I don't remember the exact moment the relization hit me, but I was sitting on the back porch trying to enjoy the cool night's breeze. Things were tense between us these days, sometimes I wondered why I even bothered to stick around in this god forsaken city. I knew he didn't want to let it end like this, not this way. He'd been hurt before but he let his pride stand too much in the way. He was too proud to say that he was wrong, that he shouldn't have said and done the things he had to me. He regretted it the most, I saw it in his eyes night after night as we worked so hard to keep this relationship from falling apart anymore than it already had. I miss home that's all I could think of. I just want to go back, I can't wait to get home and on TEXAS soil. I think you'll never find another person on this earth that's more proud to be from TEXAS than me. In fact, I'm pretty sure there probably isn't. I'm a true TEXAN through and through, in fact I think if you split my chest open and took a look inside you'd see my heart the shape of TEXAS. I've got a big heart that's why I tried to stay and work this out. I ignored all the snide remarks and the put off nights I got out of him. He spent his time on the road away from me, I knew part of it was because of his career. I knew just exactly what I was stepping into when I said I'd stay and be a part of his life. But mostly it seemed he used it as a means of getting away from me, or so I saw it as that and it hurt. It hurt real bad. Sometimes so much so that I would just sit out here when the sun went down and no one was around and cry. One night after a real bad argument and he went out, probably to get drunk, I snuck out the back door and just sat and looked up at the moon. It was full and high in the sky above me and I could see all the stars around it just glittering and lighting the way for a wayward soul to find his or her way home, and it happened then. I saw something that I haven't seen in a while, I saw a shooting star. I felt jealous instantly, right away the words my granny used to tell me when I was a child and went to visit her came to me. I could hear her voice as clear as day in my head. She was saying, "Somebody's in love, a lucky woman and man just found the one they're dreaming of." I remembered, as a tear slid down my cheek and fell on the ground, just how this man, this Jordan Knight and I had been standing out on the balcony of one of his friend's apartments and saw a shooting star just like this. If we'd of known then what we know now then we probably wouldn't be here and I wouldn't be telling you my story.
I remember getting up and going upstairs to what used to be our room. I packed some pictures and clothes in a suitcase and sat down on the bed to think about what I was doing yet again. I don't know why I lingered the way I did, nor why I just had to hold that pillow one more time before I left, I just knew that I wouldn't be the same again if I didn't. I couldn't just walk out and never look back. I knew I was in for a long haul as I made my way back downstairs again. I stopped at the desk in the entrance to the big home and paused to write him a note. I thought twice about it and then though again and pitched what I had written in the half empty waste basket that said on the right hand side of the desk. It wasn't me to leave a note, that wasn't my style. I'm sure when he came home he would look for any sign, any trace of me. I knew I would be long gone before he made it home, I wasn't going to leave him any hints as to where I've gone. The only thing that I can say here is that if he really loved me the way that he said he did then he would know in his heart where I went. The only one place that I was ever truly happy, the only one place where my heart, mind, soul, body and spirit belonged. I talked to Vikki the night before and she told me that I should do what my heart tells me. But I explained to her that my head and my heart wasn't in sync with one another anymore, she laughed and said, "Were they ever." She had a point. When the things that tears most people apart only brought the two of us together, I think that's when my life started changing and growing full force. You know you have a good thing when someone can actually lend you her smile when you're down and you don't feel as if you can conjure one of your own up. I would always miss her, but she would always be in my heart and I knew that I was always welcome to come and visit her. If she knew I was leaving then she would have every cop she could find on patrol blocking me from crossing the statelines. She cares so much and means well but some things aren't just meant to stay the same. It's ironic the more they change the more they stay the same. I knew that when he hugged me that last time that he was going to make it happen and he did. His blue eyes misted over and I knew that he loved me, I knew that he would have given anything to ease the pain I felt. He just couldn't let himself do it, because he knew that I wasn't on my own yet. He gave me the faith to fly, he gave me the wings that I needed to get out of this city and get away back to my own home, back where I belonged with just his simple words and the sympathetic look he gave me with his eyes. As he hugged me that last time and I walked away I knew that I had left my heart standing wide open and he had let his heart get broken. Do you think that it's possible to love someone and actually be in love with someone else at the same time? I used to ask myself that question a thousand times a day and wonder if I was right or wrong for the simple way I felt. Sure I loved Jordan, I had been in love with him once, but I was in love with Joe and it felt like I was stuck in second place. He showed me otherwise when I was alone with him. It was the simple things, a word, a look or even a smile and a gentle touch. We never did anything really, I knew he wouldn't let that happen. He was my friend long before I was ever in love with Jordan, he was my rock that I leaned on besides Vikki. He gave me his ideals and opinions from a man's point of view, which I probably should have been getting from Jordan instead. There were so many nights that I felt alone