A Draft from 8 Months Ago

I guess because I hadn't realized I had this saved... 
Looking back...
It made me smile...

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"I don't know why I'm always surprised when I get a call from him. I guess maybe I'm not used to being on the receiving end. Sometimes he'll get so frustrated texting i'll get a call right then and there,  and I'll pester him for it, because he didn't know if I was busy.
But I answer. Usually, I always answer.

He's an old friend. We go, way back-- back to when 12 year old confusion and frustration was all I knew, and 13 seemed like an impossible age to break for him.
We stopped talking for about a year, things got rough back at home for him. It was always like that, sometimes here and there, sometimes constant, sometimes silence. But he was always first. And when I got those messages, I was always surprised.

Hey

It was usually because he needed advice. Conversations usually turned into arguments between one trying to help and the other trying to justify. In the end it was a draw, both bleeding but happy; we'd learned something that day. Calls were never ended sour at each other.

About a year and a half ago he disappeared. It was a little after I started dating. I didn't hear from him, not really. The last time it was to tell me he hoped it worked out, and that "He  better take care of you" story.

I got a message about 3 days after it all ended. That single Hey. 
He'd changed. I cried listening to all the bs he endured for nearly 2 years that we didn't talk. I felt responsible. He said I wasn't to blame."