Crush

Before websites and social media, newspaper newsrooms were bustling places, full of swagger and ringing phones and all manner of importance.

I was younger than young then. I was freelancing, still impressed and intimidated that I could even walk in there, walk amongst them all. I was assigned to review a concert — there were two of note that night in the city and the pop music critic couldn't be in two places at once.

This critic was a bit of a celebrity. I remember just a week or so before I met him that I had sat in my car on a frigid January night, listening to him on a radio show, laughing and bantering with the host. He knew all the right things to say, full of bonhomie, confidence and charm. I read and admired his writing; I knew it from this newspaper and the previous one he had written for. He had a profile, he seemed important. People knew who he was.

The day of the concert, I was there in the newsroom to pick up some information from him, standard press material from the singer's label, the kind of thing one would now get online. As I approached his desk, he had his head in his hands, apparently exasperated.

I startled him a bit when I spoke, introducing myself and explaining what I was there for. He looked up, smiled, and was transformed into a different person, his twinkling eyes and full attention on me. Even though he was a man whose best days were behind him, he was handsome, with a head of curly hair, a smile that split his face and an unmistakable, ready laugh.

I took the press material, marked with a coffee cup ring and probably not all that necessary or useful. He didn't ask for it back, but because returning it gave me an excuse to see him again, I did. We had coffee in the newspaper's cafeteria, all eyes on us.

We were mostly inseparable after that, so smitten he was. He contemplated cancelling a long-planned holiday in Central America because he couldn't bear to be away from me. I was toasted, fêted, adored. He praised my work, encouraged me, pushed me. He took me everywhere — I hung out backstage with performers after concerts, we spent weekends at posh resorts, we shared the weekend papers over luscious restaurant brunches.

I wasn't atop that pedestal for long. Soon, he was doling out affection and attention like they were rewards to be earned. Confused, I eagerly and stupidly played the part. He built me up, he viciously tore me down. Like a disappointed father, he sent me away when I didn't behave the way I was supposed to, if my mood was all wrong, if my reactions weren't letter-perfect. Invariably, he would slink back, saying he was sorry.

His apologies were made of glass. I was made of glass. He crushed me, grinding me to dust and somehow magically putting the pieces back together later. He was a cruel, shrewd flatterer. I hated myself, I was addicted to his approval. He grew jealous, suspicious, ever more manipulative.

Finally, blessedly, after he moved far away and allowed me to begin a new life without him, he began calling again. He couldn't live without me. He was getting in his car that minute, he said. He'd be there in 24 hours, driving through the night, through the Canadian Shield. I pleaded with him not to come, even though part of me felt a frisson of excitement over the passion and the drama of it. Brooding heroes in classic novels, broken men with big hearts, they did this sort of thing. It was only when I vowed to phone the police that he stayed away.

The hateful love affair, it died then. Not long after that, he died, too. A mutual friend called me one afternoon in the newsroom. I picked up the phone. "It's over," the voice said without preamble. He had been found hanging from a tree.

I spoke at his funeral, kindly and with love, because I needed to think that, say that, be that. I needed to don the cloak of grief. But the ugliness has lingered, shaming me. The night of his funeral, I learned he had slept with a former girlfriend one Christmas Day, shortly after dropping me off at my place, saying goodbye, whispering words of love to me. It bludgeoned one of the previously untainted memories.

I tore up the cards and letters, all the loving words written in neat draughtsman's printing, all the exclamation marks. There are no photos of us left.

For a time, I maintained some uncomfortable posture of sorrow and grief out of respect for his sister, who had me over for dinner, who included me in her book club. I didn't read the books, the dinners stuck in my throat, I felt like a fraud. She gave me a copy of the letter he left behind, suggested I might like to have one of his sweaters, some of his things.

I wanted no souvenirs of this, his mental illness and mine. Years later, I'm still alternately scarred and fascinated by him, by what happened between us. Still, every Christmas Eve, I do think of him. I think of him, a lifetime ago, another person ago, in the still of the wee small hours as I watch his ancient videocassette of It's A Wonderful Life.

I owe him nothing, but this feels like the best thing I can salvage, the smallest, best bit of forgiveness that I can manage.