Life without Maddie around was a cold place.

There was no doubt whatsoever that we would still care for each other, but after that fleeting moment on Boxing Day, she just seemed to disappear. I didn’t know where she was, and that was scary to me – I always took great comfort that I knew where I could find her.

She had moved out of her parents home, I presume to live with her fiancé and get married and be happy.

I was absolutely over the moon for her, but I no longer had any kind of chance to win her heart, and it was an empty feeling.

Still, much like the previous time our worlds disconnected, I tried to move on without her. It was what she would have wanted me to do.

The difference was that last time, I thought I loved her – but this time I was sure that I loved her.

My final year of university started, and something was different. I don’t know if my resignation that Maddie was now completely out of my reach forever changed the way I carried myself, and how people saw me.

The whole vibe was different, and women seemed to be noticing me. That was absolutely terrifying as someone who still basically had zero confidence in himself.

There was an amazing girl named Amber at university who had been flirting with me a little the year before, but this year she came on a lot stronger. Frankly, she was gorgeous and we were already good friends. However, I absolutely wasn’t ready, and despite how nice the flirting with her felt – and new for me – I didn’t try and push it any further.

Amber and I are still good friends to this very day. She’s married to her childhood sweetheart and has a couple of kids with him.

Then there was Sarah. Sarah was a disaster for me.

It had been about six months since the coffee meetup with Maddie, and I felt I had healed a lot, and Sarah and I really did hit it off. My low confidence probably affected how this one worked out, but it was this experience that killed off my confidence around women, pretty much for good.

It took a lot of energy for me to ask Sarah on a date, but somehow I managed. I was nervous as hell, and she had recently broken up with a long-term boyfriend, a guy who had been cheating on her and being emotionally and mentally abusive to her. Definitely good reasons to break up with someone.

She wanted to go slow, and that was fine by me – slow was what I really needed anyway.

The first date was a train wreck. I was so nervous that I could barely interact, and she was so timid after her breakup that there was a lot of silence going on. Not good.

A few days later I called her and suggested we give it another go – it had been so bad because we were both so not ready for it, that going on another we would at least know each other and feel a lot less awkward.

She agreed, and the second date was massively better. We both relaxed, and actually enjoyed ourselves, I thought we were ready for a third date as it was so happy and friendly. My usual lack of confidence was there, but I was dealing with it okay.

I called about a week later to ask her out for another date. I couldn’t believe how well I was doing, and I couldn’t believe I had gotten past two dates with someone. I was so proud of myself.

“Sarah, any ideas where you’d like to go on another date?” was my almost-confident question. I had gotten a slight vibe that she wasn’t into it as much as I was, but I was so happy to try.

“Andrew, thanks for the good times we’ve had, but I’m just not feeling this going much further. I’m really sorry.”

That stung, but given I had a vibe she might turn me down, I wasn’t completely shocked, and had even prepared myself for it.

I was okay – my confidence took a bit of a hit – but I was okay. Disappointed, but okay – though that’s the moment she chose to kick my legs out from underneath me.

“Andrew, if I’m being honest…” she started.

At this point I went on red alert. It had ended on a friendly note, and I thought it was amazing that although it wasn’t going to go any further, that it had ended nicely for a change. There was nothing more she needed to say.

Say plenty more she did.

“…if I’m being honest, if I had a choice between starting something with you, staying single, or going back to my abusive ex, I would choose him first, staying single second, and you third.”

Bang.

An abusive arsehole was a better option than me. Being with nobody was a better option than me. Those things were more interesting to her than me – and even if that was exactly how she felt, there was no need to say it.

It utterly destroyed me. What confidence I had built up? Gone in an instant.

I gave up. I wasn’t interested anymore. I couldn’t have cared if I stayed single for the rest of my life. Maddie wasn’t an option – and everyone else, with the possible exception of Amber, had kicked me in the guts.

