Bronwen started dat­ing another guy.

It’s funny, my first reac­tion is to think another guy, as if we’re still dat­ing our­selves. I sup­pose our rela­tion­ship has never been con­ven­tional, but that’s what makes it so spe­cial. We still spend our week­ends together. We still talk on the phone for hours with­out actu­ally talk­ing. We’re close enough that I’m com­pletely com­fort­able around her, enough for me to let my guard to go down.

It’s made me real­ize how pro­tec­tive I still am of her, how upset I’ll be if she gets hurt. I think of all the things I could have done bet­ter, and hope this guy can treat her bet­ter than I did.

I have all these mixed feel­ings about it though. I’m wor­ried that I may lose my friend, but I’m glad there’s some­one to make her happy. In the end, I know I can’t be self­ish. Letting go of her the first time was hard enough.

Doing it again doesn’t make it any easier.