I didn�t sleep very well at all. Some news I received last night marred any attempt at putting my mind to sleep. An acquaintance from my past � an friend of someone once very close to me � had met my brother on a night out some weeks back and had passed her number to my brother wishing me to contact her. I knew that if I did, I would inevitably hear of this person once close to me, so I hesitated. Adam kept pushing me. Ring her � text her � but I couldn�t...

Then, last night, I did. I texted her. And a couple of hours later, she rang. We talked for over an hour. It�s been 10 years at least since I last saw her or spoke to her, but it was nice hearing about the twists and turns in her life � although most of them, it seems, have turned sour. But then it came � the dreaded words: �So, do you still keep in contact with Nemesis?� � Yes, the once close person is of course Nemesis. Those who�ve read my Co||ections since the beginning will have heard of him before, and those who haven�t � well, the quick summary: met in 1991 at boarding school, became a couple, split, became a couple, split, moved in together, split, slept together, split, etc. etc. etc. For seven long and painful years my whole world turned around the Sun God that he was to me. He broke not only my heart, but my spirit � my will to live and more importantly, my will to love. He was the driving factor behind my leaving Denmark and for years to come he made it impossible for me to trust any man to love me and for me to love myself. He was so hard to me � beyond belief � but then, so was I to him. I was the first girl he slept with. That was in the summer of 1992 � around the time when Denmark won the European Cup in Football. And so the story went. In the end � in the beginning of 1998, I severed all ties. I literally slammed the door in his face.

The years that have passed since I last saw him I have thought of him often, and have frequently had him in my dreams as well. But I�ve stopped talking so much about him and my feelings for him � the mixture they were � have become almost invisible in my heart. It helped that I heard no news whatsoever about him. No gossip from Denmark ever mentioned him, and no one ever saw him. I figured he�d moved either abroad or to the capital � cos he was never one to stay in small time Rural Denmark.

I said to Gitte � the acquaintance from my past � that I didn�t keep in contact and that I really didn�t want to know. But then she said, �So I guess you don�t know?�
�What?�
�He�s come out...�
�You what...�
�He�s gay...�
I was stumped � couldn�t utter a word. The blood evaporated from my body and I actually felt faint.

And now I don�t know what to feel. Apparently he came out �many years ago � at least 8 years ago.� So about the time I left for England � and not long after the last time I saw him.

... the question now is why didn�t he tell me? Why did he never even mention that he was in doubt regarding his sexuality? It could have spared him � and I � so many unhappy times.

I feel a little vindicated. No matter how skinny or beautiful I might have become, I would have never been good enough for him, because the one thing I could never change was against me from the start. Only I never knew and he never told me. Instead, he picked faults with me � my weight, my everything � and I believed him. I believed that the (then) only man I�d ever loved couldn�t love me back because I was faulty.

So Nemesis � you are gay and no-one is surprised at the news because it was so obvious � but you denied it so vehemently and maybe I wanted to believe you and therefore that it was my fault you couldn�t love me. Maybe, in believing that, at least there was still the hope that the day the utopian Perfect Me emerged you�d want me.

But I love Adam more than I ever loved Nemesis. More than I ever thought I was capable of loving anyone. Maybe that's because Adam loves me so much - warts an'all.