My Lifeline

While several years younger than me, he still checked all the boxes. Adorable smile, muscular build, skinny like I like them, hard working, and capable of intelligent conversations.  Then, there was the flip side.  Ladies man, drug and alcohol user, your typical `bad boy`. Every parent's nightmare for their children.  Under all of that, though, I could still sense a good soul.  We hit it off almost immediately.  We became friends and seemed like that was as far as we'd go.  We could spend hours talking about nothing.  We just thoroughly enjoyed each other's company.  I got married,  he had girlfriends,  but we always remained close. We never went very long without some sort of contact, a phone call or visit. As the years went by,  our lives apart changed immensely,  but our relationship held strong. I divorced and went wild for a while. He had always been wild. Looking back now, it's funny. He used to bring his conquest of the month by, and I'd always tell him the same thing....she doesn't deserve you. They never did. Or maybe, I was just holding out hope that we'd somehow find our way.  I ended up needing surgery,  and was going through a break up of my own. I didn't want to be alone through the process, so I called him. He was always there for me, so I knew without a doubt,  that he'd step up. He didn't disappoint. He came, stayed with me through it all, even the recovery several days after. The perfect gentleman,  much more so than I ever could have dreamed.  Is this when it happened? I wasn't ready. I didn't want him to be a rebound. No. If this was going to work,  we needed to both be clear headed and want the same things.  I don't want to be a mistake for him. I wanted to be what he really wanted.  So I pushed him away.