This Photograph

In this photograph you are smiling, and you are happy. In this photograph we are still friends, we still laughed, we still loved, and we still thought it was going to last forever.

I thought it would last forever.

In this photograph you were still by my side. You still talked to me, you still comforted me, and laughed with me. I thought it would last forever, with you by my side, both of us in college together. No one could ever separate us; we were one and the same. You were mine and I was yours. We were best friends. You were my best friend.

In this photograph you smile at me, even though you are sick, telling me it will all be okay. You were right, as you always were. In this photograph you include me, telling me it will all be over soon, the dance I was forced to attend. In this photograph you tell me it will be okay. And you were always right.

What this photograph doesn't show me are the cracks that had been clawing their way into the glass of our friendship, trying its hardest to break us apart. I had never even noticed. What this photograph doesn't show me is how everything would fall apart, how you would grow to hate me, how our friendship would end in a single day. It doesn't tell me how you blamed me for everything, or how I would never see you again, or how you would never speak to me again. It doesn't tell me how much I know you hate me. It doesn't show me all the pain I was going to go through, blaming myself, hating myself, wondering what I did wrong, and why it had to happen. It doesn't tell me that I would cry every night wishing you would come back, it doesn't tell me how I would soon forget the way you spoke, the way you looked, and the way you laughed and smiled.

It never showed me all the pain we would both soon go through. It didn't tell me what you were truly feeling, what you were going to go through after. It didn't show me how I would scramble through all of my memories of us trying to figure out what I did wrong, or how I could've fixed it, or when our friendship had started to break. It never told me that I would not be okay even months after.

I can't bring myself to delete your number, to throw away your pictures, to block you, to hate you. I can't. I have always loved you; I will always care for you. I treasure the pictures I have of you, because I never want to forget you and I hope to see you again someday. I hope that you will forgive me as I have forgiven you, and I want you to know that I don't care what happened in the past as long as you are happier now.