I didn't just lose my best friend. I lost the only one who knew all my secrets. The one who always understood me. Who hurt with me. Laughed with me. Who could always cheer me up. Wo I could be myself with without thinking about it. Who never judged me. Who would always treat me right. I lost my only safe person and you will never understand what you did to me. Fuck you
Evolving Towards The Dark
Cancer fic 2
Hey olives! Welcome to my Second fic for my Cancer event. This took a while to get too, because a lot has happened in the past month lol.
Let me catch you up...First my apartment had mold in it, I moved out, then my new house burned down, I got an apartment, I went to Phoenix as a de-stress roadtrip, one of my family members passed away, I was severely depressed, and most recently, I broke my hand. I had a few WIPS and I wanted to finish one and post it so ya'll wouldn't be waiting so long for the rest while my hand healed.
Sorry I think i'm rambling, anyways, without any unecesarry delay here is 'Evolving Towards The Dark'
Summary: Change is a natural part of life, people agree to disagree, but sometimes an argument ends a life long friendship.
Warnings: Failed attempt at gaslighting, Swearing, arguing, yelling, friendship breakups, acting industry, character change.
Pairings: Tom Holland x GN!Best-friend!reader
Type: Angst
Listen to: I Can't Handle Change by Roar
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I wish my friend would call me so I can tell her that she's just been the most teribble friend to me this year and hang up on her.
Dear Ex-Bestfriend,
We spent incredible years and memories together
Had an understanding of each other’s lives
Both first generation immigrants
With strict households
That led us to be creative in the way we spent our time
That fateful day when we were about 12, and bumped into each other at a national park
We were pretty much inseparable
Even when I moved countries and moved into my 20s
We more than kept in touch
You played such a huge role in keeping me sane
Through changes I had no control over
I thought you saw me and cared for me in a way that was from a place of pure love
In a way I thought we were kindred souls.
No one could come close to what you meant to me
But those were the “good old days” weren’t they?
I think I noticed the change when you got into a serious relationship
It gets busy so I understood when we couldnt talk on the weekly anymore
But something didnt feel right
Because I would fly to visit and it seemed you were more busy with him
The only reason I could phantom is perhaps you didnt want to hang out with me
No, that couldnt be it, I told myself. I had to be overthinking.
You started becoming judgmental of others in a way I hadnt seen before
I acknowledged it was probably the pain of what was happening in the relationship and was there for you
My mid 20s were hard, law school, fake friends, I missed you
I flew to come visit
I noticed you didnt want me to quite stay with you
Your strict parents, I understood, told myself Id find another way
My Californian friend came with me to see this city I loved
From what I saw we were all having a good time
I came back and then it started, you stopped talking
When we spoke that day I was 26 and you asked
“how do you think your visit went”
-”great, I had a good time”
you: aww im glad but here the list of a gazillion things you’ve been doing wrong every single time. You take advantage of ppl.
me: what? and you’ve been talking to others about this?
That conversation was so vicious I cant even repeat
Still I loved you, I law school outlined everything you revealed
So I could push away your doubts of the person you thought I had become
Based on lies some of this you informed
And I thought we had a good open conversation
I had cried so much prior to it, my heart had hit the floor in a way I cant describe.
For the one person I thought would always be true, wasnt. Hadnt been. In what they believed of me. Wouldnt allow my sadness of the situation, they couldnt “pity” me
You apologized, I did too.
We texted, I thought we would be okay
But about a couple of weeks later, I wasnt hearing from you again. You ahd told me your grandpa wasnt doing well was what I last heard. I had sympathized and had a feeling he would be okay, he was.
After that there was nothing. I called you, I texted you, I whatsapped, I called your house. Finally i messaged your then boyfriend who merely told me “she’s fine, just busy”.
If that were the case, why did I never hear from you again? I am 6 months away from 30 still trying to figure out what happened, and why you abandoned me. It was something I could never dream of doing to you.
