He Unexpectedly Showed up in My Life and Changed it Forever. Then Disappeared. This is Why I Don’t Talk About Bruno.

“I’m sorry if I was rude,” he said to me privately, and those six sweet words unfolded a friendship I was sure would last a lifetime. He introduced himself to me as Bruno. I liked him straight out the gate. He was cheeky. Incredibly funny.

We were in a group of mutual friends, both of us witty and brash, often lightly battering each other in a playful game of cat and mouse.

But this game quickly became more than just silly and fun. We connected on a level that most people spend forever striving to reach: a once in a lifetime friendship that pulsated nonstop, mercilessly beating away any sadness in our lives. I quickly fell under his spell. He was charming and said all the right things. There were days he made me laugh so hard tears slid down my face for hours. As the months wore on, we began to connect on different planes in the universe, at times synchronizing thoughts.

I knew our friendship was intense and did not want to lose it. We just wanted to harness and enjoy the laughter and the smiles that got us through our days. He lived far away and I knew one day we would have to lay our friendship aside and move on, but in the moment, he was everything. As the intensity grew, I laid ground rules. The main rules were we were to be nonjudgmental toward each other. Open communication. No arguing, ever. He embraced the ideas, and not once did we waver from them.

But, like with most good things, there were caveats. Bruno had secrets. He loved flirting with women. Lots of them. I was just one. He would often say, “You are different, you are special to me.” I believed him. Due to the amount of time we spent together, there was no doubt he cared for me, but I also knew this: I had left my heart wide open to be crushed and even admitted my fear to him. “Don’t worry,” he assured me. “I’d never do that to you.”

As we were not dating, and had no intention to, I pushed aside his secret life of women. I named them The Assembly Line. “You won’t find me riding that line,” I told him. Besides, if I confronted him about it, I would be breaking our number one rule of nonjudgment. I was, however, concerned that it was overtaking his life.

One morning, unexpectedly, Bruno said that our relationship was over. He had to return to his other life. The Assembly Line had gotten out of control. Something had gone awry. “Goodbye,” he said. It happened so quickly; I felt the giant pulse of our friendship bang to a stop right on my open heart. A crushing sound reverberated in my ears.

Although I knew there were many factors in our lives that would keep us apart, I had not expected it to end so abruptly.

I felt abandoned.

Ditched.

I spent two weeks crying nonstop, until a friend pulled me aside and told me I needed to move on. He had ended our friendship badly. I needed to accept it. Bruno had another entire life elsewhere, and I was not part of it.

Still under his spell, I did some soul searching. Prayed for answers. Somewhere in those prayers I turned my pain into purpose. He had been in my life for meaning, just as I had been in his. I decided not to focus on how it ended, but how it began, how it went.

And even though we no longer speak, I still find him floating in the hinterlands of my mind— in every moment we are no longer together, I understand that sometimes people are just there when it matters, instead of being there because you want them to be.

I hope that he’s a better person for having known me, just as I am for knowing him. He’s a secret part of my life I haven’t shared with anyone.

If someone asks me about my past, I don’t talk about Bruno.