Playing Pontius Pilate

I like to wash my hands. I love the squelchy feel of the soap between my fingers and the way the suds turn grey after a hard days work. I love the cool wash of water over my hands and occassionally I'll scrub them with a brush to slough away all the dead skin and dirt.
I wish life were that easy. Taking a good bar of soap to your hands would solve all the world's problems. Maybe that's how obsessive compulsive people feel. Maybe they believe it will.
I dreamed of Price last night. He was sitting on a bench behind a house in a narrow alley. On either side of him sat Tommy and Nate. They were a perfectly preserved slice of the 7th grade, caught frozen in the future. The neither spoke nor moved, an effigy of my guilt. I rushed up and hugged Price. I miss him so much that is is actively in my mind and heart even thoughI've never dreamed of him. He didn't react to my hug in the dream and someone finally pulled me away from him.
I had a discussion with Mike about it a week ago. I asked if he thought we were destined from the beginning to live our lives as we do or if other people's actions have an impact on our lives. He said he believed both but in my case he thought that Price and Tommy's families were more responsible for their drug abuse and Price's eventual accident than I was.
The truth is, do I really think Tommy would have let me back into his life only to judge and badger him about drug abuse? He knew how I felt, he knew I was opposed. Did he use the break-up as an excuse to avoid me all those years just so I couldn't rag on him about his bad habits?
Does this theory excuse me from guilt? No. I never even bothered to reach out to Price. In my mind he was too loyal to Tommy but what if that isn't true. What if all he needed was someone to show him that they cared? What if he'd had someone else to go to- another shoulder to cry on-when he didn't graduate. I was always so proud of the support system we had in high school but the honest truth is: It Sucked. I failed so many people. So many of my friends didn't have me when they needed me most and that will haunt my soul forever.
I burned so many bridges. I hope I have a couple more lives to make up for it.