Monday Series

In case you couldn't tell, this series is LONG...I'm not even done writing it out...

Refresh yourself...

Part 5
Somehow, the two of us never really lost contact. In fact, we talked almost every night that summer. I even went down to visit him and he came up to visit me. There were never any talks of getting back together, but we were obviously more than just friends. He and I made plans to spend time together when he returned to my hometown to start his 3rd year of school. It would be just a few days before I left to start my 1st year of college. In the meantime, I got an invitation to be a part of a pre-orientation program at my college. My mother thought it was a good idea, so I signed up. It meant that I would leave before he got into town. He was upset, but I felt making new friends at a new place was more important.

JD had Type II diabetes. In the time that I knew him, I grew very educated on what it meant to have the disease. I found myself always asking him if he had checked his sugar and making sure he was taking care of himself. Right before he was to come up to begin orientation for a leadership program at school, he developed an infection, a complication from his disease. He missed the first part of his orientation and was feeling pretty down. Though we weren't supposed to have cell phones during my pre-orientation program, everyone in my, what had become a, tight knit group had our phones and each evening after dinner we took the opportunity to call parents, siblings, friends and significant others. During one of our talks, JD, now at school, said, "you know. We never really broke up." As I pressed him further, he explained that what we had "really" done was open the way for me not to be hindered in my first year at school. He told me it would be fine for me to meet new friends and date others, but that we still had a bond. Even now, I'm not sure exactly how those words made me feel, but instead of liberating me to go and do as I wanted, they locked me into a very undefined relationship.

As my first year of school went on, I made amazing friends. Had many experiences and found a niche in my new school. Meanwhile, JD was having a rough time. His mother found out his father had been cheating on her, he was having a harder time at school dealing with everything and he found himself needing me more than I had time to give. Knowing he needed a friend, I would often neglect my other friends and miss out on opportunities in order to stay holed up in my room talking to him.

In the event I was with friends, JD would be noticeably irritated with me and would even be so bold as to ask me to leave the room. The idea of allowing me to spend time with my friends never seemed to cross his mind. I played his game, though, in order to keep the peace.