Wrong way on a one-way track...

I'm not sure I can explain it now any more than I could all those years ago. It's like I knew the whole time that trying to be with Kara would be like hanging on to a runaway train...there was only one way it could end up. I know I put up with a lot of crap, I forgave (or at least overlooked) a lot of things I shouldn't have, I threw all my self-respect out the window, and I consistently put her above my friends, my livelihood & my own sanity. I let her drive me thousands of miles from my home & let her pull me right back again just when I had settled down. But notice, all those things start with "I"; she never had a gun to my head telling me what to do, and I don't blame her for any of my actions.

And I guess it's wrong to say that I knew all along it would end in tragedy; I certainly thought that at times, but at the same time, the two of us had...something when we were together that, in it's best moments, made it easy to believe that it might actually last forever...or as close to that as people ever get. I can't speak for her nowadays, but all these years later, I can honestly say that, out of all the girls I've ever known & all the relationships I've ever been in, I've still never been able to just talk to anyone as easily or felt as...in synch with anyone as I did with Kara.

I'm not exactly one of those guys who keeps it all bottled up inside; I pretty much wear my feelings on my sleeve, and I've been pretty open with most of the relationships I've been in, but there was a way that the two of us had when we were together...everything just clicked; we could talk about anything at anytime, effortlessly. We never judged the other one or tried to bend each other's opinions to our own will, we never had to find small talk to fill time, we never had trouble telling each other anything, and we were genuinely fascinated by what was going on in the other's head.

She had this way of...looking at life & the world around her that was perpetually like a little kid on Christmas morning; everything fascinated her. We would talk endlessly about people & why they did what they did, about life & love & how the world turns & why the sky is blue & why are we here...and the most amazing things would come out of her mouth; she saw the world with the most raw & unfiltered eyes, and she had this way of just cutting right through the bullshit and being as honest and real as anyone I've ever met. She wasn't a straight-A student, but she was one of the smartest people I've ever met, and i thought she could do anything in the world she wanted to do.

And she might have had her dark side, but she had a great sense of humor, and she loved to laugh, all the time; if you said or did something that made her laugh, she would constantly poke & prod you to "do it again, do it again!" & she would only laugh harder every time. She would play the Punchbug/Slugbug game (for the uninitiated, this involves yelling "Punchbug/Slugbug" & hitting the person next to you in the arm whenever you spot a Volkswagen Bug on the road) constantly, and you could be in the middle of the most intense, heated argument ever with her, but if that Bug drove by, she didn't miss a trick.

And she wasn't the most affectionate person in the world, but she wasn't always as heartless as I might have made her sound; she had a good heart and she could surprise you with the most unexpected random acts of sweetness, that only stood out more for their infrequency. Just when you thought she had forgotten about your birthday or Christmas or something, she would surprise you with something she obviously went to a lot of trouble to do, or pull out the perfect gift that you never expected her to buy. It didn't happen often, but she had her moments.

But, she was also immature in a lot of ways, she was a little too bad for her own good, and she could be mean as a snake when she wanted to be. She was usually worried about Kara's happiness more so than anybody else's, and she was impulsive to a fault. She could turn off her thousand-watt smile at the drop of a dime, and she could say things that cut you so deep you bled. She wasn't above taking advantage of someone's feelings for her own gratification at times (even if I did make it way too easy for her to do so), and she was never, ever satisfied; the grass was always greener somewhere that she wasn't. She was young, she was wild, and she just wasn't ready to stop being either.

We used to fight like cats and dogs half the time we were together, and I was no angel either...I gave as good as I got. Unfortunately, we fought just as easily as we talked. But at the end, sitting in that car with her that April night, listening to her tell me it was all over, I didn't have the energy to yell and scream & be angry; there were too many other emotions I was dealing with, and I was in too much shock, anyway. I didn't walk away mad at her that night...I was hurt, humiliated, and all the other synonyms for heartbroken I could find, but I really don't think I was mad, not like I had been with Joe, at least. After thinking about it for a while, I started to understand just why she might be attracted to Ted: after all, they were both highly neurotic, they were both on Prozac, they both had similar issues at home...they had all their psychosis' in common. In a lot of ways, they were as alike as she & I were.

And I wasn't really mad at Ted, either; certainly nothing at all like I had been with Lee a few years earlier, or even Joe. Ted had never had much luck with girls, and I knew he had always been a little jealous of my life in that regard (after all, he was competing for Andi's attention when we all first met her, just like I was), and I knew he honestly felt bad about betraying me. The day after I saw Kara outside her house, I called Ted to hear his side of the story. When he got on the phone with me, he broke down crying almost immediately (Ted was a little messed up, like I said), and told me how sorry he was; that he had never dreamed this would happen, and he could never imagine doing anything like this to a friend, and he just felt sick with himself...and I believed him. He told me he was going to write me a letter with some things he wanted to say, and he would drop it off later that day. Well, that must have been one hell of a long letter, 'cus he still ain't shown up with it. I didn't expect him to, though; I had known Ted for 10 years, and I knew this must be difficult for him...but at the same time, I knew damn well that, if I was him, I wouldn't be able to do a goddamn thing about it either...I would have fallen right in love with her, just like he did, and been powerless to do anything about it. I never blamed Ted; I was hurt & disappointed by him, but I never blamed him.

And, of course, try as I might, I couldn't bring myself to hate her. I knew she had done me as wrong as wrong could get, and I was tired of being done wrong & I was bound & determined to get over it once & for all...but I still loved her. I wasn't going to do anything about it, and I was gonna do my damnedest to get over it, but I knew that being angry & destructive about it, like I had been with Andi, was not the way to deal with it. I was angry, but I was also broken & beat-down, and I just didn't have the energy to put into hating both of them. In a very rare moment of clarity & insight for me (that has only happened one or 2 times since), I remember thinking that, if she's going to be with someone else, at least she's with someone like Ted; at least I knew Ted was a good person & would probably be true to her. I didn't ever want to see it or hear about it, but I loved her, and I wanted her to be safe, and happy.

As to how I was gonna be...well, I guess that's the start of the next chapter...