Dear Ex-"Best Friend"

Dear Ex-"Best Friend",

I wish things didn't have to end the way they did. Abrupt... in anger... and me feeling betrayed. I wish that the good times didn't feel like they were all a facade to appear a certain way to those around you. You called me your "best friend" without knowing the truth of what those words meant. Turns out, I didn't even know the real you, I wonder if anybody really did or ever will. I feel used in order to keep up an image. The "good girl" image that I gave off and you wanted. I am too trusting. I would have done anything for you, like you were a sister I never had, but you wanted someone when it was convenient for your needs. I gave up asking you for anything because when I did you were nowhere to be found.

Always busy, always vague. Enough to ward off more questions yet keep your "friends" close. I wish I had known all along about the things you were lying about in order to try to hide the pain. I wish that you had been honest from the start. I would have accepted you the way you are and would have been there to help you work through everything you had on your plate. Maybe then you would have realized that the using wasn't what friends do. Instead you lead a double-life, maybe even more. When confronted, you stuck to your lies while discussing me behind my back. I will accept whatever kind of person you are, but liars are my exception to that rule. So I ended things because there were more second chances than I could count anymore.

You pushed people away in the darkest moments. Then you broke when things were looking up and you needed to be strong. I tried the best I could to be there, to visit you in the hospital, to invite you out, to just be there to talk. I often feel that I didn't try hard enough. That somehow if I had talked more, or talked less, or checked up, or had done any number of things differently... then none of this would have happened. But I know that this is not the case and that some storms cause damage no matter how prepared you are for them.

I truly hope that you can get the help you need and get your life on track. Mental health is no joke, and if you are struggling still I hope you can reach out to somebody and be honest. Even though things ended poorly and in anger, I do not wish for anything negative to happen to you. You deserve better than what you were handed and what you decided you deserved as a result. You deserve the happiness that only you can bring back into your life. The choices we make in the past do not mean that we cannot move forward and make better ones in the future.