I was six and you were seven when you sat down next to me and asked me the most obscure questions while our parents talked. Our brothers, both four years old at the time (but now best friends), sat shyly away from each other. I was annoyed with you and all your talking, all I wanted was to read in silence.
I was nine and you were ten when I brought Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets over to your house, expecting to be bored. But you sat next to me on the couch the entire time and I never once opened that book. I remember peering out the window on the drive back, looking at the stars and wondering why the hell my heart was beating so fast.
You were fourteen and I was twelve when I went to camp for the first time. I was scared and alone, but you were sick. You threw up almost every day while we were there and I honestly spent most of camp more concerned about your well being than the activities. I think I may have begged you not to puke on the twelve hour car ride back, and somehow, you managed to suppress it.
I was thirteen and you were fourteen when you watched me cry endless tears over embarrassing myself in front of what seemed like countless people. You simply laughed and told me that it really wasn’t as big of a deal as I thought it was. I wanted to believe you. I’ve always wanted to believe you.
You were fifteen and I was thirteen on my second twelve hour road trip to camp. On the way back, it was rainy and stormy. Although I now love storms, thirteen year old me was ever so timid and scared. You held my hand. We played truth or dare with another girl who later stopped coming to camp. I learned you had a girlfriend and immediately let go of your hand. It felt rough anyway, and it was never more than a thoughtless action to you.
I was fifteen and you were sixteen the year I begged you to be a part of my music group. You grudgingly obliged, and yet all five members of our group had the best time. We lived through every moment together, the sleepovers, the fights, the wrestling matches, the late night practices, the taco bell runs, and surprising everyone with our winning. It was worth every tear and every 3am practice. We were closer than we had ever been.
You were seventeen and I was fifteen during the best summer of my life thus far. There was something to do every day, and my biggest worry was forcing myself through three short summer reading books. You and I talked all the time, yet you somehow managed to make me feel loved when I felt I never was. Then, we had our first real 3am conversation. I thought your feelings were real and that you wanted more than what was beneath these clothes just because we were friends. I overestimated you, didn’t I?
I was merely days from sixteen and you were seventeen the day we sat a little too close in my basement, centimeters from crossing the thin line that had drawn itself since we talked in the summer. That was the day “friends” became too simple of a definition.
Months passed, and we continued to blur that line and even erase it completely at some points. You told me you wanted more, and I was immediately drenched in fear at the thought. Weeks later, I warmed to the idea, and suddenly you wanted nothing more than to be rid of me. I didn’t recognize you through the way you ignored me and pretended I was merely a rancid piece of your past.
On a lonely night in quarantine, we decided to forgive each other. This was the first of the many chances I handed over to you without any respect for my own feelings. You spoke your sweet words, and I clung to every bit, not wanting to waste that taste. Sugar only keeps you high for so long, then there’s always the crash that comes right after.
It wasn’t long after that that I realized what you wanted from me didn’t reside in my humor or the way I talked to you and knew every little thing about you. Everyone had known it much before I had, but to me, you were always the kid who annoyed me with your talking or held my hand when I was scared. You made me put down my book, and very few people could have accomplished that back then. Yet, you made it clear we weren’t those kids anymore. Subsequently, I asked if you wanted out of my life, and to my dismay, you took it. I couldn’t bring myself to cry. I didn’t even think about it because I feared those memories rolling right back to me and creating that horrible lump in my throat.
I made your graduation video, not for you, but for your mom. I watched as you forced yourself to thank me and act like I meant something to you in front of everyone. You cried while giving your speech at your graduation party, but I wanted to laugh. You later came up to me and apologized for crying in front of me and I shrugged nonchalantly because you acted like I had never seen tears in those eyes before. There was a time where I would have hugged you and worried about you, but the person standing in front of me was someone I didn’t recognize. I don’t even think you knew the person you became when we talked briefly that night. All I ever wanted was an apology, some form of regret for taking every opportunity to let your lust blind you and take over the innocence of the love I thought we had. But as I write this, I’m realizing that an apology now would be too little too late.
You’re eighteen now, and I’m sixteen. I don’t love you anymore, and that’s all the closure I need.