dear ex-best friend

Dear ex-best friend, I know it’s been two years. Since our walls came crumbling down. For two years, I tried not to think of you because it was you who hurt me, time and time again. I gave you all the bullets that people shot at me over the years, only to turn around and see you holding the gun, meticulously loaded, with the same bullets. Sometimes I go over it in my head, and I know that we were both at fault, but for different things. I never meant to hurt you, but you, in wistful revenge intended on twisting the knife inside me. What hurt the most is that when the blood started flowing and the smoke cleared, you didn’t fight. Not for our friendship, not for your love. You let me bleed because if you went down, you wanted me to go down with you.

Dear ex-best friend, you wanted me to be the Cinderella to your Prince Charming, but you had it all wrong. Even if you were Prince Charming, I’m not Cinderella. We were in two different stories. You didn’t love me, you loved the idea of me. The idea of me being a trophy, and inferior by all means. Is it so bad that I refused to settle for that? I’ve said it before, you were the known, and I long for the unknown. The problem was that I could see it all with you, the incessantly boring and mundane life, I could see it all, a perfect fairy tale and that’s what was wrong with it. Do you know the pieces of me you cut out to fit into your twisted fairy tale? What was left?

Dear ex-best friend, you were the one who fought dragons with me and entered the wizarding world with me. You took sunset walks with me and we rode our bikes together. We watched movies and ate bad cookies, we cooked good pasta and drank fake wine. In the most innocent way, you were my childhood, every story I lived, I lived with you. I mean, we fought dragons together and built castles, so when did you decide to send them cascading down on me?

Dear ex-best friend, you painted me as the bad guy, but behind closed doors, you know the things you called me. The words you called the girl who rejected you, the ones that drip with hatred and shame. But I can walk away knowing that I never meant to hurt you, can you say the same? You exploded and left poisoned shards in me. You had to see it, we were never meant to be and I was never going to be your trophy. You knew what you did, and I didn’t. But I’m not here to talk about that.

Dear ex-best friend, I wish I didn’t, but I miss you. I don’t miss how you embedded your claws in me and left me hurting for years, but I do miss you. I think you would have loved the person I am. I mean, I grew out of everything you touched, and as my body reinvented itself, everything you knew was gone, so you really don’t know me anymore. Maybe you never knew me at all. You don’t know my new dreams, my new memories, my new fears, and my hopes. You don’t know about the things that shape me anymore. I know you can’t have me in the way you wanted, but I just hoped that having me in some way was better than no way at all. My holes are healed, but I don’t think the scars you left will go away. I hate you but I love you because you were my best friend, my brother, my family. So even if all the bullet holes and blood are dried and I become indifferent, you still have a small part of our memories. Like someone once put it, “Just because you lost me as a friend, doesn’t mean you gained me as an enemy. I’m bigger than that, I still wanna see you eat, just not at my table.” So you can’t have a spot at my table, but I hope you’re okay, and I know it’s a little messed up, but I just wish you got to know who I became because I think you would have liked her.