We had quit communication all together after that night in the coffee shop.  The seal of finality came when your response to my decline for coffee later: “I didn’t want to have coffee with you anyway.  I was just being polite.”  Defense mechanism. It wasn’t until March of 2011, two years later, when you popped up genuinely concerned about my car accident in which I totaled the car that we had so much fun in and broke my thumb.  You wanted to know if I was okay, if I needed someone to talk to.  It was the first time I’d seen you extend yourself to me out of kindness in years.  And I took it. It’s been months now and we haven’t gone too many days without at least a word of exchange.  It’s a way of saying, “I’m thinking of you and I hope you’re okay.”  Somehow, in a somewhat karmic manner, we have gone full circle right when we would normally be only with slightly more baggage.  Our everyday conversations and weekly meetings to discuss everything from books to domestic gossip.  Only now we use the term “wife” rather than “girlfriend.”  You’re right in every way that she is perfect.  I could never deny that.  Yet, perfection never suited you, you say. Instead you tell me how it was supposed to be me, a terrible mistake made, as if things would magically turn out “right.”  Maybe I’m half asleep but I can’t see how either of us would be happy had things ended up differently: if we were to have said, “I do.” I can’t seem to let you go either way.  You’ve become an extension of me, an advice outlet.  And if I can’t allow myself to have you, can’t I have your opinion instead? You were once it and nothing less.  Now, I can’t see what you’ve become.