To The Girl Who Took Away My Best Friend and My Brother:

He and I grew up together. We were raised by our grandma together while our parents were gone. We had some of the best times growing up. When he had to move away, it was probably one of the saddest times in a five-year-old’s life.
When he moved back nine years later. Everything changed. It took an adjustment period, but we started getting really close. I helped him and his parents move into their new house. We helped our grandparents move into their new house out in the country. We started taking walks and talking about his life back in Maryland. We talked about music and video games. He’s the reason for my love of music. He got me interested in video games. He is or was one of the most influential people in who I am today.
After we got closer, we were inseparable. We played games together. We still took those walks. We talked about guys and girls we liked. We were both enrolled in the same school. We stuck together at all the family events. Talked about all the people we disliked in our family and school. Told each other everything.
Uncle and Aunt started their foster care thing. That’s when you came into our life. My dad told me to make friends with you because we had gone through the same things. I tried. I introduced myself. I talked to you about your life. I invited you to things. We went to youth group together. All three of us. I didn’t like the person you were. I didn’t like how you treated people. I hid it where no one would find out. I never spoke up about how I felt about you not even to him.
He started to date my best friend and you started getting jealous. You admitted all of these feelings you said you’d been hiding from everyone.
Next thing I know, he is coming to me and telling me that you talked to him about these feelings. I told him it probably wasn’t a good idea. When he talked to my dad about it, my dad said the same thing. He knew the type of person you were too, even at fifteen. Everyone went along like this, he continued to date my best friend and they were happy.
Then his parents started fighting. His mom was addicted to drugs, and consciously chose them over him. It tore him apart. He started pulling away from everyone except me. He wanted to run away. I talked my dad into letting him move in with us. Countless times we stayed up all night and just talked about his feelings, and slowly he started getting back to normal, with me at least.
His feelings of abandonment were causing problems in his relationship though. You knew this. You started trying to hang out with him. He was honest with my best friend about this. She stopped trusting him. She stopped trusting him with you. She stopped trusting him with me.
He moved back in with his dad and his dad’s new girlfriend, who was completely terrible in all ways. She treated him so much worse than he ever deserved. He was miserable.
After a year or so of being untrusted and disrespected, he and my best friend broke up. He moved into my grandparents attic. You took advantage of this. He was no longer a minor. You were no longer living with Uncle and Aunt. No one could tell you who you could and could not date. You guys started talking more.
I started to get scared. We still went to youth group together. We still hung out. There was something different. I could tell. Not long after this, you stopped talking to me. You started giving me dirty looks and you started sitting away from me so he had to choose who to sit with. Starting out, he sat with me. As you guys talked more, he started choosing you. It killed me. We had been inseparable for almost 5 years straight. Suddenly everything was about you. Suddenly, you were dating. Suddenly neither of you talked to me . I was angry. I was sad. How could you take him away? I could still physically see him, and talk to him… but only when you weren’t around. I told him that it was a bad idea. That before you guys even started talking that everyone knew it was a bad idea. Your relationship would be toxic. Everyone told me to shut up and mind my own business. I couldn’t. I continually texted him and told him he needed to change his mind. You told my dad. You told him that I wasn’t backing off. I got my phone taken away. After a month of not having my phone, I gave up. Maybe if I wouldn’t have given he’d still be here.
When I found out you joined National Guard, I was so excited. I knew you would have to go to basic, and other summer things. I knew that this would be hard for him. I knew this would put a strain on your relationship. Your first time gone, he and I hung out every day again. It wasn’t like it used to be though. It was less natural. He didn’t talk to me like he used to. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone we hung out. I wasn’t allowed to take pictures. We had car rides, and store trips, and video game talks, but it was never the same. Something was different about him. You ruined him somehow. I tried to ignore the fact that he was always looking over his shoulder for you even though you were down south. I tried to ignore the fact that he always talked about you.
Sure, you both seemed happy enough in the relationship, but something was up. I knew it. I never pried. I never inserted myself into the situation again because you were so caught up with getting what you wanted. You never once thought about how all of this made everyone else feel. He told me you joked about only dating him for his last name. He told me you joked about dating my Grandmas foster kid because it didn’t matter how you got the name, you just wanted it. He told me that you were mad that Uncle and Aunt couldn’t adopt you. You just wanted to be a part of our family, or you wanted to feel like you were.
