Johnny (not his real name) and I met in high school. I don't even recall the exact circumstances anymore, but it had to have been through the hours we whiled away in the computer lab, just hanging out. At some point, we became fast friends.
We shared a passion for the paranormal, and exchanged our thoughts and emotions with all the fervor of youth. I felt I had found a brother in him, and he a sister in me. We rough housed in the hallways during school, and we talked for hours on the phone after.
I can't even begin to explain the fierce, protective love I had for my "little brother". It would take hours for me to tell you of the good times we had, the emotional bonds we shared.
After I graduated, and went off to college, we kept in touch by phone and occasional visits. But little by little, the inevitable happened, and he slipped away. I didn't hear a word from him at all for a year. Perhaps two. Then, he just reappeared. Bursts of phone calls and keeping in touch. I had gotten married by this time and he spent many weekends hanging out with the Hubs and I.
Questions about his time away were met with vague answers, and I eventually learned not to ask at all. Just to appreciate his friendship and company once more, and to let whatever hidden history he had to be just that. After a while, he disappeared just as suddenly as he appeared.
So began a cycle he's contined over the years. Disappear, reappear. Lather, rinse, repeat. At one point, he had moved to a bigger town about an hour away and invited the Hubs and I to come up and visit him at a club his significant other worked at. I watched with hidden anger as his SO basically treated him like a servant all evening. He introduced us to his strange new friends.
I watched via MySpace as he posted pics where he grew increasingly glassy-eyed and thinner. I pored over his new sister-friend's page, where artistic, gothy and fun photos of her sporting black hair and red lipstick, alternated with photos of the end results of her cutting herself. I wondered what she had over me, and watched him slip away, yet again.
He would make plans to visit, and never show. Sometimes he would call a day or two later with a flimsy excuse. Sometimes, he wouldn't call at all. I tried to quit him, but it would only last until his next reappearance. When you have my friendship, it is fierce, and it is for life. Sometimes, like this time, it is to my downfall. I love my "little brother" still, but have no faith left in him. The last time he announced an upcoming visit, I didn't even bother to change my schedule.
I later found that Johnny kept in contact with a mutual friend of ours during his disappearing spells. Matt (not his real name, either) filled me in with the sparse details he'd been given. Adding up what we both know still does not equal the amount of effort Johnny had put into being vague and secretive. I really don't see what's the point.
It's sort of the life equivilent of someone spending years trying to hide their feet from everyone, only later to find that the person has six toes. Whoop de shit.
I wonder sometimes what I am to him. Someone he used to know? Someone he outgrew? A small town hick who'd never understand the complicated things he's going through? He'd be surprised. Sometimes I wonder if those years were a lie. Did he mean more to me, than I to him?
I watch and wonder where the future will take him. He may overdose and I will find myself at his funeral in a few years. He may reappear for good when we're in our 50s or 60s, explain his crazy years, and us remain fast friends as old age doth approacheth. Both outcomes are equally likely. The truth is somewhere in between.
