I could follow you

Today I contacted an old friend, someone I was very close with but haven't talked with in about six years. It seems like yesterday that I saw her last; time goes so much faster now than it did when I was younger.

I stopped talking with her about a year before Shawn and I got married. She was dating a guy who really bothered me. He had tried, on several occasions, to kiss me, touch me, and grab me, when she wasn't around. He was a heavy drinker and had a bizarre habit of going missing for weeks at a time, leaving her frantic and terrified while she waited for his return. He really bothered me and as they grew closer and I grew more frustrated with watching him hurt her, we stopped talking. There was no big fight, no final scene or anything. We just abruptly stopped talking, after years of talking almost every day and seeing each other several times a week.

As time went by I heard she'd moved away to live with him in Vancouver and eventually I stopped thinking about her (much) and figured this was just one of those things you have to let go of. Recently I'd started thinking about her again, probably because our upcoming move, but maybe just because sometimes I do that, think about people who have been important in my life, and wonder where they are and what they're doing. And suddenly I decided I was going to try and find her.

I "Googled" her, as is apparently one of the easiest ways to find someone, but she wasn't there. That is, some of her writing was there, but no way of contacting her. Finally I found both her brother, and another of her friends, and emailed them both asking them to forward my contact information to her. The friend did.

She wrote back to me this afternoon. She is still with the guy. And they have a two year old daughter! I really hope this means he has changed, grown up, whatever, and is now a good partner and good father. She seemed happy to hear from me, which I found uplifting, and I wonder, now, whether we could become close again.

After her mother died, I promised her I would be there for her as long as it still hurt. And when we stopped talking, that promise haunted me because I knew it hadn't stopped hurting. I know it probably never will. And as much as you just say things like that sometimes, especially when you're young and silly, it was a promise that meant something important to me. I wanted to keep it. And maybe I still do.

I find myself impatient, now, to hear from her again. I want her to tell me that the guy has changed and is good to her now. I want to hear that he is a wonderful father to their girl. And I want to have, again, that friendship that was once so dear to me.

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