An intense conversation

I went over to Ray's last night to hang out. This was my first time up to his place. It was cool, old and lofty feeling, it was hot as hell up there though! We were going to watch Momento, he was eating some dinner and we had on Ice Age in the meantime. When he finished eating and cleaned that up he came over to kiss me. It was a nice kiss, and it got heated really fast, then his roommate came home! We sat and watched some Sports Center and hung out for a bit. When his roommate went to bed though, there we were, right back in the moment. It was nice. He disclosed how nervous he was to me and we ended up talking, a lot.
He said that there's so much he wants to tell me, and so much he wants me to know about him. I told him I wanted to know it all. He got increasingly anxious as he was about to confess his past to me. Then I started to get nervous. He came out with it, he went through a lot before he moved out here last year. A lot as in a gigantic downward spiral. He had a pretty hefty coke addiction back in North Carolina and it seems he lost his way some where in college. He left to change. He left for a fresh start. So far San Diego hasn't really offered that to him, well it hasn't been handed to him anyways.
He kept telling me that it all changed a couple of weeks ago when we first started hanging out. He said over and over again that all these changes in him came to fruition and it was my doing. I told him that I didn't do anything, all of these changes, things that he had done happened because he made the decision to make them happen. For some reason he wasn't buying it. I really didn't do anything, I didn't even say anything, even make any kind of suggestion. He kept insisting that everything was changing because of me. I think he needs to give himself a little more credit.
The more he talked about his past, the more it seemed to me that he felt like he had been at a disadvantage of some sort because of his own internal struggle to please those around him. He had been "cut-off" by his parents when he was in college because he lied to them about drugs and then got caught in the lie. I was a little flabbergasted. Of course they were upset, he burned a level of trust they had in them by lying to them. I said this to him, and he got very defensive. I told him, it wasn't an attack, I was just playing devil's advocate. I don't think he had ever thought about the situation from anyone's point of view but his own. This scares me a little. The history of drugs scare me a little. The fact that he's been living in San Diego since October, has his degree and all he's been doing is side carpentry jobs and delivering flowers scares me. He wants things to change, he wants to be here, he wants to do something different and better with his life, I'm just not sure if he will. He said that he didn't think he wanted to get back into contruction again. I said to him that he could see what's out there, get a job doing that, because he's good at it and he knows it, and still take a photography class. It's feasible. He seemed to agree, he said that City College offered a Tuesday/Thursday class. I said with a smile, "It's time to be a big boy." He smiled back and agreed.
He needs to step it up. He needs to be responsible, he needs to realize that he is accountable for his own decisions and actions. I'm not going to be a happy girl with him if he continues to screw around and drink and party, when he needs to take some action and make some positive changes actually happen in his life.
What have I gotten into? Do I take a risk on this guy? Do I give him a chance? Or am I trying to fix someone that needs to fix himself? He trusts me. He said that he really wants this to work, that he hasn't felt like this about anyone in a really long time. And when I look into his eyes, I know he's telling me the truth and is being so open with me, and it melts me.