Dear... Best friend?
We are both sixteen now which means on my birthday this year we also celebrated 16 years of friendship. Our friendship has been kind of rocky, but, of course it has, you can't be friends with someone for 16 years without fighting like an old married couple. We both had our flaws and we both realized we had flaws, and yet I feel like only one of us amended our mistakes. Is this fair to say? I don't know anymore.
Best friend...?
Do you remember when we were in elementary school and you always used to lie? When you told me a whale lived in your basement, and a vampire in your garage. When my little child mind believed you because life had given me no reason not to. It was funny then. I still laugh about it now, but when I look back I realize it was only signs of what was to come.
Best friend...?
Remember when we started middle school and suddenly hormones kicked in hard and we started taking second glances at boys. You took middle school life in strides, and you triumphed while I struggled. I don't think you noticed. Remember when we were at that sleepover and I told you I wasn't pretty? I only said it because I wanted you to prove me wrong but then you looked at me and said, "Its kind of true" and my heart shattered into little tiny glass pieces inside my chest. You were lying then too, you just didn't realize it. Neither did I.
Best friend...?
Remember when I never wore makeup in middle school and then one day one of our friends told me I looked like I was wearing some and I smiled, because that was the closest anyone had come in a long time to calling me beautiful. You just studied my face in that sun bathed feild we were sitting in and told me you didn't think it looked like I was wearing makeup. I think you were jealous. I still don't understand why you had to make me feel ugly to make yourself feel beautiful.
Best friend...?
Do you remember that day in 8th grade where we got into the biggest fight we had ever been in. You started sitting with other people at lunch. Remember when one week in to that fight you came over to me at lunch and told me the people you were sitting with had been better friends to you than I had ever been in the thirteen years you had known me. I knew you were lying then. That didn't stop the wobble in my lip or the tears that spilled down my cheeks. I don't even remember what that fight was about anymore.
Best friend...?
Do you remember when we started high school and for the first time in our lives we didn't go to the same school. You live right across the street from me so we still hung out but things seemed different. I began to look in the mirror and smile at what I saw. Not because anything had changed but simply because I finally wasn't blinded to what had been there all along. I had found my wings but you weren't there to see me soar. I think it was because you were one of the chains holding me down.
Best friend...?
Remember a few weeks ago when we were outside swinging on my old creaky swing set. By then I thought you were long done with your lying, but then you turned to me and lied again. You told me you had seen someone recently that we had gone to middle school with and that they had told you they thought I had gotten really pretty. I smiled and laughed but I knew nobody had told you that, you were just to scared to tell me yourself. I think you meant it as a compliment but all I heard was, "I didn't think you were pretty before." I guess it wasn't very surprising all things considered.
Best friend...?
Tonight is the third night this week that I've gone to bed crying and as I sit here with tear smeared cheeks wishing for someone to talk to, to pull my head above the water because recently I have found times where I cannot breathe, I find myself thinking of you. I wonder how long its been since the last time I was able to really talk to you. We still paint each others nails and fawn over each others dogs and cry at Disney movies together but sometimes I feel like we are grasping at something that isn't there anymore. Something that was maybe never there. I miss you, and I think I've been missing you for a very long time. I wonder if you miss me.
Love,
your... best friend?
