Sean Rogers

It's funny how over the years, we forget things, we remember things, and we try to erase things. Almost four years ago, I had my heart entirely shattered by you, Sean Patrick Rogers. In retrospect, I'll give you this much, I needed you to be everything, and how could you be everything to anyone? Let alone when you yourself were struggling through mine fields. I think that you were the first person I ever let myself love unconditionally. Whether that was from selflessness, stupidity, or desperation is another matter, regardless of why, however, I did. I loved you. With all my heart, no matter what you did or said. Everytime you were high, and you would yell at me, it hurt more than you'll ever know. Everytime you took her side, that hurt horribly, more than words can describe. Everytime you told me that I "didn't have the guts to kill" myself, made me want to all the more. To prove you wrong. Granted, you were right, since I am still here. I don't know how I am still here. I shouldn't have ever made it this far. I never should've turned 17. And realistically, I never planned on being this close to being 18. I'm almost 18, do you believe that? Four years ago, everyone thought, including myself, that I'd probably die before I was even 16. I'm glad that I'm alive. I'm glad that I never killed myself. I'm glad that I didn't have the guts, now. I wish there was some way that I could adequately explain to you how desperately I needed you, but I can't. I needed you in the exact same way that I needed food, water, and oxygen. I wish that I was, even in some small way, exaggerating. I have so many memories with you. Ironically, my memories from junior high are mostly of you, both good and bad. You made me feel safe. Completely, entirely, safe. When you touched me, or held me, I felt like everything was going to be okay. When you weren't with me, or talking to me, or touching me, or holding me, it felt like my world was collapsing. I felt like I couldn't get up in the morning, stand, breathe, or live. I was wrong to need you so much, to ask so much of you, when you couldn't do any of this for yourself. This is the first time I've tried to explain exactly how much I needed you. To me, you were my protector, my lover, my best friend, my sympathizer, my hope, my guidance, my joy, my light at the end of the tunnel. You were, literally and figuratively, everything to me. I needed to know you loved me, just so I could put one foot in front of the other. I needed you, and you alone, to love me and to see me. To take my side, to hold me, to help me. I was crazy back then, I know. I didn't make things easy. I wasn't easy to love or even to like. You gave me my favorite song, did you know that? She will be loved by Maroon 5. I would listen to it and pretend it was from you to me, and I would feel peace. I would feel like I mattered, or was significant to someone. The song gave me hope. Did you know that I listened to it on the way to every single swim meet? That later on, in high school, I would listen to it almost before every single event I swam? Even though years had passed since you left me. Do you remember how you left me? I don't. Not really, anyway. I know that you were just... gone. All of a sudden, you were gone. You went to rehab, for over a year. I moved shortly after you got out. You got out in June. I remember that... I never saw you again. I moved in October. I remember that while you were in rehab, I had your sweatshirt. That sucker never left my sight. I needed it to feel like in some way you were with me. To make myself believe that you loved me, that you thought of me often. I don't know if you loved me, or if you ever thought of me during rehab, or afterward. It was an absolutely hideous burnt orange color, but I loved it, and you. During church, I was so angry with you for leaving me, that I began to pretty much shred your hoody. That was a revolutionary point for me. I felt like I wasn't tied to you any longer, which wasn't true. I just wanted to feel like, in some way, that I was getting back at you for hurting me, and for leaving me. Someone saw me, and I got in quite a bit of trouble for committing such a "destructive act" in church. I never said anything to her as she sat there and condemned me. She didn't know what she was saying, what she was talking about, or what my "destructive act" was even about. She didn't even know me. Do you remember that night when we were talking on AIM? You started to yell at me, saying that I couldn't handle you. In hindsight, you were very right. But at the moment, all that I could hear or read was that I wasn't good enough. I cried so hard. Then, the night that you tried to kiss me and I wouldn't let you... Do you remember that night? Oh, my heart... I thought it would burst in my chest with all the sadness I felt. The desolation... I cried myself to sleep that night, afraid you were mad at me. I cried these sobs that heaved my entire body and shook my being. My chest was pounding in and out with the weight of the sobs. I wish that I could explain it... The type of tears I cried. The type of desperation I felt. I remember thinking "I'll talk to him tomorrow, and I'll tell him that I will give him everything and anything." Isn't that sick? Isn't that just disgusting? Please know, that I'm not going over any of this to make you feel guilty. At all. You taught me more than you could ever imagine. Strength, independence, and a phobia of being hurt. I say phobia because phobia is the only word that comes close. The kind of extrememe fear, panicking fear. The kind of fear that can control you and what you do. The kind of fear that is relentless, and constricts your chest, makes you feel like you'll die if you don't get away. Oh Sean, all I can hope for you now, is that you're out there somewhere, clean; clean and happy. I don't have high hopes though, I know better than that. You are very possibly the most influential person in my entire life thus far. I want you to know that. I want you to know that years later, after all the damage you inflicted, there have been some incredibly wonderful effects in my life thanks to you.