Something.

As I crossed the narrow road at a roundabout in Covent Garden I saw a man that looked like him. Maybe a version 20 years older than him - disheveled and street-wise. He'd lived life, maybe not dissimilar to the man I loved. I was on my way to see Matilda on the West End. This man startled me as I marvelled, yet again, that I was in fact in London.

I don't recognise people very well. I worry that I'll forget what he looked like, if it wasn't for that pesky photo of us on my phone, that all the synching of the Apple can't seem to remove. This man in Covent Garden, he was a dead ringer. The same features - nose, bright blue eyes, wide smile and thinning hair. And I felt sick (so much so that I sat down and wrote these paragraphs into my phone, I knew there'd be a story down the track).

He said hello, offered me his arm to guide me across the road. He spoke to me, friendly and tripping over his words and curious from the drink. He asked me what was wrong with my face. Concerned and curious. Frustrated that I couldn't change things.

And so was I. Though I was frustrated I couldn't change a different set of things.

-

It's been a long time since things changed between us. I am all the better for it, and I know he is too. I've had just over six months to get used to this milestone in his life. Last September, I wrote him a letter, farewelling him from my life. I signed off:

So I'll leave you be, remembering you with fondness, sadness and love. I am glad that I played a part in saving your life.

And just like that, he was gone. Sort of. Of course, he's still here in my heart. I think about him sometimes. This week especially. One of his dreams has come true. He's happy.

I imagined this week would come at me like with a thud, that I'd be worn out by emotions and over thinking, and that my tears would make my face hurt. But none of that happened. Is this it? There was no emotional catastrophe. But there was something. Something less than I expected and something bigger than I thought I was capable of. I felt a mixture of something.

While I no longer feel like I love him, it's hard not to feel something. Reflection. Happiness for him. Wondering and a little sadness at what might have been. Sick of carrying the cumbersome yet beautiful memory of him with me - though the load's becoming lighter. It's as though I've made progress.

All of the relevant song lyrics are floating through my space. For a little while, all I could do was play this song over and over.

And I'm relieved I feel something. It reminds me I have loved. I've given myself permission to feel something, rather than beating myself up over feelings I cant control, even though I constantly worry that it's not right to feel so much over someone I had very little time with - to miss somebody that I never really had. Because when others are suggesting I haven't moved on, I know my heart is full (for me and for him), and my skies are no longer grey.

Need.

"I've stuck around, through thick and through thin
You cannot deny, I've always been in
But I've watched you stand, still as a snowman
But I don't see you change, you're always at meltdown

Yeah I've been your crutch, your smell sight and touch
Yeah I took you home when you've drunk too much
But I can't survive, with you by my side
See I'll never get laid, while I'm running your life"

~Sia, The girl you lost to cocaine

I finished my bottle of Frangelico now. I've had it in my cupboard for 18 months. There was no other alcohol in the house and I wanted a wind down drink at the end of the week.

The bottle's lid has got his teeth marks in it - from when he opened it for me. It was the bottle he bought me after he drank most of the first one I bought for myself. He drank about three quarters of it straight, after around 15 bottles of beer. Well that's how many I counted when I put them in the recycling the next afternoon, right before he started on 10 more bottles. That Frangelico was from the last time since. Since everything. It carries too many memories for me. I never get that nostalgic when I have a glass of Frangelico, lemonade and lime at the pub.

I never noticed how drunk he was. I had drunk a lot on our first night too - a bottle of wine and a quarter of the first bottle of Frangelico - though I was still in control. I guess it was nerve calming, passion fueling, confidence boosting. We were both as shy as each other. The amount of drink he consumed alarmed me, but his behaviour didn't seem seem extreme. Not even when he stepped back and fell on the heater as we were making the bed. I reached out to pull him up, worried he had hurt himself on the grill. He didn't feel it. He was most proud he'd fallen with his beer upright. In the morning, I showed him the burn marks on his ribs. He didn't remember the fall. I guessed he had a high tolerance to alcohol.

When he told me he had gone to rehab last year, and then to psychiatric care, he said he was determined to give up the alcohol. He wanted to change his life. He did with the help of counseling and medication and some temperamental willpower. It was hard reading his words. There were so many of them and I was hurting for him. He'd tell me his darkest thoughts. But there was progress too.

When I spoke to him at his most desperate, he'd been drinking again after six weeks of abstinence. He sounded so desperate, so sad. He got some proper help, again.

His medication kicked in. We continued to send long messages to eachother about everything. Mainly about how he was feeling, and how pleased I was about his progress, and sometimes he told me about how he regretted losing me for a while. I liked this 'new' person. The gold I saw shining from him since I first came to know him again was shining the brightest then. I loved him again. I hadn't stopped loving him. And he needed me again. The written word between us was as powerful as our embrace.

I told the counselor that I felt guilty about wanting to feel needed by him, and feeling useful, especially at his most vulnerable. The counselor told me that the desire to feel needed is natural and if I felt I was getting something from this relationship, then it was ok. My second greatest fear was that one day he'd no longer need me.

And then it all fell apart. He met her and things couldn't be the same between us. Of course we won't still be friends. Or whatever the hell we were. I was no longer needed.

I said to my mum that one of the things that upset me most was that I never spoke to him on the phone or in person sober. That really hurt. Especially knowing how happy he was, sober, loving his new life and love, and knowing that I couldn't share in that.

The situation changed so quickly that I experienced grief. Gone were the long emails and texts. Gone were the moments he made me smile and cry at the same time. From then it was just tears. He had used me in one of the worst ways possible.

I worried that I was as addicted to contact with him as he was to drugs and alcohol. Was I? Was I experiencing the same depression as him, if not for a brief period?

We are still in contact, sort of. If you count him liking my Facebook statuses and me silently questioning his maturity. I see he's drinking again now. I'm so disappointed. Hurt even. All those hours and messages and suicide threats and tears of worry were for what? Another girl can deal with that now. It doesn't mean I don't still wonder and worry. But I can't help someone who doesn't want to help themselves, or who doesn't want me.

I received the most amazing email from a friend, confirming my worth and congratulating me on my success. My friend told me he had tears at 2.30 am just thinking about what I've achieved. I realised that I'd been receiving validation from the wrong person for far too long. I've been wanting to be needed by someone who doesn't deserve me.

I haven't been remembering him as vividly lately. I guess I haven't been actively thinking about things. As I poured that last glass of Frangelico, I realised I had washed away a story. I didn't feel pain, in fact, I breathed a sigh of relief and said "it's gone". Ironic that I had drank it away. There were two drinks left in the bottle, 13 less than the beers he'd had on our first night together. I felt in control. Not sad. My eyes have stayed dry as I've typed this story, and that Frangelico helped me tell it.