S C R E W E D

As usual, the highs must end and the descent to the lows must begin. I finally find a job with a company that I love and 6 months later we are struggling to recover from the biggets crash in the industry to date. Relationship status? I would have to go with non-existent. Even worse, the prospects are non-existent as well. The only person I have remotely any interest in belongs to someone else, and all I want to do is ask him what the real reason is that he never gave me a chance. We seem to fit so well together, with mutual respect and an almost adoration of one another. We clearly find one another to be atractive....and yet he held out. I just honestly want to know why...

The ER

As usual, it's been awhile. That's a good sign, I think - means I've been busy. Also means I need to slow down a bit - all this running around is starting to wear on me. That last month and a half has been much of the usual - training has increased in intensity, I am now running 3 days a week, 3 miles +. Monday nights are Matt & Emily training day, starting bright and early with 6AM swim then right into run club after work and then abs and stretch into lifting at Harborview. Tuesday nights are triathlon club run and dinner, which has been going smashingly well. Wednesday nights are tentative Trivia and first rest day of the week. Thursday is train at Merritt and Friday's are open for lifting or running or just plain drinking. Saturdays and Sundays are usually group ride days, which bring us up to the latest catastrophe.

Yesterday Andrew took a nasty spill on the bike and we ended up going to the ER. He broke his collarbone and will be unable to compete in any of the planned triathlons. He was quite the trooper - I could not have taken the accident in with such grace and dignity. Not a single tear, just quite moments of revelling in the pain. My feelings of guilt are pretty strong, as I talked him into the ride. We were just discussing how worried we were that an injury was very possible with all the physical activity going on, and how it could throw us out of the game for the whole season. Then poof, this happens.

But the strangest part of it is what I think I realized at the hospital. I had suspected it for a while now, since I couldn't seem to shake thoughts of him or deflect minor feelings of jealousy about the Holly situation. As he sat with the nurse I had a direct view of him through the hallway. He looked at me and smiled as he was talking to the nurse, and then before I knew it the thought just flashed through my head - I think I am starting to love with this person. And he is not mine to love. It is a one-sided love, and it must stay buried.

The night before, at Cinco do Milo, I realized that we spent most of the night, apart from the group, in deep conversation. It's what we used to do, before our little encounter and before he started dating Holly. We would go out with a group and just make our own little world - or at least it felt that way. On Friday night we discussed relationships and all I can really remember is him saying something about how I was seriously one the coolest girls that he knows (an old favorite descriptor of his, I know - and also so "high school"), that I was beautiful and athletic...and how any guy would be interested. But that's just the thing - no one does seem to want me. I often wonder what he thinks of how our little situation went down. There was clear interest on his part - he was the one who brought up the attraction at the bar that one night. Then back at his house, the subtle grazes and touches, and the look in his eyes. I wish we had been alone, and yet it's better that we weren't or this could be a bigger mess than it already is. Then he goes away for a weekend and comes back dating Holly. We discuss and he stumbles over how he feels - tells me one minute that Justin would freak out and he can't have that happen, then tells me Justin gave him the ok, then tells me he doesn't know how to become intimate and still be friends, then says he's not ready to date anyone. It's like he went from hot to cold in a matter of a week, and I wasn't even around. So we discuss and agree it's not the best idea, and he and Holly continue to grow closer. Yet the whole time I notice the gravitation when we're out, the arm always being thrown around me (which never seems to happen with any of the other girls that are around), people commenting that they thought we were dating...they must have noticed something to? When he walked up to us at Cinco de Milo I felt his eyes on me, and the whole time we were talking they kept jutting down my body - even Matt said something. And yet it's completely pointless to think of any of this because the fact of the matter is that he and Holly are now together. I was bummed when she showed up to the hospital and said it was "ok that I could go home" when I had been there with him for 4 and some hours watching over him. It made me feel like a used towel - something must be done about this. I would like to think that it's just the circumstances of the weekend that made us have to spend so much time together, but I am painfully aware that despite the injury he will be accompanying us to Pocomoke and San Diego to be with Holly. I definitely need to watch what I drink because I can't let any of this spill out to anyone...it could ruin everything. So I'll just keep this torture to myself and push on...