Best friends – that’s what we used to be, or at least I thought.

Two years, that’s how long you were in my life. Seven hundred and twenty-eight days, give or take a few. Within that short-lived span, I confessed to you my deepest secrets. I showed you the big, bad, and ugly pieces of myself. I shared with you the chapters in my life that only a limited few know. I told you crying and vulnerable. I opened myself up to you in a way that to this day only two people have seen. Despite my openness and defenselessness, I was still a fake friend to you.

In the middle of the night, I would respond to your texts of desperation with a call. I would attempt to shelter you from the harsh world of high school and the peers that accompanied it. Slow and distant echoes throughout those cold blue and yellow walls would wish you harm. But instead of leaving you isolated, I would stand beside you and quiet the voices. It was I, who did not leave your side. It was also me who did not repeat the words of hopeless you whispered into my ears every night we spoke on the phone. However, I was still a fake friend to you.

Despite my undying efforts, I was never a good enough friend for you or to you. At least, that’s what you attempt to tell my best friends and anyone who will listen. Apparently, I cannot be trusted with secrets and significant others. I am prone to cheat, to steal, and to betray. If I am being completely honest, which is something I always offered in the supposed friendship, I was not the one with the problem. I never cheated, but you did. Not only did you cheat on the friendship, but the boys you dated. With the aid of your “true life-long friends”, you spread the rumor of your boyfriends and I. Although, it’s funny. These rumors you told were to hide your indiscretions. Those guys never deserved the way you treated them and neither did I.

Recently, after a year of going our own way, you created a ripple in the network of our friends. You called war and forced them to choose sides. It never had to be this way. In fact, this is my final word to you. It’s the heartfelt truth and raw emotion. This piece is absent of the lies that you seem to tell everyone, but never to my face.

In your words, “you have to have real friends to understand how worthless the fake ones are.” Believe me, I understand this. Quickly, after I erased you from my thoughts, I realized that pieces of myself were chipped away while being your “friend.” You had always made me feel that I was not enough. Every accomplishment that I achieved was overlooked into comparison of yours.

Often, one of your quick digs will pop into my head. Then suddenly, they will all flood in. In your eyes, I tried too hard and then not enough. I was unnatural in my appearance, because I wore foundation and mascara to accessorize. You were the star in the friendship and you would never let anyone share the lime light. If anyone threatened your position of high-standing, you felt it in your power to knock them down a peg. No one is your equal in your perspective. But I do not accept your mindset.

Personally, friendship is more about the other person than myself. It is about giving more than you take. Furthermore, it’s about uplifting and respect rather than criticism. Friendship is not a dictatorship. I’m afraid that you’ll continue to push others away as you have with me until you come to this realization. You and I are done. But you have the rest of your life to search for your “real friends.” I hope that when you find them, that they don’t treat you the same way that you did me and the countless others.

I learned at a young age to treat others the way you want to be treated. Trust me, it still applies.

Goodbye.