When you came back, he was gone again. It was worse this time though.. Someone told you that we hung out while you were gone. You started getting meaner with him. Playfully in public, but when I saw you with him, I could tell he was scared. Scared of what I wasn’t sure. I never knew how you were with him when no one was around. I knew I didn’t like how you treated him in public. I knew that he deserved so much better than you after everything he had been through. He didn’t deserve to be thrown in the dog house for being around people who actually cared and loved him. He didn’t deserve any of this.
Second time you went away, we only hung out one time. July fourth, at his brother’s house. It seemed better this time. It was like it used to be. Maybe it was because he was having doubts, about you, about the direction of his life. It was nice. It was one of the last times I saw him.
Fast forwarding to when I found out you broke up, I was ecstatic and at the same time pissed. I was pissed because now I could actually let my true feelings out. He started talking me more, and I was passive aggressive, and I snapped at him. I told him I was sorry every day for it. It was just hard to pick up where we left off after being so angry for so long. He knew I loved him. He knew I cared so much about him. He knew that after all that time, I would still be there.
Christmas time rolled around, and this was the first time I’d seen him since you broke up. He was being strange, sad I supposed. He didn’t have anyone for the holidays. Now that I think about it, maybe it’s because you were rubbing your new boyfriend in his face. He was being grouchy with me all night so I didn’t sit with him. I went and sat with the rest of the family. That night he messaged me on facebook and he asked me to be nicer to him, because he was going through a lot. I told him okay and that if he needed to talk I was there to listen.
Christmas day, he was late. He seemed to be in a better mood when he came in. He sat with us and we all joked together. My friend Bryon came over and I introduced them and they got along so well. I got out my Cards Against Humanity and we all played together. We laughed at the morbid sense of humor the Harrison family has, and he and Bryon played off each other’s card and then night went great. There were quite a few cards that He didn’t know what they meant, and he messaged me and asked what they meant. I’d send him the definition and he laughed what seemed like randomly to the rest of the people at the table. It was really funny. After the game, he left without saying goodbye to me. I thought that I’d see him another day.
Two days went by, and I was at work. He texted me at 1:30, before my third break. He had a question for me. Third break rolled around and I answered him, I answered him not knowing that I was never going to get an answer back. 3:55 on December 27th, I got a call from my cousin in California crying. She wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. I knew it was bad. My thoughts were racing. I thought something happened to our grandparents. I tried to go back to work. I had a full blown panic attack. I had to call my parents, because I wasn’t going to be able to work in the condition I was in.
I called my mom. She told me that he shot himself. My first reaction was me collapsing to my knees outside at the picnic tables at my work. I just kept saying no. No. No. It couldn’t have happened. He just messaged me. Then I thought, maybe it was okay. Maybe he’s not gone, but he was. He was gone and I never got to say goodbye. I never got to hug him again. I never got to tell him I loved him to his face again and I never will. My mom told me you were there. You were there when it happened. It made no sense to me. It made no sense that you would’ve been in his apartment. It made no sense that you were the last person to see him. He did it because of yout . Whether or not you pulled the trigger is irrelevant. He loved you, even though you were an emotionally and possibly physically abusive bitch to him. I felt so sorry for you at first, but that all changed the second you lawyered up, the second you blew off the polygraph test. I have no sympathy for you now. I hope it plays over and over in your nightmares. I hope you know it’s your fault and I hope you live with the guilt forever. I will never tell you this. I will never tell you my true feelings about this. I hope you regret it, and I really hope you stop throwing yourself a pity party. You will never get the sympathy you want from my family. We all resent you. We all know it was you.
You emotionally abused him for the last two years of his life. You controlled him, and you took him away from his family all because you were jealous. I don’t even care what you think of me. All I care is that he knew I loved him, that he knew I cared so much, that he knew everyone cared so much. I wish he knew how much he’d be missed, and how much he was loved. I wish he would have had the strength to walk away from you or at the very least stand up to you. He was so scared of making your life worse when that’s how you should have been to him.
You took away my brother, not only in death but in life too.