Most of us know the feeling of being in a new relationship: everything is sunshine, happiness, and rainbows, and the whole world just seems right. Maybe we know it isn't going to last, but it's nice while it does.
At least in my past, I've expected a lot of my crushes and boyfriends to let me down, or even to go as far as "breaking my heart." Yes, it sucks, but hey--it happens. I'm young, and I knew that my relationship with the guy who refused to shave his sporadic facial hair and made noises like a broken squeaky toy whenever he walked wouldn't last forever.
It's also probably not the best sign when you have your first major fight three days after you start dating. But you know--the other stuff, too.
Heartbreak is majorly crappy, and I felt it even when I was the one doing the breaking-up, but it was something I kind of expected when it came to dating.
It was not, however, something I expected when it came to my friends. The people I had chosen to let into my life, who I hoped would stick around longer than a few months, who knew me better than any boyfriend I've ever had... who I trusted not to hurt me. They weren't supposed to break my heart, right?
The first time it happened, it was like being kicked in the stomach, taking a baseball to the chest, and having a bucket of ice water dumped on my head, all at once (and I know what all of those feel like, so I can tell you that it definitely sucked at least that much). At least when my friendships had dissolved before, there had been a reason: someone moved away, or we had just changed too much and didn't really have anything in common anymore. That didn't mean it didn't hurt, but at least I knew why.
This time, it was just "I'm really busy right now, let's talk later." And then nothing.
At least, nothing to me.
He continued to talk to his other friends, of course. Just not to me. And I was left with this empty feeling in my gut that I can't really describe, other than that I wanted to desperately pull my friend back to me and not let him go. We had been by each others' sides through the heartbreaks that accompanied dating and high school crushes; we had lengthy discussions when they revamped the school lunch menu (and took away our french fries); we had even agreed to go to prom together as friends after we both asked the people we would have wanted to take as our dates and were rejected. We shook on it (though he actually did one of those cute "prom-posal" things later: nothing flashy, but he knew I wished I had been asked, so he asked).
And after all that, over seven years, he's suddenly "too busy" for me? Just me?
I knew that if I tried to reach out more, it would only push him away faster (personal experience), and if I let him go, then I'd be losing one of my closest friends. Which was a very difficult position to be in.
Yup, that was pretty much how I felt.
Some of you are probably thinking "Oh, clearly he liked you and got tired of waiting around while you went out with your squeaky toy," but that wasn't the case. For two reasons, actually: first of all, I had no boyfriends in high school: squeaky toy wasn't until way later. I'm not even sure he knows about that particular boyfriend, to be honest. Second, we were always just good friends: we'd always have some joke to crack with one another, something to talk about on the bus home, and he trusted me enough to share his feelings for other people with me. He was never that kind of guy.
So, on the off-chance that I might be able to salvage the friendship at some point in the future, I just let go of it. I acted as though I believed him simply too busy to talk and that I didn't know he was still talking to his other friends (because he had been texting them while I was hanging out with them). And it was worse than just about any crush who had ever rejected me, no matter how brutally they rejected me, because at least I had prepared for that rejection--I expected it. I hadn't expected my friend to do it.
Sometimes we'll exchange a "happy birthday" or he'll "like" a Facebook post that I made, but I never told him how much he hurt me that summer--how long I avoided Taylor Swift songs because one day at lunch we talked about it and decided that our song was "You Belong With Me" because it got stuck in our heads, or how I shut my prom corsage and the nesting dolls he used to ask me to prom away in the corner drawer of my dresser and piled just about every stuffed animal I had in front of it. I don't know that I'll ever tell him that it still hurts a little when he says "let's stay in touch" because I know he won't, or that I want to cry when he hugs me because just for a second, I can pretend like I didn't lose one of my closest friends the summer after high school. And if I didn't lose him, then it doesn't matter that there was never any good reason for it, or that I still wonder if it could have turned out differently whenever I hear any pre-2012 Taylor Swift.
My rational self knows that I shouldn't let myself dwell as often as I do on the past and what might have been, but my emotional self still wonders, still misses a friend I confided so much in, who covered me with his jacket when I was cold after prom, who befriended me in my middle school days (and we all remember how awkward those were) and somehow got past that weirdness enough to stick around until after we graduated high school.
I have incredible friends now, and looking back, I don't know that I would really change anything... except to know why someone I thought I was so close to pulled away so suddenly. At least with all the other times someone broke my heart, there were reasons: "You're cool, but I only see you as a friend" or "I'm so sorry, but I actually don't like girls" (it wasn't long before we got back around to being friends after that, though). But this time, I'll just look at the photos I have of the two of us having fun--in Shakespeare class in high school, hanging out during our last days of middle school, petting a raven (decoration) in a very sinister manner at one of our senior homecoming dances--and smile, knowing that no matter how it ended, our friendship was great while it lasted, and I wouldn't trade a moment of it.
