Dredge

Dredge
By G.W. Hogg
©10-9-1999

(I have never seen him since that day, but I always wondered what might happen if we both met at one of the High School Reunions. I can only guess.)
“Hi”, was all I could say, at first. Inadequate, but there it was. I struggled to hold back the memories, ones I had left stored away in boxes. Thoughts and feeling that I put away and didn’t want to dredge up. But up they came, unbidden.
“You’re looking good.”
“Thanks. Time seems to have been kind to you.” I answered as I struggled with my feelings.

I always dreaded coming to reunions, just for this reason. They were always people I wanted to see. Old friends, girlfriends, but not this person. This was the one old friend that I wished had died, or at least never came into my life again. It is hard to talk to someone, even to look at them, when the last time you saw them, they told you were going to die. It was said as if the person you were turning your back on knew you the best, knew how you thought, knew who you really were. But I turned my back and went away with another. I could not be friends with both of them, they despised each other. I had to choose between a deep friendship of over ten years or one of two months. I threw it all away for a chance at a happiness I’d never thought would come. I chose the right path, but I didn’t know that then. All I knew was that I was told to choose between the two. And when I made my choice, there were these parting words, “When you kill yourself, make sure you don’t get any blood on her sofa.”
It wasn’t an “if”, it was a when. As if this person knew me so well that they knew my fate.
But my fate has not been that dire prediction, not even close. But I think a part of me did die, the day I turned my back. Never have I had the same friendship, the same bond. I may have thrown that away and never realized it.
As I think about it, I wonder. Maybe a therapist could figure it out, I cannot. But therapy would probably bring out other things that I have successfully buried. Resurrections can be ugly and I am happy to leave them buried. I do not think that going through the pain would make me any happier. Best leave it alone.
But now I have to face a small part of what I buried. The part that I could never figure out. How my leaving cause us both so much pain, how it caused me less.
“I only came to see if you were here, to tell you one thing and then to leave. For I can’t stay here, be in the same room with you.”
I didn’t know how to answer, so I kept quiet.
“I always loved you. And I still do. Your leaving me hurt me more than you will ever know.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I know. I also knew that you didn’t feel the same way towards me and I couldn't change you.”
“I am sorry.”
“Don’t be, it is who you are. I will leave now and I’ll never come to one of these functions again. The pain is just too great.”
He turned and left, I mumbled “bye”.
I watched him go and could do nothing. I couldn’t reach out to him and I didn’t want to. What I needed was to get a drink and find some quiet place to think. To somehow figure out this new part of the equation, something that I had never thought of before.
But there was no time. I could see my wife approaching, chatting with one of my old girlfriends. Thirty years together, but this was something I could not talk about. So I did what I always do, and put my thoughts and feeling back into a box. So when my wife came up to me and handed me a drink, I could smile and tell her that I was having fun. Tell her that I was having a wonderful evening and how happy I was that she came along.
I smiled at the old girlfriend and we told a story about our days in High School. Others joined in the tale and we all laughed at the end.
“Hey,” someone asked, “did you see Bill Robertson here?”
“No”, I answered. “ I didn’t see him at all.”