I knew I shouldn't have done it

I looked up someone I knew long ago. He seems to live in his parents' mansion in a beach town full of rich people. He might own it now. When I knew him he was a surfer in his twenties traveling around. Now he's a man in his mid-fifties. I found a few things about him online. It's none of my business. My life was so sad and lonely and so not working that I went back to the moment in my twenties when I was of interest to someone like that. He looked like a movie star. We discussed moving to a new town together. We were both sensitive to noise and it impacted our lives substantially. We had other things in common too. He seemed above me in a lot of ways. He was from this rich Waspy family. He was tall, blond, and strikingly handsome, with perfect tan skin. He always looked like he was lit with a golden spotlight. People's faces softened when they looked at him like they were looking at a beautiful sunset. He was charming, generous, and intelligent. He was a surfer who spoke Latin and liked poetry. He had just graduated from college. He was traveling around in his father's old luxury car with a surfboard in it. Once, when he didn't know what to do with himself, he just parked his car in long term parking, and flew to Paris.

He made all the unworthy fuckheads who had wasted my time look like what they were. We met in a youth hostel in Northern California. I was riding my bike around the area. I think he followed me from one hostel to the other. I had a red lycra unitard. I did yoga in the main room each day. I had a curvy figure. It wasn't my plan to rivet the men in the youth hostel but it seemed to have that effect. There was a Dutch guy that was likable and an older man who worked at the hostel who was interesting. I wasn't smart enough to deal with dating three guys so I picked "Brian," the most beautiful, charming, age appropriate and lived in America. He came to visit me and I proudly introduced him to my friends. I thought my ship had come in. I tried not to let on that he is so much better looking and high status than me, as if that was something that could be hidden. We talked about moving to a town near the ocean where he could surf. We kept in contact. Then he skipped a turn. He didn't respond to my attempts to contact him. Gradually I realized that he wasn't interested in me anymore. A psychic told he had found someone closer to home.

Some years ago it looked like I wasn't going to live much longer. I was tying up loose ends. I was curious to know what had become of the "one who got away." I thought there'd be stuff about him online as he seemed destined to be successful. To my surprise I found almost nothing. I wondered if his life wasn't as successful as I thought. Maybe like me, he was too sensitive for the world. What I did find indicated that he might have been living in his parents' mansion, the same one where I wrote to him all those years ago. Even the street he lived on had a poetic name. What I found online said his name was on the title with his parents. I found his phone number but I didn't call it. I just wanted to know what had become of him.

Lately I've been under too much stress and wandering back to other times and places in my mind. I again looked up "Brian." Still almost nothing about him, no Facebook page, just the building permit and a phone number. Maybe he never married or had a kid.