hey.

I never in a million years thought I would be writing this to you. Especially when a couple of years back you were literally the closest person I had in my life. You still are the closest person I have in my life. But what does that say about me when you really don't know me that well anymore. I used to share everything with you, and I am not really sure when I stopped but I know that I did. And, at first it wasn't your fault that I was distant, but now it is. Because how can you tell someone all the details about how someone hurt you when they are the one who hurt you. Sometimes I feel like you know you are hurting me with the words you say. And other times I am wondering if you really are that blind to how horrible your words are and what is implied with them. Here are just a few examples of words and actions you have done that are burned into my head: You make me feel bad for staying skinny when all I eat is "junk" just because you can not do the same. Then you turn around and make me eat when I would rather starve so that I could have a real reason to give you about how I am still skinny. You tell me that you would never judge me no matter what, but when a guy you like makes fun of me because of this app that I like, you agree with him. I still hesitate to ever play that game around you or others anymore because I am embarrassed. And sometimes you just make me feel so freaking dumb. Like whatever I was saying was the stupidest thing in the world. Then, later I find out that whatever I was saying was correct, but that still doesn't make me feel any better. You are always down on yourself and insecure, so whenever I see you I like to pay attention and compliment you whenever I like your clothes or your new nails or when your hair looks pretty. And yet you still never believe me when I say you are freaking beautiful. And that really annoys the heck out of me because you are so pretty. And then I turn around and think about myself and recently I realized that the only time you tell me I'm pretty is when I am calling myself ugly. But the thing is, I know you are lying when you say that because your definition of pretty is skinny. Which is why you don't believe yourself to be fricking gorgeous, even though you are. And why you say I'm pretty like it's a reflex for you. You also always feel horrible when you do bad in math and so I refrain from saying how easy the homework or the test was because I am better in math. But then you always make me feel bad when I get a low grade on a test in English. And how could I do so bad when the test was literally so "easy". You have genuinely told me that I "act like such a child" more than one time. You also like to tell me how "difficult" I am all the time. You gave up on our plans of going to college together because you said you would miss your cat too much to leave behind. Doesn't that imply that you would miss your cat more than me? You insult me indirectly. For example, sometimes you ask me to french braid your hair. But then recently, I had just finished doing loose-ish french braids in your hair in a way that I never had before with no video to follow, just me guessing based off a verbal description, no photo to give me a clue of what it was really supposed to look like. And then you started doing tight dutch braids in our other friends hair and about halfway through one of the braids, that was a hairstyle I ask you to do on me all the time, that you learned on me while watching a video, you made the comment, "you know, I think dutch braids look better". And at first I kind of just brushed that off because I kind of agree, and I voiced that but I also said that I think it also depends on the person and their hair. But then a few minutes passed and you made another comment, "I think braids also look better when they are super tight." I was just silent to that comment. What was I supposed to say to that, like I'm sorry that you think my braids look like crap but can you just out and say it instead of lying to my face and say they look fine. You see, you do things like that all the time. I don't know what caused you to change you in this way because you definitely weren't like this to me in middle school. I feel like I am always worrying about what I look like and what I say now around you because I am afraid that you are secretly judging or even going to voice your judgments about me. Because I know that once you have said something like that the words will never leave my mind. I also sometimes feel like you don't believe the fact that there is a high probability of me having anxiety among other things. You belittle me when I am nervous about doing certain actions. You talk about how you were nervous for that presentation too, or you don't like talking to new people all that much either but you put yourself out there and got that presentation over with and look at how you're fine, it wasn't that hard. But you just don't get it, when I say I don't want to present I say that because the thought of presenting makes me feel like I can't breathe, I can just feel everyone's eyes on me and I literally would rather die than be there in that moment any longer. I stutter during presentations and I talk quickly and quietly and stare anywhere but at the audience. While you, you do the opposite you meet people's eye and speak loud, clear, and slow. You finish and then you sit down and are fine. But when I finish I rush to the back of the room to ask the teacher if I can use the restroom in hopes that I can remember how to breathe and stop shaking so visibly. I also can never talk to you about my likely depression anymore because I end being the one to comfort you instead of you helping me with those thoughts, also sometimes you are the cause of my bad feelings. I think the main thing that I struggle with and that hurts me is the fact that I would never ever make you feel this way or do any of these things to you. In fact, in some of these cases, I actively try to make sure you don't feel this way because I notice the stuff that makes you upset. You used to be the one person that I could always speak my mind to and now I don't have anyone I can talk too. And the worst part is you sincerely don't realize that I am feeling this way. Like you honestly don't realize how I lowkey feel like our friendship is really struggling. No, you think that everything is fine when that couldn't be further from the truth. I don't even know how I am supposed to act around you anymore. Just typing this out kills me because all of a sudden I am remembering things that you have done or said to me that I don't think you even remember happening. It also makes me realize that I really have no one that actually knows me. You used to be the one person that I didn't put my fake face on for but that has changed. I feel like everything has changed and I am not okay. I know you will never see this letter but writing this all out has both helped and hurt me more. Because I know that you will never realize the extent of all the pain you have caused me. And I know that after I finish this letter I have to go back to my stupid life full of pretending. Which really sucks because I feel like after putting this much emotion into one place something must have changed, but nothing ever will. Moving on, this ended up much longer than I intended and you aren't even going to read this, so, I guess this is it. I will see on Monday at training and hopefully by then my fake face will be ready again for use because I don't know if I could keep it together if I had to see you any sooner. As it is I will probably avoid all human interaction for the rest of the night because I really don't have the energy to pretend to be happy for anyone right now. So...

bye, for now.

your supposed bestie.