I finished university and moved to the big smoke for work – a time I had planned to be joining Shannon in a much closer relationship, but obviously that had long since fizzled. Curiously, I discovered Amber had become single – the only time in her life that she wasn’t with her childhood sweetheart.

She would come and visit from time to time, and although we were never officially together, we were getting there – slowly – but getting there.

She was coming up to see me one Saturday so I could escort her while she did some shopping – but it was just an excuse to spend time together.

On the Thursday before, she called and asked for a rain check – she had to head home to deal with a family issue, but we’d try again for the following weekend.

I had a dream about Maddie that night – it was about sharing that Saturday with Maddie instead of Amber. Everything we had planned, but it was Maddie instead of her, now that Amber wasn’t coming.

At the end of the dream I turned to Maddie and said, “Goodbye Maddie”.

Yes.

I said goodbye to Maddie.

It was a hard time for me.

I was sad, and in many ways depressed that Maddie had now seemingly slipped away from me forever, given she was getting married. It just seemed that she was completely out of reach now.

At the same time I also felt a little bit free. I had obviously always loved her, and probably always would.

Yet something always got in the way of us – and usually it was me that got in the way.

I was never against moving on with someone other than Maddie – the smattering of attempted and failed relationships I had been through told me internally that I could do that, but the disasters that most of those became always brought me back to her in the end.

So as sad and depressed as I was initially, I did feel better that all of those questions I needed to ask Maddie had finally been answered, albeit indirectly.

Could we ever be together? No, she’s getting married.

Did she love me? Yes, but not in that way, at least not any longer.

Could I move on? Yes, but I couldn’t see the path right now, and I needed to clear my head anyway.

I needed time to heal, yet I felt there would always be a connection between Maddie and myself.

My family would spend every Boxing Day with my mother’s family – in another nearby city. So we would all pile into the car and head that way from about mid-morning every year.

There’s a long straight stretch of road on the highway between the two cities, about five kilometres long, with a gentle curve at each end.

We rounded the bend, and briefly afterwards another car appeared at the far end, just rounding the bend about five kilometres away. There were no other cars visible in either direction.

Immediately I thought that it was Maddie, which was plainly stupid. How could I know that?

She was still on my mind, our coffee date being only a couple of weeks before, so I was probably just pining and wishing.

As the two cars got closer together, I got a little more curious. As the other car got closer, the pieces started to fall in to place.

It was the right colour.

It was the right make and model.

The two cars passed, and it absolutely was Maddie.

I was floored – there was no way I could have known it was her, but somehow I did know.

I knew in that moment that there would always be a connection between us. I was so in tune with her that I just knew it was her.

What I didn’t know was that brief moment was the last time I would see her for nearly another eight years.

And just how much would happen before then.

As I expected, meeting Maddie at the café was a warm moment, and as always lovely to spend a little time together.

We ordered coffees and talked a little about how I was doing. About how she was doing – of course I was interested in how she was too. I always was.

It was nice to thank her face-to-face for everything she had done for me over the previous few months, and needed her to understand I was doing much better. It was very important to me that she knew how thankful and gracious I was.

Which was absolutely what I was – much better. Maddie’s love had worked wonders for me.

After a little small talk and some sips of coffee I started to try and lead the conversation in the direction of our chat in the library that day, and that I was feeling things again thanks to that support which she gave unequivocally.

I can’t remember my words, but it didn’t take her long to figure out where I was going with my words.

“Andrew,” she said.

There was a tone to the way she said my name that kind of deflated me. I was worried.

“Honey, you have to know how much I love you, I know how much you love me. You are an amazing friend to me, and you always will be. You need to know that I am with someone, and he has asked me to marry him.”

Though it was probably really only a few seconds, I felt like it took me ten minutes to respond. At least it felt like it took that long to open my mouth again.

“Oh, wow, that’s amazing,” I eventually came back with.

“I am so very happy for you!”

