This is indeed difficult.

See, I, in an act of superb stupidity, lent one of my all time favorite books to a... mmm... let us say friend of mine, now I need it, and I don't quite know how I'm gonna get it back. Here's the situation:

This friend, who shall be renamed Joseph, was formerly my boyfriend. The boyfriend who almost led me to suicide and indeed led me to anorexia. The one who came riding down the great curve of life, impregnated me, then mounted on his horse again and galloped towards the horizon after I had the abortion.

Now, during our very brief but nevertheless intense relationship, he lent me several books. One of them was the comic on which the movie The Crow was made, as well as several Star Wars classic (and very hard to get) comics. After the breakup, I kept the things, and assigned a very deep significance to them, especially to The Crow book. The movie, and then the book, had changed my life, had a great impact on me. So I kept them after our breakup. As I said, the thing that depressed me the most of the abortion is that I couldn't possibly make out any sense of what had happened, no reason why it should have happened, and it got to be so bad that I finally decided that I had gone through the experience as a test in which I had proven worthy of having the book. So, I deserved the book, and as long as I had it everything made sense. I know it's stupid and a little sick, but it still is the way I manage this particular episode of my life.

Now, the story didn't quite end there. He called me after the breakup, wanting to extend a vow of friendship. I was at the beginning of my (up until now) most self-destructive, depressive, I-hate-myself period and said yes. As I've mentioned before, I used to be (and sometimes still am) a bitch to everyone except those who really deserved it. So we were 'friends'. Not best friends, but friends nevertheless. About six months after the breakup, we wanted us to get together again. I said no, as I was already involved in another, more self-destructive, relationship with someone I will talk about in another episode.

(Now that I think of it, all of my ex-boyfriends have always wanted to reconciliate afterwards, and I have always said no. That's something I'm proud of since all of them were without exception worthless assholes. This doesn't mean I haven't relapsed with all of them. That's something I'm NOT proud of.)

So time went by, and he regularly asked about his stuff. I always said no. As we became actual friends and I had more confidence in him I told him why I wouln't ever give him his books back, but of course he didn't understand at all. Since our parting he had provided three different girlfriends with four more abortions (two notes here: 1) my, he's fertile (or incredibly stupid); and 2) I know the exact number because he ALWAYS called me so I could give him the OBGYN's number; anyone would say he should have had a concessionary's number by then) and, in one of the occasions I tried to explain to him why the abortion had been so difficult for me, he said 'Oh, but yours wasn't bad at all! You should see how [insert name of girlfriend here]'s was; compared to her, yours was small peanuts.' Yeah, I know, no one's ever going to give him a Sensitivity Award.

More time has gone by, and now I think we're really friends. Enough has passed to both of us, he's learned a couple of things over time, and I'm not very good at holding grudges. I'm a nice person. And then, one day, he asks for my copy of The Godfather and I, without foreseeing what's obviously going to happen, lend it to him. That was several months ago.

Now I need it (because I feel the urge to express my views on war, and Puzo explains it so much better than I ever could) and, when I called him, he told me he would gladly give me my book back when I gave him his copy of The Crow.

I know that technically he's right: the book is his, he earned (or most likely asked her mother for) the money that paid that book, and by law it's his. But I must tell you that giving him the book back is an impossibility. I know it's illogical, but I'm not a logical person. If I give him a book back, my fragile stability may crash. I know I should be stronger than that, but I'm afraid I'm not.

What do you think? Should I give him his stuff back? Does he deserve it?