I had wanted badly to marry before mum died, I felt it was important for her to be there, but because my family didn’t truly support the relationship with “V” and his growing antagonism towards them (and the fact that by this stage I knew I didn’t love him how I should) I never proposed (we agreed that I would ask him because he wanted me to prove to my family that I was with him by free choice not manipulation.). I looked back at my diary from this period and it says, after a particularly close evening with Obi “I’m planning my wedding, why do I still think of him all the time, why do I want him so much? What is it about him?” The day after that though Obi had gently told me he would not get back on the merry-go-round with me, in fact he was done with long distance relationships and he never wanted to do it ever again. I was shattered, but I backed off, and we remained just friends. He became my very best friend. I turned to him for everything and he always gave me an honest answer, and he always listened. Some nights I’d sit there talking to him and I’d be crying, “V” sitting less than a meter away didn’t notice or care.

I desperately missed my sister the most in all of it though, it’d been nearly a year since we’d had any real contact, something had set her off the Christmas before. I don’t know how I got the courage to call her or what prompted it, but I did, and I’m like “Just tell me what’s wrong!!” it all came out that “V” had lied to our mother about something she had done to him (that I knew she’d never do), and mum had stupidly told my sister about it on Christmas eve, but had said that she wasn’t allowed to confront him or ruin Christmas. She defended “V” against my sister even though he clearly was in the wrong – and added that my sister was not to speak of any of this to me, because they were afraid he’d somehow use it all to turn me against them again, and there’d be another long period of not having contact. But I got it all out of her that night. I’d never been so hurt and confused. But I knew then I had to leave him. We had the worst fight of our relationship that night, but the next day at the hospital we found out mum had less than a month to live. I told him that we’d deal with our problems later, my family needed me now, and I needed him to just support me and not be an arsehole for just a month.
Mum died. I can’t explain how bad it was. Things with my sister were worse than ever, because she didn’t understand that things with “V” were on pause, she thought nothing she’d said had made a difference. For some reason, I agreed to go with “V” to his parents place in the state north of home, where it would be warmer, just to get away from everything.
He crashed the motorbike about eight hours into the trip, in a small town in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing there, no public transport... just nothing. I wasn’t hurt, but he was, and his bike was too big for me to control, so we were stranded there. I had no money, and nothing to entertain me. We had food and a room above a pub. And he was as much as an arsehole as ever. So I spent a week sitting on the veranda writing a very very long letter to Obi. He’d recently been to Disney Land, and I knew he’d sent me a gift and a long letter, but I wouldn’t get that for another month or more because it was too heavy for air mail... but there was no reason I couldn’t start my reply.
So, I wrote, and it occurred to me that I got more out of my friendship with him than I ever got from “V” – he met my needs, and I hadn’t even seen him in person. I had a lot of time to think in that week.
When I got home I emailed Obi. I told him I didn’t love “V” anymore and that I wanted to leave. “V” had threatened my family and Obi and said he’d hurt me and track me down if I ever broke up with him. He’d always been violent, and I was scared. I asked Obi how to break up with him. Obi wasn’t any help, but he knew the first thing ”V” would do would be to take my net away (he did that all the time to punish me.) and that’s when we started writing letterbooks.

Once I got back I spent more time with my sister, who’d moved into mum’s house to look after mum’s boyfriend. I remember being in the garden with her and saying “You know, I never did get over Obi” and she smiled and said “You think I can’t tell? I’ve always voted #1 for Obi”
I broke up with “V” on Boxing Day 07, but didn’t have the money to live without him and had no where I could go. Periodically he played mind games and took my net away and threatened me, or guilt tripped me, or tried to find his way back into my bed. But I held firm. My sister moved back into her own place in the city and I visited her as much as possible when I wasn’t at school, and when I wasn’t studying I was writing to Obi. More than three months passed where all we had was letterbooks. We figured out how to text message in that time too, but I couldn’t afford to do it, especially after “V” found one of my letterbooks to Obi and read it. It was the steamiest one I’d ever written. I knew Obi wouldn’t have a relationship with me, he didn’t want to do long distance, and I made sure to keep anything I said free of romantic emotion, but blatant sexuality I knew he would be fine with. I gave it everything I had. “V” finally gave up and moved out a week after reading it knowing he didn’t stand a chance, and I struggled to survive. I could barely make my rent; I had $30 left over for food each fortnight. It was a crazy time.
I asked Obi if I would be welcome to visit him if I could somehow get to Canada, and my sister said she’d help me if she could. I don’t think he believed at that stage I would do it – but he said if I could pay for my flights he would look after all my other expenses while I was there.
So, to get the money, I gave up my freedom and moved in with mum’s boyfriend, who I have always hated, and I started hard-core saving. The only luxury I allowed myself was dial-up internet, so I could talk to Obi. Five months later I was able to buy plane tickets.

Obi bought me a webcam and I had a headset. June 08 was the first time he saw me on webcam and heard my voice over mic (Though for years he’d let me watch him on cam and occasionally read to me over teamspeak). We were quickly addicted. Some nights we slept with our headsets on, I got up at 5am to speak to him in his lunch break, and he’d stay up into the early hours of the morning to talk to me. My life started to revolve around him. There were a lot of cute romantic thing that went on, but you can find them on the site in various threads so I won’t re-write them here because it’s already very long. One important thing that happened though changed everything.
One night he sent me a song, but told me I couldn’t listen to it until he went to bed. It was “somebody’s me” by Enrique Inglacious (sp). With all our history it shattered me, I wanted so badly for him to love me, but at this stage we were just really good flirty friends who were planning to meet up and have really hot sex. We didn’t talk about our feelings. I wrote a letter than I never intended to give him, but eventually did, to get out all my grief. But I didn’t mention how deeply it had affected me. (This year, we claimed that song as “our song”). Being best friends we talked about everything else, even how he was planning to hook up with an old fling at a convention at the end of November. I told him I didn’t like it, but I felt that not being his girlfriend I didn’t have the right to say no. I also knew he had a bed friend closer to home who he spent a bit of time with and vied for his attention. But, we left all that open for discussion and I just did what I could to not be jealous and possessive.
During our talks he would often mention how he was single, or how I was. It hurt me. I felt like he was constantly reminding me that he wasn’t mine and probably never would be. So I asked him to promise that he wouldn’t ask me any questions because I needed to ask him a favour but didn’t want to tell him why I was asking. He hesitantly agreed and I asked him to stop mentioning it. He explained that to him it was a good thing – he loved how I was finally single after all the years I’d been”V”’s and he’d wished I was his. I confessed that I didn’t like that he wasn’t mine.
November that year we finally became exclusive. We were not officially a couple, but we’d confessed to love and to give ourselves the best chance to be together decided it was better not to date other people at all. (Not that I did anyway, but he’d been trying to find someone he could love more than me, from his own country). I was his and he was mine. We couldn’t wait for our first meeting, which was December the 4th. We were surprisingly not very nervous. He met me at the airport and hugged me for the first time – picking me up off the ground. I wrapped my legs around his hips and we just held each other. It was all worth it.