I never started out with the intent to hurt you. It sounds cliché, but it's true. You were my casual friend for several years, and my best friend for a couple more. We shared some really great times, and some really not great times. I don't hate you. My heart still longs for the time when we could talk about anything or nothing at all and still have the best time ever. But if we're being honest, the pain you caused me wouldn't be worth returning to our friendship.

I never felt like I could be myself around you. You were strong and opinionated, and I let you tell me how to think. At first, I wasn't even aware that I was doing it. Any time I found myself disagreeing with you, you stood your ground until I changed my mind. There was no convincing you because you were always right. So instead of telling you that you were wrong, I kept it in my head and reminded myself that you were just as smart as me, only misinformed. Then over time, I began to trust myself less and always defer to you. I didn't even always trust you -- I just didn't want to rock the boat.

We spent so much time together that the line between where you ended and I started began to blur. If I accomplished something, you were almost always with me, and vice versa. At first you really helped me. You encouraged me to do what I wanted and thought was right, and to not care if someone else thought I was stupid or wrong. But it turned into something more than that. You began to take possession of my life. If I did something extraordinary, you thought it was as much your story as mine. You began to weave yourself so tightly into my life, my journey, my struggles, that I wasn't sure if I was me anymore. The tapestry of my life had so many threads that weren't mine, and I didn't know how to change them to show my own colors.

I should have seen the warning signs when you had trouble hanging onto your other relationships. You had so many ex-best friends. You chalked it up to their faults and insecurities, but it was really that you were so possessive and manipulative that no one who was smart could stand to be near you. You always got what you wanted, until someone managed to break free. You frequently toyed with people who were in other relationships, and you always justified it with, "They're not happy together," or "They're breaking up soon." You wanted what you couldn't have, and even then you still got it.

I had to let you go, for the safety of my personhood. You were slowly erasing me from my own life, and I couldn't bear to stand by and lose myself to you. There came a point when I sharply missed myself, and had to get me back. And I did it. I wrote you a letter telling you all the things I couldn't stand about you, telling you how much you had held me back from being myself. It was scary because I didn't know if you would let me go without a fight, but you let go, and I've been free ever since.