I met CJ through a friend on the late night party line. We connected on levels I didn’t know two people could connect on, and we started having deep conversations about family, friends, future, and just life in general. I started to develop strong feelings for him. A guy I never met in real life, in person, not even a picture. None of that mattered to me because I was looking for a connection beyond the physical. It was a different time - two guys together was frowned upon. Eventually we started to have more intimate conversations about our likes and dislikes. Learning each other and deepening our connection. I wrote to him, but he never confirmed he received it. I do recall him asking me to read it to him because he wanted to hear my voice as I read it to him. Thinking about it now, he may have never really gotten the letter in the mail, and that was his way of hearing it, strangely.
Anyway, after about three weeks after I read and sent him the poem - CJ told me that we cannot tell Oliver about our relationship which I didn’t understand.
Side story: Oliver is CJ’s best friend. They went to school together, and they are always spending time together. It didn’t bother me at the time because I had a very naïve trust, a mistake I learned from - the hard way, and a mistake I have made repeatedly after this experience with CJ and Oliver. So anyway, I didn’t think anything of their friendship, seeing how I am very platonic with my own friends, and so I assumed most people were trustworthy because I was trustworthy. Point is - I was too naïve.
So back to the story - if Oliver was just a friend, why does it matter if he knew or not about us working on something together. It became clear that Oliver was jealous of something. It did not make sense, and it still doesn’t. One night - CJ told me he needed to tell me something before Oliver hopped on (so we had three-way conversations on the phone, chatting and stuff). Anyway, CJ told me that we needed to fake a break-up because if we didn’t Oliver would do something crazy. I didn’t understand, and was confused - so I went along. He said it gotta sound real and feel real. Crazy as it sounds - we practiced it - and we even cried. I felt it in my heart - I felt the pain a break-up can cause a heart to feel. Eventually Oliver came on, we did what we did, and then we just stayed friends - ALL THREE OF US. We chatted like everything was cool.
Then… finally… I was planning my visit to see CJ and Oliver (“my friends”)
I went to visit him one time, but never got to meet any of them. I had my brother drive us up to visit. We woke up early, and headed on the road at the break of dawn. It was a 1.5 hour drive, and when I got up there, CJ did not answer his phone, it went straight to voicemail. The address I wrote to didn’t exist on the mailboxes I saw on that street. After that day, I never heard from him or Oliver again. It hurt, but I kept it pushing because I've learned that not all things will last forever. After about a whole day out, my parents were calling us worried, and I didn’t answer because I didn't want them to know. They thought we went missing. I ended up going to my older brother’s friend's house to charge our phones. I spent hella money on gas driving around, and waiting, and waiting. That was one of the worst heartbreaks I ever experienced in my life. Little did I know, it set me up to be the strong confident person I am today.
Finally, after being away from home for 12 hours, we made it back. My parents were extremely upset, but I took all the blame, and I never did it again. CJ and Oliver played a game; they didn’t expect the game to get turned around on them. When it was too late, that is when they realized what a real friend I could have been.
I’m learning now to let it go and now that I am older, I have processed the emotions, and I know how to navigate this world of fake love. I never heard from CJ or Oliver again, or so I thought...