and the only other person that I had to hold onto was at the other end of the phone. When he was home I would call him up and talk to him and he would offer me a shoulder to cry on, that's as far as it went with us. We were just friends, I had met him in a club when I was first new to the city. Vikki and I had talked a couple of our best girlfriends into having a girl's night out and so we went scowering the city to see what we could get into. When the girl's left me standing alone at the bar I didn't kno what to do. Vikki had already found someone to dance with her, and the other two were off doing their own thing. So much for a girl's night out, I suppose. He was standing at the end of the bar and startled me as he approached. His voice was thick with his Bostonian accent and it turned me on almost instantly. His blue eyes were beautiful and I felt myself go weak. "What's your name, sugar?" He asked me and smiled that smile that would melt any girl's heart and probably did. "Suzanne, darlin'. What's your?" I smiled up at him and he kept that damnable grin plastered on his lips. He started to say, "You mean you don't know..." and then stopped himself. My guess is he was going to finish with, "Who I am?" but he didn't. He just said, "Joe, just call me Joe." I kept my smile on my lips, I knew exactly who he was. Who was I kidding, he probably did too but if he did, he didn't acknowledge it. Any woman or girl in her right mind would know exactly who it was standing in front of her making conversation. She would just about die to be in my shoes right about then. From that moment on he and I remained steady friends, it wouldn't go any further. Neither of us were ready for that, or so I thought at the time, until Jordan entered the picture and my life became a whirlwind of emotions I never knew or thought I could ever have. He sparked things in my senses that I never thought could be lit. Lordy, that man was something alright, he was something.
Jordan was something alright, he was something special. I guess in a way he will always be something special, something magical that just kind of happened. He was my flame and I loved with him with all my heart. Somehow we just couldn't find a way to keep from falling apart. Sometimes when you're in a love relationship and things aren't going as well as you thought they would it's best to just let go rather than to keep holding onto all the hurts, all the arguments, and all the lonely nights that you spend alone. I knew I wasn't the only one that was hurting here, I knew he was too. I could see it everytime he looked my way, the choices that he had made and the nights that he regretted being away. I knew that it was beginning to take it's toll on him, he was doing all that he could do. He was trying his best but still his best didn't seem to be good enough. He could never really make me truly happy the way he did that night that we were standing on his friend's balcony just letting our thoughts float away on the wind. It always seemed that I was asking for more than he could offer me and when I didn't get it, I seemed to be more hurt than I should have been. At times it was almost as if I were being selfish and only thinking of myself, my needs before putting anyone before me. I know sometimes it may have looked like that, no, rather sometimes it was more like that. I think the strain of it all falling apart at home and him being out on the road so much was the one thing that drove us to this. He felt like he couldn't come home and rest without getting into another argument. I on the other hand, felt like when he came home that he didn't really want to be with me. I sensed that we were growing apart and I didn't how to fix or nor what to say. I knew that he kept telling me over and over that I was delusional that he loved me and he wanted to make this work. But pretty lies and pretty words just didn't cut it. I couldn't let him just love me in his own way, I had to demand more. I wanted more attention, I wanted him to see what this was doing to me and I really wasn't concerned with how it was affecting him. I saw his career as a scapegoat out of our troubled relationship that we had let fall apart. He was someone that I would always love, that I knew for sure. I just couldn't find the words to tell him that I wasn't happy here. I knew that it would break his heart, I knew his heart was already broken even though he tried to hide it behind a smile with the few good times that we had together. The irony of this situation was the both of us wanted out of this, but neither one of us wanted to hurt the other. So we just stayed and did the best that we could. He couldn't say he was wrong, and I couldn't say I was right so we just let it slide one more night.
That was the hardest night of my life, walking out that door and closing that chapter on my life. I put the book on the shelf after closing it, it wasn't the happiest chapter to say the least. It was pure hell on me and I wore it on my face and it showed in my eyes whenever I thought of him. I knew that when he came home from the road the next night he would be expecting me to be there. And I knew I wouldn't be. I just couldn't be, I had already stayed for as long as I could. I was leaving Boston without a smile on my face and a tear in my eye. I was leaving my heart behind wherever he was and I knew that my best friend would be worried about me because she was supposed to come up and go shopping with me the next day. Nobody expected me to leave the way I did, I didn't expect me to leave the way I did. But somehow through the mudd I found my way and through his gentle words of encouragement I found my wings to fly. Now I'm headed home with a suitcase full of memories and a whole lot of thinking to do on my mind. Things will never be the same for me again, I knew that for sure. I had no idea what I was going to do when I got there but I knew I was going to have one hell of a story to tell, that is if I ever told it. Some things are just better left unsaid, undone, and left alone sometimes. Maybe I'll call Vikki, maybe I'll see Joe again sometime. Jordan, I don't know what I'm going to do about him, but I'll figure that out when I get back home.