Which was completely and utterly true. I was over the moon that she was happy and that it looked like she had found the man for her.

I also tried to hide that fact that I was crushed inside, but I’m sure she saw through that – just like she always saw through me when I was trying to hide how I was feeling.

We talked a little about him, and how they met.

What I couldn’t understand was why she hadn’t mentioned him before – given we’d been talking regularly for months, and not even at her birthday party did it seem there was anyone in her life.

It is true that I never directly asked her – (and that I probably shouldn’t have assumed) – but I would have felt that she’d have said something.

Yet she hadn’t.

At the end of our meetup, I am sure she sensed what had just happened for me, and hugged me extra tight and gave me a kiss on each cheek.

I asked her many years later why she never mentioned it, and she said it was so hard for her not to tell me. That she knew it was going to hurt me either way, but that she just wanted to be there for me in the first instance and that she thought I would understand.

And I did understand, yet there was still a hint of “why?” in my heart. It was a lightning bolt from left field, but I loved her. It wouldn’t be much of a love if I got angry at her for doing what was right for her.

For me, that is what love means – letting the person you love be the person they need to be.

“We’ll keep in touch, okay?” she asked.

“Of course!” I said back with the happiest voice I could possibly muster – then we parted in opposite directions.

While I wasn’t a long way down the path with my feelings again, I was still devastated. I also know she would have been hurting like hell to have hurt me, especially given the situation she had spent the last several months helping me get through.

I started to wonder if she really knew how much I cared about her. She should have known how I felt after so long, but did she really know how I felt?

I wandered off in a daze. I didn’t have any where specific to be, and I just got on a public bus – any old one, I didn’t care where it was going.

Just get me away from here.

As it happened, a bit over a week later Maddie did call me again. Just as she promised.

That didn’t surprise me in the slightest – I didn’t for even a single moment believe that she would not call me when she said she would call me.

“In a week or so…” she said.

The important part of this for me wasn’t even that she called, but that she made a promise and had kept that promise. I was so used to being lied to, led on, even cheated on – that I was starting to think that there were no truly honest people in the world.

Maddie laid down the promise and kept it. She was always honest with me, and kicked me in the butt when I needed to be kicked in the butt.

We actually ended up chatting about once a week for a few months, almost to the end of the year. It felt so foreign to have someone not only do what they said they would, but also treat me with love, respect, and support.

Sometimes she would call me, sometimes I would call her. She was always interested in what I had to say, about how I was doing. She had said “I’ll always be here for you…”

And she was. My Maddie was the one rooting for me and pulling me through the quagmire that my head had been over the previous few months.

Honest and pure.

I don’t know that I was falling in love with her again, but the closeness, the affection and the support she was giving to me certainly started my head down that path.

I was convinced she was single.

I certainly was single, but almost certainly not ready to “go again” with anyone – but Maddie is different. By now she had come to represent so many things in my life that were matches for my own personal values – well, that I was probably risking my heart if I let the feeling roll too far.

I wasn’t sure it was time to ask the question, but with five years having passed since our conversation in the library at school, I was probably frustrated more than anything that we had never finished that talk off.

She never told me how she really felt.

I invited her for coffee a few days later at a little café in the main street of town, so we could sit out the front and chat face to face – not over the phone.

Maddie had done so much for me the previous few months that my heart was wavering for her again, but for so long neither of us had brought it up.

At a little street café one December morning we finally talked about it, and it would bring a moment that would prove to be just another crossroad in my life.

Maddie saved my life that night, in a lot of different ways.

The phone was still ringing after I dialled the last digit of her number when I realised that it was the first time I had ever called her number. Her birthday invitation was the first time she had ever called mine.

After so long it was weird that it was the first time either of those things had happened.

The phone rang for a little while, and then was finally answered, and it was Maddie’s voice on the line.

As soon as I heard it I burst into tears.

“Andrew?”, she asked.

