July 13, 2008: Subject May Exhibit Obsessive Qualities

I had that distinctive feeling churning my gut – that kind of tingling anticipation that comes with thinking you’ll be caught doing something you shouldn’t be doing. Such as stalking the comment exchanges on myspace between the boy I had an inexplicable devotion to and girls who lived as far away as Arizona. What the hell difference did it make if he talked to girls in Arizona? They were hundreds of miles away; I was immediate, a five minute drive up the street. He couldn’t handle a relationship with a girl he saw nearly every day, forget anyone who lived across state lines.1

Still I worried – and wondered. How did he know them? Were these girls he had met in Corpus, in his younger, drug and alcohol fueled days? Had he been with any of them in the past? The clenching in my stomach was no longer based on my impossible notions of him seeing the web traffic that proved my obsession. 2

And his responses to all of them were so unbelievably and uncharacteristically…open. The kind of lighthearted, flirtatious joking that I longed for, the signals any normal boy would put out to the girl he liked. But not him. He was always careful, guarded, and not just around me, but around all of us. 3

I debated the possibility that he was just being polite, the way I sometimes suspected he was with other people at school. After all, these girls couldn't know the person he had become after leaving Corpus (if that was in fact where he knew them from…) I'd always had the distinct impression something happened after his return from Corpus, that some event or compilation of events positioned between eighth grade and junior year had made him a radically different person than the boy he once was. It had hardened him, and he guarded his heart in a way that was almost paranoid. 4

I jumped back a page, to the main profile of the Arizona girl, and my heart stutter-stopped to see a new comment from him at the top of the list, a glowing green ‘online now!’ beneath his name. It would be ridiculous to send him a message. In addition to having his phone number, I didn’t really have anything to say. I just wanted him to acknowledge me, and that was utterly foolish and girly and made me think a little less of myself. I had always been firm in my independence; I didn’t need the confirmation of a boy who treated me like relative shit. Still I burned to send him something, anything, to say, 'Hey! I’m here, too. Notice me.' 5

I clicked on another girl’s picture, disgusted by the jealousy that choked my throat when her profile was set to private. I went back to the homepage and saw that the ‘online now!’ had disappeared from beneath his name, then closed the window and thought about the unhealthy nature of my relationship with him. He didn’t treat me particularly well, but I guess he didn’t treat me badly either. He was just impossibly distant, and I had this naïve idea that I could close the gap. His apathy and frequent, unintentionally harsh words gnawed at my heart in a way that made me feel stupid for letting someone else affect me so deeply.6

I couldn't think straight anymore. I needed to sleep.7