The Death of a Friendship

Our meeting was entirely ordinary. It was nothing no one hasn't heard a thousand and one times over. We met at work. I'd seen you around school. You were a grade above me, but we had some of the same friends, I'd never given your existence much thought until I saw you there. Even after a few weeks, I still didn't do much more than nod and say hello when I saw you. But I was interested. We were the same age, went to the same school, worked together, who wouldn't be interested in someone they were seeing every day? I don't remember how we started talking, but somehow those quiet hellos and soft nods became full fledged conversations.

I remember the first time you came to my house. I still have the pictures from that night. I think you were the first friend from school that I'd ever had over to my house up until that time. We had planned to get pizza and watch a movie. I remember me getting us lost trying to get to the pizza place because I was absolutely awful with directions, I still am. We were having so much fun, you were nervous about meeting my parents, you thought they wouldn't like you. That was mostly your anxiety talking. The night went off without a hitch, and I felt like I had been blessed with a friend who would be mine, that I wouldn't have to share. My possessive streak was as wide as the grand canyon even then. I had spent my whole life sharing things that were "mine," I didn't want to have to share my best friend. You liked it I think. You liked that I was willing to give you so much of my attention as long as you gave me the same amount. That one night change both our lives. We had found someone to truly relate to and it worked...for a time. And then it happened. The other parts of our lives started invading our world. That girl, the one who had the gall to call herself your friend, used you. She didn't just use you, she broke you. She left you abandoned, and took all your other friends with her. I was the only one left. I was the only one there to help you pick up the pieces. I wanted to be there. I did, I swear it, I did. But I couldn't. I wasn't enough. It killed me to know that I couldn't do it. I'm not that type of person. I'm too independent. I came to resent you, for needing me, for not understanding that I couldn't be that person. I tried. I tried so hard to be the person you wanted. I answered every text, picked up every phone call, listened for hours upon hours to you pour your heart out, to you telling the same story every time. I tried to help you work though everything, through what she did to you, through everything you were figuring out about yourself. "It wasn't your fault," "You didn't do anything wrong," "No I don't hate you," "I don't care if you like women." These words and so many more I whispered as a held you crying in my arms. Those word I said a hundred times over and over. When you left for school, things got better. You didn't have the reminder of her everywhere you went. But then they got worse. You made new friends, were experiencing new things. But then she muscled her way back in and the careful balance you'd created fell apart.

Just as quickly as she came she left leaving even more destruction. I got angry. At her, at you for letting her back in your life when you knew (Because you did know) that nothing good would come of it. I was so tired of having to be the one with my life together, when I felt it falling apart. I didn't even know what I wanted to do with my life. I was drowning and I couldn't even talk to you about it. You were so selfish. I couldn't talk about things because I knew if I did you'd get upset and you'd cry, and you already spent to much time crying. I got to the point where we stopped having conversations, and in place you would just talk at me for hours. We were fighting all the time. Nothing I would say was right, if I said anything slightly against what you were saying, our phone call would dissolve into angered words and tears. I was tired, and fed up. That last fight was the worst. It was so stupid, I called you childish and you got offended, you said that I was in no place to call you childish and I said that only a child would say they weren't a child. You started crying and I hung up. The next morning we called it quits. Just like that, two years down the drain. I was relieved to not have to pretend to want to hear the same story over and over. To not have to pretend that I didn't know how you felt about me. So we didn't talk, for days, weeks, months. About two month after our radio silence you called me. I almost didn't answer. You asked me to listen, I said I would. You said you loved me, that you were in love with me. I said I knew. I said I was done. I couldn't be what you wanted and I was done. I hung up. You didn't call again.