And I saw you again at a wedding with my then boyfriend. We made brief eye contact and you looked away.
And now I am here with an ex-boyfriend seemingly had no issue abandoning me too.
Trying to find the faith in people that would see me for me, love me, and stay.
You see, you once knew me and uplifted the pain. But here I am dealing with the loss of you, my grandma, and him.
I am grateful I got to experience such deep love. But I believe in reconciling because life is too short as I have learned
But there’s nothing more in me left to reach out
I just cant do it anymore
I wish I was in a place of peace
But I am so disappointed
Im not worth fighting for is what my demons say
BUt I am, I have to be. Is what I need to believe.
How do you cope with the pain? Is this what they say growing up is? I want to release my resentment and be free this cage.
That one about anger (& past relationships, and trust)
Anger is a funny one. Anger like a fire, anger corrupts, anger can be fun, it can be freeing and liberating. It’s a stage, a knife, a bullet wound, a mental scar. An easy tap to drain your emotions, a forest of yelling, a silence, a ball of rage. Anger holds us back and brings us forwards. But there is one thing anger is not for each and every person, and that is relaxing. So, what am I actually angry about? You may be asking, well, that is if, anyone reads this. (Otherwise there is no you, it’s just me asking myself in a rhetorical format- although, that already is what it is.) For me, I am angry mostly about my past. I am angry at the mental fractures I will have to learn to live and recover from because of the situation I use to be surrounded by. I’m angry at my Mother, and in turn, I am angry at my Grandmother. There is no way I can express this anger in full. It’s not the burning type of anger that fuels on raging and expresses itself in aggression. It’s the soft, near sad form of anger that subsides once you realise your longing for something you can never get. It’s the self-inflicted anger, the depressed anger, the ‘I can never do anything to change the situation or truly fix it’ form of anger. And that berates me. It boils me over to my very core. The issues I now hold are not something that I can blame myself for. They aren’t really something I can blame anyone for. The only person I could even lay some form of ‘blame’ on, is my Mum. You see, with any friendship or interpersonal relationship I form, there comes a point where I realise that I trust the other person, and through this my brain realises they have the power to really hurt me. And it kicks in this form of ‘Get out. Run away. Remove yourself before you get hurt’ Sort of instinct. It fills my head with this sort of paranoid voice, that pinpoints and reasons with any possible sign that they may not wish to have me around, that they may not want me in their life. That they, per chance, hate me. It’s tough to keep the friendship ‘normal’ when your internal voice is literally screaming at you that you are too close and you should, or rather, need, to back away immediately. It places this unspoken limit onto how much more I can discuss, almost as if I have maxed out on what I can trust people with, as if I am closed, blocked up and locked and I can’t give them one more thing they could possibly use against me. That they don’t even want to hear it. That they don’t want to help, and that they won’t. Which often, at this point in a relationship, they have already proven their trustworthiness and themselves to any ‘normal’ person, and they have done nothing to even bring on such thoughts. Yet still, my brain continues to play this game. I guess, and my counsellor (Yes, I have a counsellor, or rather, had, by the time most (If anyone) reads this. ) guesses that it stems from the original bond I had with my Mother (hence why I am angry mostly at her). As a child, she would never comfort or support me. If I went to her with any friendship issues, she either wouldn’t care about it, or take the other persons side. She would then subtly put me down or yell at me if I did something wrong, even if she only found out because I came to her to get help to solve the issue. It fucked up my trust. It means my own personal expectations is that if I try to depend, if I really do trust anyone, they will only hurt and harm me as a result of that. It makes me feel so cut off, so unbelievably alone and lost, because this thing ends up driving my close friends away. Previously, I have tried just not to trust the person. That way, I could continue ‘trusting them’ and talking to them about deep things, without actually trusting them. I know that makes little to no sense, so allow me to divulge.
