Goodbyes
I think I was in love with you. Not the kind of love where I fantasized about running away with you and spending the rest of my life with you. It wasn’t romantic love. But I loved you as hard as I would have a lover. Everything about you was perfect. Your hair, your smile, the way you laughed. I wanted to be surrounded by that always. It made me feel safe just being in your light.
I wanted to tell you every secret I ever kept locked away. I actually told you more than I’d ever told anyone. You promised you’d hold them safe. You managed to break through those walls that I’d worked so hard to build. I finally felt I could let my guard down.
When my grandfather died, you ridiculed me for how I grieved. It was one of many things that signaled the death of our friendship. I told you how bad you’d hurt me and while you asked for forgiveness, you became very cold.
It got easier to snap at you and tell you how much of a jerk you were. You became such a mean girl; you all but told me I couldn’t hang in your world anymore. I felt like a fool, following you around, trying to catch whatever kindness you might bestow upon me.
I began to realize you were emtionally abusing me. I’d been there before, but it was a man the first time. This time it was the woman who said she was my best friend. And all those little secrets? You very carefully weaved them into insults which was like being stabbed a thousand times over.
It’s like a person has died. That’s how I feel about this. We promised to be friends for always. We were too old for a friendship to go down like this. But here we are. I see things that remind me of you, and I cry. It’s like you died. And you did. The beautiful, amazing, caring woman I knew is dead to me. I mourn this like a true death. I don’t know if you even care; you’re too wrapped up in the fake empire you’ve built and the mask you hide behind. Just know, you lost someone who was willing to stand beside you through almost anything. Goodbye, I’m learning to live without you.
