do have dreams that seem to contradict that piece of obvious logic.

The particular dream I refer to is the same one I referred to in the subtitle of this Installment. I dreamed it some eight or nine weeks ago. I was standing out in a field of black, just myself, when she appeared beside me. We embraced and kissed one of those kisses that I spoke of in the First Installment. Then, upon breaking, she walked over to a door that materialized, opened it, and without even looking back, she slammed it, leaving me in the cold darkness. I awoke with tears on my cheeks. The next week, she and I broke up, assuming we were ever really together. We still talk, when I call. She never has written in the ten years I’ve known her, at least, not on any kind of regular basis, so I don’t expect any answers to my intermittent letters.

I have tried these past weeks to refrain from thinking about those days, particularly that last night, but I can’t. What I have accomplished, though, is a more objective stand from which to remember. I can look back on it now and not feel as much pain as I did before, but the pain is still there. She says she feels guilt whenever I write or call, and that I do not want, yet why does she feel guilt? If she really loves this other person, why does she feel guilty on my account?

She says she loves me, too, and that that is why she had to be apart from me. On one hand, I can understand her, for she is hard at work in school now, and doesn’t need a full-time relationship. Yet, she has let herself into one with this other person at another school. How am I supposed to take this?

I feel no malice towards her, nor have I ever. I’ve had only the gentlest of feelings toward her since those days in eighth and ninth grades, and she knows that. Am I to just forget those feelings, forget the time I have devoted to thinking of her through the years? I cannot, and for that I am sorry, for if I could, she and I might be able to be friends. I want that more than anything. She says that we are friends, and I sincerely hope that is true, but friends do not feel guilty over the friendships they keep, for then those friendships become anchors, holding one back and preventing a healthy relationship from forming to replace the one that was lost.

So, this is how I feel, as opposed to “This is what I am.” I hope you will forgive me for this intrusion into your souls, as I hope I have touched a part of you all; perhaps the memories of that high school steady have been rekindled. But most of all I am thankful for the times I have had learning what hurts me and to what degree I allow it to hurt. I’m happy for that. I’m always pleased to learn something about myself, even if that knowledge of necessity creates pangs of regret in my heart. So I thank you; you know who you are.

I leave you now, as humbly as I met you at first, as one madman in a world gone mad,

Howard Scott
27 October 1987