Guitar Man

Let me tell you about the one that needed his own post... I'll call him "Guitar Man".

I was going to an outdoor concert with my brother in his home town about an hour away from me. I get to the apartment that he shares with his older girlfriend and find that her son, who is a few months older than my brother, is there and going with us. While brother and his friend were getting ready, Guitar Man picks up a guitar and sits out on the balcony to play...

That was all that it took. I was interested.

We had a great time at the concert. He and I stayed up all night talking. Brother and his friend went to bed and woke back up before we even thought about bed. Guitar man goes on to bed and i stay up until brother and his friend go off to work. As I'm walking down the hallway to the back room to go to bed myself, Guitar Man's alarm clock is going off, but he isn't budging. I walk in, shake him and ask if he needed to get up for work or something. He simply says, "No, I was setting it for when they left for work." He jumps up and starts kissing me as we walk down the hall to the room where I was staying, etc... It was a magical morning.

After that, my overprotective brother made us both nervous and we decided to be friends only. The problem was that I wanted more. For months, though, I went along. I went to watch his band play two or three times a week. I even hung out with him and a new girl he started dating... It was the three of us. I know this sounds weird, but when she started acting all jealous about it he told her that she would be gone from his life long before I would be. He told her that she could deal with it or leave. WOW.

She dealt, but not much longer. It was just the two of us again after a while, but we were still doing the friend thing. I decided to take action. I started dressing a little hotter, flirting with guys in front of him, etc... He paid much more attention to me and then, after a few weeks, we admitted that we both wanted more. He dedicated a song to me from the stage... "Anymore" by Travis Tritt. The gist of the song is that he can't keep pretending that he doesn't love me anymore..... BECAUSE HE DOES LOVE ME!!

I was on a cloud. We still hid the relationship from my brother... Soon, I started to realize that our relationship consisted of bars, him drinking, me nursing him and keeping him out of trouble, and very hot sex. That was mostly it. There were enough of the really special times to keep me hanging on for a while, but I couldn't do it forever.

The breakup was ugly. As much as I want to be honest here, I don't feel like I can tell about the straw that broke the camel's back in detail. Suffice it to say that Guitar Man had a secret. One that I, more than anyone else, deserved to know. Two people told me the secret. One of them was an ex-girlfriend of his. The other was my brother. Brother still didn't know at the time that we were dating, so he didn't realize what a can of worms he was opening my telling me. Guitar man got mad at brother, brother got mad at me, Guitar Man's mom got mad at brother, etc...

We forever now have a strange dynamic. I don't talk about Guitar Man with my brother or his girlfriend (Still Guitar Man's mom). They don't talk about him with me much at all. I don't see him when I'm down there, etc... All of this and it's been about 15 years since we broke up.

The break up really messed me up. I had all of these stresses on me, all at once... the destruction of the best thing I'd ever had (not saying much), a sick dear grandmother, flunking out of school, etc... I sank into a deep depression for a while. I was "over" him pretty much in a few weeks, but I would still have a periodic cry every now and again, even up until about 5 years ago.

There are no more tears for him now. He wasn't good for me. While it may be better than being completely alone, I am still very happy that I am not living in the life that he would have given me. The quick stories that I hear every once in a while reassure me that leaving him was the best thing I could have ever done. I will always be thankful to him, though, for teaching me what love felt like, if only briefly.