To my first best friend,

I guess I have no idea where to start this, and I'm even more unclear on where it'll end. How are you? Maybe it doesn't seem like it, but I really hope you're doing well. I guess I just kinda laugh about it now, cause that's what we all do - right? Laugh off the pain? Laugh away the memories?

That seems wrong, but it also seems like the only way to move past it.

It feels like I should say I still miss you, but the truth is... I'm doing well. We went our separate ways; you became the star athlete that we both knew you would be, and I stopped wanting to try to keep up. Losing you to those other girls hurt, it hurt a lot. But now, here I am. I made it through to the other side as a better person. Because of you, my first best friend, I have a better idea of who I am, and who I will never be. I stopped trying to be someone I clearly wasn't. I learned that sometimes people just come into our lives to teach us a lesson, and then, in the blink of an eye - they're gone.

Every now and then, I'll run into you, or see you post a picture with your new friends. A smile creeps up onto my face. They'll never know how we used to be able to travel to imaginary lands together, getting stuck there for hours until dinner was ready.

I sometimes wonder if you ever think about me and my happiness. I wonder if I taught you anything. I wonder if you see my friends and laugh to yourself about the childhood secrets we have, the secrets that they'll just never understand.

So here we are, at the end. We grew apart, and I don't think either of us can determine a specific moment that that happened. My mom would ask me where you've been, and after several months of "I have no idea" being my somber reply, she stopped. We stopped. It all just... stopped.

I hope you're doing well. I truly do.