I blubbered yes between sniffles and tears, and said I needed to talk to someone. Somehow I got out that I hadn’t even chosen to call her, but that it just happened instinctively.

“I’m here for you honey,” she said reassuringly.

That was all I needed to hear. I took a few moments to get my wits about me, and then we started to talk about what had happened that day.

To her credit, Maddie never criticised Shannon’s actions – she was just a voice of reason. She agreed with my own thoughts that I might have left things too long, but that it was not an excuse for chopping me down so brutally.

I think we talked for nearly two hours.

She’s always had a way of lifting the people around her, yet she is sometimes so critical of herself and how she is as a person. Perhaps I am biased, but that has never made any sense to me – she’s even said it to me quite recently that she can be really cruel to people sometimes.

Nope. I cannot accept that.

On this horrendous Monday night, she was my saviour. I didn’t ask anything of her except to let me talk to her about how I was feeling about Shannon and what had just happened.

She just sat on the other end of the phone and listened. To every last dribbling messy broken-hearted thought I had. She spoke when she needed to, and reassured me when I needed it.

On a night I could have plummeted to rock bottom and dropped into a dark place, not only did she stop that from happening, but I actually felt better by the time we hung up.

“I’ll call you in a week or so to see how you’re doing,” she said.

“In the meantime, go and do things for yourself. Buy yourself something nice. Get drunk.”

“You’ll be fine and I’ll be here when you need me,” were her final thoughts.

That night I finally really understood her. On some level, I knew she loved me.

Romantic love is great, but when someone really loves you, you can feel it in the simplest of moments. This was a complicated night, but “I’ll be here when you need me” was the simple thing I needed to hear.

That night, she was my hero.

Shannon returned from her holiday, and I returned to hell.

Despite the interruption for Maddie’s birthday party, I had spent the time thinking about what Shannon had said to me the last time I saw her.

“I’ve been thinking about how you said you loved me when we said goodnight last time, about what that means to me, and how I feel about you, and I really am starting to believe that I love you too,” was where I started.

It was extremely new for me to come out on such a front foot, but I was sure that was how I felt, and I was so proud of how courageous I had been just being able to say those words.

It could easily have been my proudest moment – within seconds my heart and soul was rocked. I nearly fainted as my head was spinning so fast. My blood pressure was probably already low from the intensity of telling her I felt the same way, but what happened in the following few minutes still hurts today.

“I never said that,” came her response.

“What? You hugged me as we said goodbye, and you clearly said that you loved me. Your exact words were ‘I love you’,” I responded.

“I didn’t.”

“But you did!”

Her full stop on the conversation was as brutal a response I’ve ever had from a love interest.

“Well, if I said that, I didn’t mean it.”

And that was the end of the conversation. I couldn’t even speak.

A few hours later – when I was able – I talked to her friend who was with her on the holiday, with whom I was good friends too. In fact, I had known her longer than I had known Shannon, and she was partly the reason for Shannon and I meeting.

She told me that Shannon had been intimate with two men she met on the trip, and that she’d lost all interest in me.

No words, no “sorry this isn’t working out”. Straight into bed with other people, and denying she’d even told me she loved me.

I spoke previously how I felt that Shannon was looking for more intimacy with me, but that I wasn’t ready – yet now I was asking myself had I held back too much? Should I have stepped forward sooner?

It was easy to think that, but it didn’t take me long to decide that if I wasn’t ready, I wasn’t ready.

I wasn’t ready, and I had no regrets – just now I had a great deal of pain.

I know for certain that it was a Monday, because I always had a late class at university on Monday evenings, and I remember having to push through the rest of the day before I could get myself alone and decompress the jumbled mess in my head.

When I eventually got home, I was in no mood to study.

I took a long hot shower to freshen myself up, long enough to run the water cold.

This was supposed to be a day about Shannon and me, yet everything had upended itself and I wasn’t coping.