My ex-best friend, called Lauren, I had known for about a year and a bit. She was my first properly close friend. We travelled and went to cons together, we baked cakes, hung out, chatted on the bus, had in jokes, knew deep things and were there for each other. But I never really trusted her. I didn’t even realise that this was the case until after she pointed out to me that I didn’t. And its only on reflection that I can understand why I didn’t trust her. It was a coping mechanism to keep her close to my heart without truly letting her in and then having to face my own brain. She never did anything wrong whilst we were friends.
I trusted her with the deep stuff, but never the small things, like money, or organising things or returning library books or that. I always had to check and make sure everything was going in order because I never allowed myself to fully trust her.
Unfortunately though, our friendship ended on a sour patch. It was triggered by an argument, but the reality is that my lack of genuine trust ruined our friendship. And no matter what I have done to apologise or try to move on, she no longer wishes to have me in her life. It kind of really sucks, but I have come to respect her decision. I will still be willing to patch it up if she ever so much wishes too, but I assume that it will not happen. I have to assume that because otherwise I will hold onto the chance that we could still be friends, and that means she will always linger and I won’t ever truly be able to move on from it. I am glad for the time I have spent with and in Lauren's life. She put my belief back into the world and made me feel significantly less alone during a really shit year. She helped me through many bad nights and I could never thank her enough for the time we had together.
I’ll probably explain that whole chestnut later in some sort of post, but that’s a brief overview on all of it. And for another example, my Ex-girlfriend. Her name is Abbie. Now, to understand the entire situation, I think it must first be said that we were a long distance relationship, which already put a strain on it. We both had our own problems we were trying to deal with, and at the end of the day it still ended up being my issue with trust that caused the complete downfall of our relationship. Abbie also no longer wishes to be in my life. I really hate that fact, but I cannot do anything to change it (no matter how much I try to wish to.) I made it clear to her I want to stay in touch, and I still want to be here for her, but again, I can’t do anything. It kind of makes the whole relationship feel completely worthless, that she no longer wants anything to with me. That the person I gave my heart too for over six months now despises me as much to not want me in my life. Sorry. There are many, many pent up emotions about that relationship. Again, just to restate, all that I say is very one sided, and I will try my best to balance it out, but there’s always more to the story than I can ever say and my memory is never perfect either. I would like to state now, that Lauren and Abbie are both amazing people. They both did a lot to help me progress as a person, and never in a million years would I wish harm upon them. I love them both dearly, even if neither wish to be around me. It probably says more about who I am, or maybe was, as a person than anything else because of that. But I promise, I am trying to be better, I am ensuring I never make the same mistake twice. It takes trial and error to end up with people who are right for you and who you are right for, and unfortunately I wasn’t right for either of them. Sorry, I sort of am rambling and avoiding the point. Let’s hop straight back to that. So, throughout our relationship, there are times where the paranoid voice sort of overwhelmed me and won. Like on anniversaries. When it hit past 8pm I ended up assuming that Abbie had completely forgotten, rather than asking first. Or messages, Abbie would be busy and I would assume that she just hated me or really didn’t want to talk to me. On helping me- I never would admit my own thoughts and faults unless we were in an argument. (I only realised this was the case after), and this I believe is down to the fact that my expected response is certain and excusable with her being angry at me rather than her just wanting to hurt me. This thing with trust, ended up corrupting our relationship and it turned us to be incredibly toxic for each other. I ended up feeling deeply unhappy and deeply unsatisfied. And I believe I did the same for her. I believe that it would be different if we are friends, as she no longer would have the same responsibility or need to talk to me, and that I would be able to love her without not trusting her. She doesn’t feel the same way.
That again, is a very brief overview, but I hope my point has been made on how my trust is really, really effecting my relationships. And it all kind of ties back to how my Mother treated me when I was younger. It’s not an excuse. I will never, ever use it as an excuse as I do not want this. I am doing all I can in my power to learn to deal with it, but it still is eating me alive, like a ticking time-bomb with anyone new in my life, and all it is is a matter of how close we get and how long it takes for my brain to catch up with my emotions. And I am angry about it. Really, really angry that I now have to live with the consequences of actions and choices I did not make. That I am like this. Why am I the only one that has been effected like this?
