I just can't give him up

Thirteen months.
That's when I met him. He called me a genius and spoke French lazily to me. It was easy to be enchanted. Something inside me felt I would one day leave him stranded, all in love on his own. Little did I know he was more like me than I could ever imagine. We wrote long emails and talked till the earlier hours of the morning.

Conversations came easily, Plato, Cicero and Google Wave. He made me smile, he made me mad and he discombobulated me. So arrogant sometimes, he said things he didn't mean, so closed off unwilling to share himself and always had a comeback.

Things with him was never easy, many times I wanted to forget him. I wanted to say to him take your memories, take your smiles and leave. Many times I wanted to lock the person I was with him away and brand the freedom I had with him a tasteless dream. Things were never easy, but they were never boring.

When conversation got tired and drawn I lost myself. I often wondered what we could have been, what we should have been. I gave him up, that was hard, giving people up is never easy. I tried to wash away the ruins that my emotions left behind but the baggage refused to leave.

So I stopped. He still makes me smile, he still teases me with his lazy French. He still calls me a genius and I still want to wring his neck when he refuses to see my point.

13 months.
It feels like a lifetime.
I still write him long emails about my day. He is a friend I am afraid I just can't give.