As I got out of the shower I figured it was time to just go to bed, and start again tomorrow. I could feel myself on the edge.

Maddie hadn’t entered my thoughts all day, yet for some reason, without even thinking about it, instead of going to bed I picked up the phone and called her.

It wasn’t a decision, I just found myself doing it.

I needed her right now more than I had ever needed her before. I needed someone who gave a shit about me.

After that night at her party, I knew just how many people would could ever really count on.

One.

So I went to Maddie’s birthday with Shannon’s blessing – but I still felt a bit awkward. Should I have politely turned down Maddie’s invitation?

It would be easy to say “yes” looking at the situation unemotionally – and I don’t wish to play down the significance of the act of accepting it. I could have handled it all a lot better, that I know.

Maddie was one of the most important people in my life, and I also know now many years later that I would have regretted not going. That Shannon was so agreeable did surprise me, but the reason for that would become apparent after she returned from her pre-arranged holiday.

I was about to have a both a wonderful and terrible few months, all at the same time.

I always knew where Maddie’s house was. Back then they had this thing called a “phone book” that published almost everyone’s address, and every house was given a free copy. Sounds completely stupid in this day and age where people hold privacy so important.

I had never been to her house though – so I approached the evening with many emotions going through me. This was a place I had always wanted to visit – hopefully as her boyfriend – so many times over the years I had known her.

Yet here I was on this night – in a relationship with someone else – approaching her front door for the very first time. I knocked and her mother answered, and I was invited inside.

The next person I saw was Maddie, running down the corridor to hug the stuffing out of me. While we had hugged a few times over the years, this was different. This was a real hug, a warm and loving hug. I was probably smiling like an idiot.

Then she kissed me on the cheek, and I kissed hers. This was completely new.

As far as birthday parties go, it in itself was just a normal birthday party for a group of early 20’s friends. Loud music, alcohol, flirting and the other usual carry on.

What I didn’t notice was anyone “with” Maddie – it would seem that if she was seeing anyone, they weren’t here, just as Shannon was not with me. Or she was single.

She hadn’t mentioned anyone during our phone call.

Given she had obviously just come home to Australia, this kind of made sense to me. Maddie knew about Shannon – we had talked a fair bit about her on the phone when she invited me along, and she never made any inference about anything other than being happy and supportive that I had found someone.

That’s just the way Maddie is.

But her calling me “babe” on the phone was in the back of my mind. I still wasn’t sure about Shannon, but I was committed to that relationship in the sense that I wanted to see where it would work out and come to. I had put a lot of energy into it, and I was here with Shannon’s blessing and I respected her for that.

The thing is, Maddie and I spent most of the evening around each other. We talked a lot, not about anything specific, but catching up and talking the shit that friends talk about when catching up after a long break. It was probably the most relaxed we had ever been with each other and I have to admit it felt nice.

Yet, we still hadn’t tackled the subject of our chat in the school library – now more than five years previous.

We didn’t on this night either – you could tell it was “there” beneath the surface, but this wasn’t the time or the place – and Maddie had shown nothing but the utmost respect for the relationship that Shannon and I were in.

We hugged tightly and kissed cheeks again at the end of the night. I don’t remember the time, it might have been 2am. Just talking to her again made me feel fantastic.

I had spent a lot of time thinking about what Shannon meant to me while she was away on her short holiday, because the last time I saw her before she left on her trip she told me that she loved me.

“I love you,” were her exact words.

This knocked me off my feet – this was the first time since Maddie had used those words to me way back in the first year of high school that someone had said them to me. I decided to use the time that she was going to be away – (around 7 to 10 days if my memory serves) – and try and decide whether it was time to take things a step further.

By the time she returned, I was ready to use the same words back to her.

Yet Maddie was still a question in mind. A question that I now felt would probably not be answered for quite some time, if ever.

The thing is, the answer came a lot sooner than I could possibly have imagined.