I hate the fact that this trust has so much power over me. I despise the fact that this is power my mum still has over me, even if she doesn't know it. And there isn’t any advice that can really fully help me, no therapy or counselling that will make me normal. This is my normal. This is my ingrained fear and expectations. There’s little I can do but learn to cope with it. And cope I must.
Depression is...
My ex-best friend and I stopped being friends because I continued to spiral down into my depression. It began eating away at me and because she was my best friend, I thought I could tell her how I was feeling so I wouldn't have to keep it locked up inside. But then a couple weeks later we got into a fight and she told me it was hard to care about me, and it was hard to love me, when I was depressed. Because my depression made her feel like shit. Made HER feel like shit. As if it wasn't making me feel like shit, as if I hadn't hidden it for years and was literally at the point of breaking. I wrote her a poem after, about how she made me feel, and how in my mind, our friendship was easier for her when she was the only one allowed showing emotions. Because she reprimanded me for my anger, for my sadness, every time I wasn't a bubbly sugar plum she bothered me about it. She treated me like a diary, she told me her thoughts and feelings and spoke about her relationship all the time, but she didn't let me speak. So now she's my ex-best friend because she never responded to my poem, or my long message about how she was making me feel and how I couldn't help being depressed. But yet she came to me in school to ask if we had things to talk about. But never let me speak. So I told her we were too far gone to fix what broke us.
Depression is driving people away because you're depressed, and sometimes, they can't handle that.
Dear, Ex-Bestfriend...
How are you? How’s work? Hows your relationship? How is your life?. These are questions I want to ask but I know I no longer have any right too. It’s been almost 3 years since we talked... I thought by now my feelings towards you would have gone away but I guess not. Every time I see you, or someone mentions you I’m filled with such anger and sadness and I still can’t figure out why. I don’t regret you ever coming into my life, we had great times together that I will never forget. I will admit, I had issues and I wasn’t always the best but I still tried, every single time something was wrong in your life I was ALWAYS there trying to get you through it and I never got that in return. I would try to talk to you about it and you’d easily dismiss it like I was wrong or it didn’t matter. The last year of our friendship was really toxic, we were growing apart and fighting all the time, I hated it and knew things were coming to an end. I wish things would have ended in a nicer way but they didn’t, I said some harsh things, which I am now sorry for, but you didn’t even try to fight to keep me in your life and that’s when I knew it was truly over. We’re adults now and I still miss being able to text you about stupid little things, I still wonder how you’re doing, how your family is doing, but I know I shouldn’t. Our friendship has damaged me so bad that I can’t trust anyone anymore because the one person that was my life and was a sister to me hurt me so bad. You may not think of me anymore, or even care about me, But just know I genuinely hope you succeed in life, I hope you find the perfect guy to marry, have your new best friend with you at your wedding, have a beautiful family, and your dream job. Thank you for being the biggest life lesson for me.
-Your ex-best friend.
“Best Friends Forever” is a hard promise to keep.
A letter to my ex-best friend.
Today is your birthday. Its been about a year and a half since we last seen one another, and nearly three years since I've called you my best friend. That being so, I still have some things to say.
During my 26 years of life, I can count on one hand the number of people I have called my Best Friend. And you were one of them. I remember the first time I met you: freshmen year of high school, "band camp", to be exact. I was standing, alone in the corner of the band room clutching the handle to my clarinet case with both of my clammy hands. I had showed up embarrassingly early, and had the terrifying experience of watching everyone else arrive. I was scared that I wouldn't make friends, that I wouldn't know anyone, that I would be left out. I wore a sweater, despite the late August heat, because my 14-year-old self always felt the need to hide beneath layers hoping to go unnoticed. You sat in a chair on the other side of the large room, wearing an orange t-shirt and a pair of men's black basketball shorts. You were surrounded by a group of people that I would later learn you knew through your older sister, whom was also present. Your voice carried throughout the room, booming and infectious. As more people began to show up, I saw that they all kept gravitating toward you. Your pull was so great that before I knew it, I too was standing next to you. And from that moment on, we were friends. We spent nearly all of our freshmen year together, inseparable. Our friendship was never smooth, nor was it always turbulent. Like most friendships, ours had it's ups and downs, and it even sometimes looped around. But we always found a way to fix it, except when we didn't.
