First off, I’d like you to know that this wasn’t your fault. There’s a lot of things I need to clear up. So I figured the best way to do that, would be to start at the beginning. Well…not the “beginning” beginning. But the beginning of all this.
It started before I met you. Two and a half years before I met you, actually. I was in seventh grade then. And up until that time, I was the typical eleven year old middle-schooler. I wore my hair in a ponytail, I turned in the majority of my work on time, and I had sleepovers about once a month with my two best friends.
It was in seventh grade, that these feelings of happiness started to slip away from me. They slipped away pretty damn fast, too. I wasn’t the only one. One of my best friends- a girl I sat diagonally across from every day at lunch- well, her happiness slipped away too.
You’d think that this would have brought us closer together, but it drew us further apart. As I watched helplessly from the sidelines, she started running around with a new group of girls. Specifically, girls who hated me.
That was when I decided the world was against me. And, honestly, it was at the time. I was the “weird girl” and my best friend left me to cry to myself every night over piles of homework that I eventually decided to never do.
That was when I decided to start hurting myself. It wasn’t a hard choice to make. It was the only thing that made any sense at the time.
And no one knew. And so I assumed no one cared. And so I hurt myself even more.
By the end of the year, a few of my friends discovered what I was doing. They, being loyal friends, did what I told them to do- to not tell anyone.
And in eighth grade, the story was much the same.
My best friend still pretty much denied my existence, and I remained the “weird girl”. Of course, eighth grade me had developed quite a bit. I made new friends- an array of dorky boys.
And things got better. But I didn’t.
I faked sick the days that were too hot to bear wearing long sleeves. I faked sick the days I had big tests. I faked sick the days after I was humiliated. I faked sick when homework piled up too high.
Despite all of this, I graduated and went off to high school.
I made friends. I was happy. But not happy enough.
I was an expert at hiding what was really going on, though.
Second semester was when I met Rachael. I don’t think anyone knew what an impact she would have on us all.
We sang in choir together, and her soft voice carried to my ears every so often.
We talked a lot- mostly about boys and bras. We laughed- mostly about boys, bras and poop.
Though I didn’t know her well, I considered her one of my best friends. Or at least, I thought we could be best friends in time.
But the thing was, we didn’t have time.
Rachael killed herself in April. And left me feeling guilty and lonely.
But, as crisis tends to do, it brought out a deep love between us all.
And that’s when I met you. You brought me out of grief, made me feel loved and gave me what I had been craving for so long- a true best friend.
We spent almost the entire summer together, hardly going two days without seeing each other, and texting almost every waking moment.
When Sophmore year started, we remained joined at the hip.
But stress and jealously twisted my thoughts, and my depression was worse than ever.
It makes me cringe to think about the constant stress I forced on you.
I spent a week in a mental hospital.
I came back into the real world.
And, though I didn’t think they would, things changed. I finally stopped hurting myself. And our friendship slowly was restored.
But I think you blame yourself for not being able to take care of me. For not being able to save me from myself.
I’m so sorry.
Our friendship slowly is returning back to normal. It’s going to take a lot of hard work for me to completely fix it. But I have faith that it will return to how it was.
I’ll fix it. I love you.