Most days I think I'm really ok. Or at least, I try to act like I'm ok, that I feel ok...and most days I can be pretty convincing, even to myself. There's still something off, though, because I'm not really the same person and I don't think that I ever will be. There's something harder in me now that wasn't there before. I've noticed it in the way I think, talk, act...I can barely put my finger on it, and yet it's always there, like an internal shadow, like a fog.

I try to keep busy, stay occupied, not think about it. I don't like to think about it, because the things that bring me up these days won't work anymore. Because I know that they really aren't enough.

I was Bonnie and he was my Clyde. It was the two of us against the world, and the world was no match for us. He was my best friend, and I was his, we were proud of that, and we would look down on other couples, see their shortcomings, and pity them. When his other friends had to call it a night so that the girls waiting for them at home wouldn't get angry, we closed the bar on Tuesday nights (who drinks on Tuesday nights?). Sometimes we'd end up going home with complete strangers to play cards, eat breakfast, look inside their lives...

He had a way of making people love him. Most people never remembered my name, I was always His Girlfriend, and I didn't mind because I loved him, too. I understood how they felt about him. His opinion of them mattered, they wanted to make him laugh, they wanted to tell him their secrets, they wanted his approval. People who only new him a few short weeks, people who hadn't seen him in over a decade, showed up that week to say goodbye. His family and I couldn't believe there were so, so many. And every time I turned around there was another set of outstretched arms, another shaken, broken person.

People told me that I'd be angry, that I should be angry, but I'm not angry. Not at him, anyway. I'm angry at all the people who turned their backs on him, let him down, disappointed him. They're the ones I blame. I still do. So many of his friends, still friends of mine, weren't there for him when he needed them...perhaps that's why, now, I feel the need to be hurtful to them. I'm mad at his stupid whore of an ex-wife who cheated on him, because he never got over it, never got over waiting for his life to fall apart again. He was waiting for me to leave, waiting for me to cheat, couldn't accept that I never would.

But who am I the angriest at? My family, I guess, for not having anything to do with him. For making him feel like he wasn't good enough for me. But mainly? Mainly me. I was there. I was fucking there and nomatter how much time goes by I'll never forget the sight and the sound and the smell. I'll never forgive my stupid ass for turning my back for one single second. I'll never stop regretting that. I'll never forget his last words to me. He told me how tired he was. He cried and cried in my arms. He told me that he didn't want to drag me down anymore, that he didn't want to hold me back.

Well, gee, Sam, look how great I'm doing without you. I'm a step away from world domination, aren't I? I don't have a care in the world. Yep, never been better.

On days like today I wish I'd gone with him.