I want to say that I'm sorry. I'm sorry that we couldn't fix us. I'm sorry that our friendship turned toxic. I'm not entirely sure what happened to us. One day we were fine, the next we weren't. It felt as if you decided overnight that you no longer wanted to be my friend. But you wouldn't just say that. Instead, you wrote and said hurtful things about me to others and I let it happen. We had plans, plans that could have been cancelled, but money was spent, and promises were made. So we ignored the issue; we buried it in silence and anger. We let it fester until it broke us. I wish that I could have talked to you about it, about how I felt. And I'm incredibly sorry that I didn't. Perhaps if I had, we would still be friends. I'm sorry that I waited for an apology without ever considering that I most certainly should have given one as well. I'm sorry that I let your believe our falling out was due to money. But most of all, I'm sorry that the majority of our core group of friends seemingly chose my side. I didn't have much of a hand in their decision, but I should have told them it was alright, that they didn't have to choose a side. And for a while, we tried to co-exist, but our not talking changed the entire group dynamic. Which made our falling out even harder.
I want to say that I miss you. I miss you a lot. Sometimes I think about calling or texting you to say happy birthday, or to gush about a guy I'm seeing, or just to see how you are doing. Sometimes I even get so far as to type out a whole text, only to delete it moments later, because I don't know how you would respond. That night, when we last spoke, was when I realized just how much I missed you. We sat in the kitchen, drunkenly eating grapes, talking about things as if nothing had changed, and no time had passed. You encouraged me to flirt with that guy, and the next morning all I wanted to do was text you about everything that happened. Like old times. But the small cloud of reunion mist passed, and we went back to not talking any more.
Lastly, I want to say thank you. Our breakup was the first of many serious adult decisions I have had to make in my life. I could have remained a doormat, taking your passive-aggressive insults to heart, and then allowing you to turn around and be nice to my face. But I couldn't. I chose to walk away from our friendship for me. Because it wasn't the first time and I knew it wouldn't be the last so long as we stayed friends. But I also want to thank you for all the good times we shared. Like that time we mildly got lost in Seattle. Or that time we got the car stuck in the sand at the beach. Or any time in between. Thank you for being there, when no one else was. Thank you for being my first friend at a time when I was unsure if I would make any. Thank you for making me the person I am today. I can honestly say that our friendship and it's subsequent demise has shaped me into a person that I otherwise would not have become. You made me strong in ways that I never thought I could be, and I will forever be grateful for that. I also wanted to say thank you for reaching out after my grandma died. It truly meant a lot to me to know that you still cared at a time when I was convinced you hated me. And most of all, thank you for being the best friend I needed at that point in my life.
I guess the point of this was to tell you that just because we don't speak anymore doesn't mean I've stopped thinking about you. In fact, I think of you often: every time I see something Hello Kitty, or when I'm driving behind a mini cooper. I think about you every time I run into someone from high-school and they ask how you are, so sure that we are still thick as thieves. And it hurts to admit that I haven't spoken to you or heard from you in ages. Or to admit that you still have me blocked on social media for reasons I'm still not sure of. I think about you when your name pops up on my Facebook feed by one of the many dozen friends I know we have in common.
I really do wish you all the best in life. I hope you have someone in your life you can call your best friend, and I hope that they are there for you 100% of the time. I want you to know that I don't hate you, that I never truly did. I miss you and I love you, and I will always be here if you need me,
Happy Birthday,
Your Ex-Best Friend
