I wish you were a stranger I could disengage

Jason and I met when I was twelve, the summer before I went into high school. My boyfriend, Sean and I, had made big plans for going into high school together. We were two years apart, in the same grade (he was held back, I had been promoted forward.) and we were in as much love as a twelve and fourteen year old can be. We had started dating eighth grade year, and it was a BIG DEAL to have a steady boyfriend for a whole year. We had planned on taking the same classes, being in the same clubs. He was going to be a football player, and I was going to be in the band (at my school, cheerleaders were the joke, and the marching band was where it was hip to be.) We had picked out complimentary majors, planned to attend the same colleges, get married, have 2 children and the white picket fence. We were dreamers.
Dreams, however, turned to nightmares when his father announced that he had taken a job in Indiana. There would be no homecoming for us. No his and her side by side lockers. Our parents made it very clear: they already thought we were too young for such a serious relationship (and my parents had never been a fan of the fact that he was two years older than me), and put their foot down. No long distance, as we had planned. We were breaking up.

They did say we could remain friends, and summer trips were planned. Sean was going to go, help his Dad unpack into their real life farmhouse (complete with a barn that they allowed Sean to claim as his clubhouse, a consolation prize, I suppose.) And then as soon as they were settled, I was allowed to join. Those two weeks were the longest two weeks of my life.
When I arrived at his house that summer, Sean was distant, aloof. I knew our parents said no dating, but I had figured we’d at least act like we were still together when we were together. But when I got there, he didn’t even come out to greet me. He was sitting on a dusty old sofa in his clubhouse playing video games with three other boys. A chubby blonde haired green eyed boy named Nick, a black haired and dark eyed boy named Drew, who later became known as Drewbie, and Jason, pasty strawberry blonde with freckles and a wide smile.

The boys immediately accepted me into their group, and started treating me like a little sister. They were protective but at the same time pestering, and they loved to play a good joke on me. At the end of the trip, I later found Sean in the barn making out with Jason’s older sister, Jen. Jen and my “friendship” got off to a rocky start, obviously. I wasn’t too pleased that she was the reason Sean had been so aloof, and she was jealous that I was the Sean’s ex, jealous that I was the center of the boys world. But more than that, she was just one of those mean girls. She was gorgeous, with straight brown hair and deep brown eyes, her nose with a fanning of freckles across the bridge and a slightly upturned end. But her insides? Ugly. Jason told me later that boys tended to fall for her instantly because of her looks, but didn’t stick around long when they saw her personality. Jen and Erin were yin and yang. Jen was smart and generally a horrible bitch, and Erin was kind of on the stupid side, but the sweetest person you’d ever met. The only think they had in common were their girl next door good looks.

When Sean came back to Ohio to visit (I had forgiven him. Call me weak, but Sean technically hadn’t cheated on me, and he was at the time, my best friend.) Drew and Jason tagged along. Originally it had been Jen’s only requirement. She “allowed” Sean to come, as long as he had chaperones. Later, she added in a phone call every hour, and still managed to break up with him at least twenty times during his one week stay. Because Sean was either on the phone with Jen, or emailing Jen, or IMing Jen, or sulking over Jen, we didn’t hang out a lot. In one breath, it’s sad, because that was the death of Sean and my friendship. In the other way, it was a good thing. Jason and I had become closer than ever. We’d spend afternoons in the backyard on a blanket, talking, or at the zoo taking funny pictures with the animals. Drew and I got close too, but it was clear that what Jason and I had was different, special. Even at twelve years old, I knew it.
Looking back, it’s strange to see how fate forms your life, like a pretzel. Zooming in and out, intertwining things together, twisting them. Cause and effect, because this loop is formed this way, this loop has to be here. Had I never dated Sean, or had I broke up with him sooner, I probably never would have gone to Indiana to visit him. Had I not gone to Indiana, I never would have met Jason. Even Jen had her role. Had she not demanded that her brother tag along, we never would have bonded in the way that we had. And had we not bonded in the way that we had… Well. Who knows how things would have turned out?

It kind of makes my brain hurt to try to picture my life with such a big piece missing. For every important moment in my life, there’s Jason. Sometimes he was front and center, in the middle of it all, or sometimes he’s just a prop in the background. Maybe if someone took a snap shot of my life, he wouldn’t even be pictured at all, but he’d still be there. The vibrating cell phone a text from him, the ringing phone, a call. The computer screen in the back would have an IM or an email. My life is tinged by Jason. By him, by his face, by his words, by his voice. He was always there. Stop for a second. Picture someone important in your life. A husband, a wife. A boyfriend, girlfriend. Best friend. Child, dog, cat… Whatever. Just picture that. And then erase it. What would your life be like if that person or animal had never come into your life? Think of all the bigger picture, and the smaller one. Every step, every thought, every word… Would it change? Would you choose to go right instead of left, and if so, where would you end up? Where would you be? Who would you be?

I honestly can’t answer that. And that’s why it so hard. Jason’s always been my everything. My sounding board, my punching bag, my cheerleader. He’s been my partner in crime, my clown, my therapist, my best friend, and my mortal enemy. Jason could handle me and the many personalities that live in my, without making me feel like I was simply being handled. And now Jason… He’s someone else’s.
So. Now what?

I had said every memory of my life was tinged with Jason. And they are. I feel like some people may view Jas as the bad guy, because he broke my heart. And it’s a lot easier to view a heartbreaker as a bad guy, then to just realize that… Well, maybe it wasn’t meant to be. Trust me. I’ve been over this in my head so many times, and I’d love to make Jason out to be some horrible scum bag. But he wasn’t. He just, loved someone who wasn’t me. And maybe he wanted to love me. Maybe he tried to love me in the same way that I loved him. But I think we’ve all been in the position before where we knew that while someone was good for us, maybe even perfect, it just wasn’t there. So I think, in order for you to see what kind of man Jason was, we have to look back on the things Jason did for me.