maybe I'm a bitch. Maybe I'm just me.

He wanted to hang out tonight.

At first I agreed. On my terms.

He could come over, but we would sit on the front porch. He would no come inside.

I told him everyone else was either in bed, or on their way to bed. They got up early, I said. We should stay outside. Keep the noise levels down.

Just sit, and talk. Like old times.

Like, before, when he would sneak over in the middle of the night, parking his car on the county's grass across the street. Sometimes, we would just sit out their for hours and talk.

Later, we would sit out there for hours and smoke, as well as talk.

We had a lot to say in those days. Often interrupting each other, not letting the other finish before we would start in on a totally different tangent. Occasionally you could elbow your way back in and weave the topic back to its starting point.

Usually, the conversation started at point A and wound up somewhere down a few black holes and in a field full of unicorn.

Later, after sitting for hours on the porch, we would work our way inside, to the back, where my room was. It got to the point when the other people here no longer asked whose red car was parked out front. It got to a point when no one bothered asking what time he had arrived, or what we did, or if we had fun.

Then it got to a point when we started changing. Drifting. Growing. Moving on.

Except, now, it appears even though over two years have past, we're back at where we were.

I'm the one that wanted to get back in touch, but now i'm blanching. I should have waited until I had moved on, moved out, left the state and was on the other side of the country.

He claims to have changed, yet when he talks, its the exact same guy that I was infatuated with, except, I'm older, and feel wiser, and he's still talking the same bull shit and telling the same stories and the same lies. I see through it now for what it is.

He says he "loves me to death" and he wants to stay friends. Stay in each others lives.

Yet, after he called back to say he was ot of the shower, and almost on his way over, I waited a few minutes. Thought things through.

Then I called him back.

He was just one untied shoe string away from walking out the door. I told him It was getting later, and that everyone else was on their way to bed, and I wasn't in the mood to talk. I was more in the mood of staying in the house. In my room. Alone. And watching a movie. Alone.

I was backtracking. Apologizing. Saying not to come. Maybe some other time.

He understood. I think he understood better than I could ever give him credit for understanding.

I have forgotten where I was headed with this. I no longer know.

With that, I am out.