Tonight I was sitting on the phone talking to the TTHM, who is going through a nasty bit of rough at the moment, when I started crying. Not giant, gulping tears, but the kind that come from a hurt buried deep inside. The kind of tears that slip out and if you’re talking on the phone with someone, the kind they never even notice.

The tears stunned me. I wasn’t expecting them, but they got out and I paid close attention. The TTHM didn’t notice because I was only quiet for a moment and my voice didn’t crack much when I spoke next.

We had been talking about October.

It was in October that our relationship took a decide turn for the different. Back in something like July I asked him if he’d accompany me to the Lucinda Williams’ concert. I figured it would be a nice little birthday gift for him since we both liked Lu. I thought it’d be a lot of fun. Back in July, or whenever it was, I had hemmed and hawed about even asking him. I had never asked a man out, not ever. And while I knew it wouldn’t be a romantic event, I was still nervous. But eventually I sucked it up and asked, and he said yes.

Then between July and before the Lucinda concert he decided to give it another go with the brick wall (my affectionate nickname for the woman he loves) and I fell by the wayside. The wayside falling wasn’t so painful, I had thought. Because, well, he was busy with school and the brick wall, and I had my hands full with my Grammu dying and crushing all over my writing teacher.

But the Lu concert was looming and I had to call to make sure he was still gonna go. I dreaded calling him, suddenly I was afraid. I hadn’t talked to him in weeks, he wasn’t returning my e-mail, and I was terrified of what I’d find on the other end of the line.

But call, I did, and dump me he did. He said he didn’t want to go, which hurt. But not as much as the bombshell he laid on me during that phone call. After telling me he didn’t want to go to the concert with me he told me he was no longer comfortable with me writing about him. I was stunned and hurt, but I acquiesced. I figured he had the right to make the request.

Since I’m not often the topic of someone else’s writings, I have no idea what it’s like to read about myself to see how I’m perceived by someone in my life. I reckon it could be more than a little weird. When he had first entered my life, I asked the TTHM if it was okay if I wrote about him. He didn’t have a problem with it. But then suddenly he did, and I feel like someone had cut my fingers off. I wasn’t as free to say what I wanted, and that pissed me off.

So I stopped writing about him for a good long time, and I stopped calling him. I just stopped. Occasionally he’d still call, not often, and it was fine.

But tonight I realized how hurt I was by all that had gone down back in October.

It’s weird because I don’t even remember feeling hurt enough to cry at the time. However, when we were talking about it tonight, I was so angry and upset I couldn’t even speak. I don’t even remember exactly what was said in the conversation tonight. I just remember saying something like “yes, that’s when you told me to go away, so I did.”

He doesn’t think he told me to go away. But the abandonment of the concert and the taking away of my writing freedom was a clear sign to me that I was not to be a part of his life.

And really what it all boils down to is perception. The TTHM and I perceive that event in vastly different ways.

“I saw you doing the heartbreak thing,” he said. “And I don’t think I deserved that.”

Wow. I didn’t think I was doing the heartbreak thing at all. I thought I was doing the abandoned and let-down by a friend thing. Which, though they may appear similar, are vastly different things. Because, the heartbreak thing you don’t get over, the friend let down you get over. Everyone lets someone down at sometime in their life, it’s because we’re human. We fuck up a lot.