I didn’t know I was lonely 'til I saw your face.
I wanna get better.

- Bleachers, I Wanna Get Better

-+-

Phoenix, AZ.

"You're very special to me, boy."
"You're special to me too, girl."

Every single time, I never know if it'll be the last goodbye before we'll lose that spark between us.  A lot of things can happen in a couple of months.  And yet, here we were standing in an airport terminal, a year after we met, kissing each other goodbye.  I've always hated goodbyes with him, and I've had a lot of goodbyes with him over the past year.

Yet, there's a moment of our goodbyes that I adore, that fills me with love.  In that very last instant that he's about to turn around the corner or I'm about to turn into TSA, I'll look over my shoulder for one last glance at him...

just to see that he's looking over his shoulder to take one last glance at me, too.

-+-

"Whatever happened to Alex?"

I read over my blog a few months ago, and was like, "Shit what the fuck all I blog about are boys what the fuck," and in recent months, have honestly made some deliberate effort to stop using my Xanga as my girly gossip box.

However, I realize this is a question that I should also address here.  After all, accepting my unrequited crush on Alex was supposedly the turning point in my San Diego slump.  I'll admit, things are a lot better now.  I used to feel like I was achieving nothing, but since that post, a lot has happened.  Work has been fantastic, I got a gig selling honey, I joined the SD beekeeper's society, I've taken up golf, and I've made a lot of friends in the process.

It was a helpful revelation and a necessary jumping point, but not a lasting one.

Honestly, like in the post-script at the end of that same post, Jacob's playful, "whatever im better" ended up being true in an enlightening way.  It's uncanny how being treated well will immediately emphasize when you're being treated wrongly.  From day one, Jacob was never dishonest with his expectations with me, even if that made it hard for both of us.  Not once in the past year would I ever say that Jacob led me on.

So it was fine when Alex called it off.  Although he knew I still liked him, we decided to be friends and treat each other as friends.  We grabbed a beer or lunch together every now and then.  Then he crossed a line a few weeks ago -- he started flirting with me.  However, not only did he flirt with me, but he flirted emptily and without intent.  He didn't want to get dinner together ("Christa, I'm a very independent person.  I don't know if you picked up on that.") and he didn't want to see each other outside of work.  Yet the "hey cutie ;)" texts kept coming, and his selfishness was suddenly clear.  He had no other plans but to string me along, and I wasn't having it.  It was like I was a puppy or a plaything, and that's not okay with me.  My adoration was quickly displaced by apathy.

The last time I saw him, I was walking to the shuttle stop to return to my lab building.  In past months, I would nervously turn around, not knowing what to say to him; or, I would detour and mysteriously find ways to be next to him in line for coffee.

This time, I rolled my eyes and just kept walking.