How can you take a friendship - divide it in half - remove the heart of it, and tell me that's all you can deal with? Because all of me - all of who I am and part and parcel of the whole package would only hurt you. How do I deal with that? How do I reconcile the good in me with the bad? Can I? Sept. 14, 1997

I had this guy friend once.

I had this guy friend once who loved me.

I had this guy friend once who I loved.

I met him during summer school of 1997. Those long crazy months between our junior and senior years of college when we were freshly 21 and had no worries. He spent his days playing Nintendo and bouncing at the bar around the corner. I was taking one class. So needless to say, it was the summer of beer. And for me, boys.

I call it the Best Summer of My Life. And it was. And it wasn't. I'd spent the early months interning in D.C. I was very skinny, lusciously tan and felt more beautiful than I ever had before, and ever have since.

I was in love and everywhere I turned boys were falling in love with me.

Levi and I met through a friend of a friend. He was living with some of Gretnut's sororities sisters. In Wendy's Backyard. Just up the block from the house I was staying in for the summer.

We hung out on the 4th of July and when I mentioned my boyfriend, I saw his face fall.

I was bored one afternoon and called Tracey. She made Levi come to the movies with us because she wanted him to drive. It became a ritual. Wake up around noon. Go to the movies.

Pretty soon it was just Levi and I making the short drive to Hamilton, where we'd eat at Applebee's before going to the $3 cinema. We saw every movie there was that summer, and I can't remember a single title.

He'd take the roof and doors off his Jeep and we'd drive through the back rural roads, surrounded by corn and sky. He'd tease me because I knew all the words to every song on the radio.

One time we got stuck in a summer shower and I sat through Spawn or Men in Black with wet, white shorts.

He was the first one to tell me that Blake and I wouldn't get back together. I was positive I'd prove him wrong.

We went out every night of the week. Sometimes Tracey and Julie would come. But they'd usually go home early.

Levi and I would share mind probes and I'd bum his Camel Lights. We talked about Blake. Why I cheated. We talked about his ex who'd cheated on him for years before he found out. Usually he'd just make references to that Vanderbilt Bitch.

The summer crowds are smaller and more gossipy. Everyone knows what's going on. And they all knew we weren't dating, but continued to tease us about it anyway.

And almost every night Levi would sit there, buy my drinks and watch me flirt with my summer hookups. He had to sit there and watch me go home with them.

And he never said a thing.

One night I ran into this guy Mike, who was also friends with M. We talked about M and he told me how they'd had tons of conversations about me. How M did have feelings for me, and that's why The Girl hated me so much.

I ran out of First Run, across the street, and straight to Wendy's Backyard. He followed me and back at his house, he let me put my head in his lap and he stroked my head while I cried. Cried about M. Cried about what I'd done to Blake. Cried about my dad. Cried about how no one would ever really love me the way I craved.

And then I rolled over to look up at him and his blue eyes were filled with tears.

And then he kissed me.

Summer term ended. I spent two weeks in Texas. He went back to Cleveland. We talked on the phone every day.

I convinced him to come back early and he built a loft in our bedroom.

His roommates loved me. They'd give me big bear hugs and let me into our favorite bar for free.

His fraternity brothers' girlfriends told me how glad they were that Levi finally had somebody.

"But we're just friends," I told them.

But soon we were holding hands and I was sleeping over. He let me interview him for my creative writing class and started making grandiose plans for the fall formal.

One Wednesday we were tucked away in Alumni Hall, the only place he could study study, and I told him how my sophomore year boyfriend had asked me to his grab-a-date.

You said no, right?

Why would I do that? D and I just friends, you know. Besides, Pony's going too.

No, it's just that we're having a social that night too.

But he said it was okay. He said he'd just take one of his summer roommates or something.

He promised he'd meet Pony and I out the next night.

He never showed. So I went to the bar where his house was having their party. And I saw him. And I saw her. And I saw the way she was looking at him and I saw how he was smiling.

And he called me later that night and told me that "she expressed interest in me in a way you never have."

That he had to explore this. That he knew I would just hurt him. That I was "innately a cheater."

Innately a cheater.
Innately a cheater.
Innately a cheater.

You tell me it's under my control. You tell me only I am responsible for my actions, yet, YET you're essentially telling me I can't change. That these are things I have to work out - and that you'll help me - yet you can't get involved. How can you shut yourself off? Sept. 14, 1997

But she was safe. She was simple. She would make him happy.

I would just make him miserable.

And I played Ani and wrote over and over "I could make you happy, if you weren't already."

I cried for hours that night. Laying on our blue, velour couch, scribbling in my notebook word for word half of what he'd said on the phone that night.

This doesn't happen to me.

I'm having feelings I haven't had for three years and I have to explore them.

And when we'd see each other we'd turn our heads. But his friends still loved me. They still picked me up and twirled me around.

But I couldn't look at him. I went into full on ice queen bitch mode. And I know I was just hurting him all over. But self-protection was key. Fuck his feelings.

But Levi's glances had nothing on Heather's glares. I heard her talking about me once in the bathroom. Telling her sorority sister what I bitch I was, how awful I was to Levi. I walked out of the stall with my heart in my ears and just brushed past her.

I think she actually thought I'd hit her.

Three days before graduation he grabbed my hand and told me he loved me. Told me he loved me more than the moon. But that he was IN love with Heather. That she was it for him, but that he couldn't leave Miami thinking I hated him.

And I smiled and told him I didn't hate him. I just fucked up. I lost something before it really began. Something that could've been amazing.

I search for him sometimes. I look for his name in the online database of the med school he was supposed to attend. I never find anything.

I wonder if he and Heather are still together. I wonder if he's happy.

Thoughts of him will always remind me of who I was that summer. What I loved about me. What I hated.

I just wonder if he knows I think about him.

And in typical Hannah fashion, I wonder if he thinks about me too.