Aside: A Word to a Loved One

I suppose it's something like luck that brings friends into our lives, and cruel fate that takes them out again. A man can never do enough planning, make enough efforts, or arrange enough circumstance to establish a relationship with someone; similarly, he cannot fight hard enough, work long enough, or give more than enough to maintain a relationship that's running through his fingers. The only thing over which he does have control is the place he makes in his heart for those central figures in his life he calls friends - and he should take care not to misplace them. But then I'm telling the moral before the story:

I knew somehow, and long before we met, that you would be a part of my life. I knew somehow, when we did meet, that you would mean more to me than anyone else I'd ever known. And I knew, after you'd stepped away, that I'd shown you too much. I let you know exactly what role you played in my life, and you weren't happy with the part; I let you know how much you meant to me, and you were overwhelmed with the responsibility; and I let you know that, in spite of all your shortcomings, I still loved you. That, I think, is when you realized exactly what it meant to take advantage of people - and you felt guilty for doing it.

It would be wrong to say that I begrudge you all the insipidity, insult and indifference that you've shown me over the years; in fact, I do believe I've grown from them. At the very least I can say that I've come to know a little better exactly what place in my heart you must occupy (it's somewhere near the ground floor, most probably in the maintenance closet) - perhaps the role suits you better? Come now, and do be honest: is that not the room I occupy in yours?