SuitMan and I had a long talk tonight...(I swear I'll get to Daddy soon)....in the middle of our talk where he kept referring btinging up things that involved the good times that we had shared and so forth, I finally asked the hard question that I didn't want to ask, but knew I had to ask if I was going to finally bring it to closure with him.

"Why did it not work out between us?"

I told him to take his time but I wanted a blunt, honest answer from him.

There was a long, long, incredibly long pause on the other end of the line.

"You started getting too close," he finally said. "You're someone I could have really fallen in love with and it scared me."

The long pause again...this time from my end of the phone.

"To be honest, I don't think I got that close," was the only thing I could come back with. It was an honest statement because there was so much more to him than what I got to know. I had always been honest with him from the time we got back from the chorus retreat in upstate New York. I wanted to take it slow. I wanted to get to know him. I wanted to move at a pace that was comfortable for him. I didn't want to push, I didn't want to shove, I didn't want to lean on him too hard. I knew he was holding back and I was slowly chipping away at his exterior.

We went through everything from that point on...from our first meeting to the point where I decided that it was going to have to be enough to be his friend. We went through the litany of friends who had warned me against getting too seriously involved with him because it was simply destined for heartbreak -- even before he mentioned he was going to move back to Colombia and my conscious decision to pursue it anyway. He knew that I saw through the facades he put up -- the attitude, the occasional obnoxious fit, everything. I saw through it to the person that was deep inside, the true inner beauty that was...well, is...SuitMan. He told me that it was brave, courageous, and pretty daring for me to keep at him over and over, slowly peeling away the layers and risking my own personal emotions to get to know him better.

I finally admitted to him that I would have risked it all for him -- broken heart and all. It was more than I had banked on telling him, but we were both being very honest at that point and I thought he should know.

"And I don't regret it," I told him. "Not at all. You're an incredible, amazing person and I cherish the time we spent together. The greatest thing a person can ever do is love with all their heart regardless of the outcome, regardless of what happens, regardless of whether or not it is returned. To love is the greatest risk but it can also be the greatest reward. And either way you learn from it and you grow. I wasn't in love with you but had we moved forward I probably would have been sooner rather than later. And yeah. I wouldn't have regretted it all."

Silence from his end of the phone.

"Thank you."

"No. Thank you."

(Of course there's more that was said as well but....I think I finally have the closure I need.)