To the guy who hurt my best friend,

Over the past two years, I’ve wanted to write this a thousand times, but I was too full of anger to form sentences that didn’t consist entirely of a string of the foulest words I could think of. I am not going to mention you by name because my best friend’s privacy and comfort is the most important thing to me, but you know who you are, and you know what you did, and if you’re reading this you know that it's for you.

She is my favorite person in the world, my rock, my secret keeper, my shoulder to cry on, and my biggest support system. This is a person with more love to give than nearly anyone I have ever met, and she gave so much of that love to you. You never hesitated to take all of the attention and affection she offered you, but you repaid her with cruelty instead of kindness. You told her that it was love, and maybe if you hadn’t been the first guy she had fallen for she would have seen through your lies. Maybe if I had watched a little more closely I would have noticed them sooner. We’ll never know, but I’ll always wonder.

My friendship with her was two years long and ten years strong before you came along. We met the summer before my freshman year of high school, at a time when both of us were feeling a little lost. We each needed a friend and we found each other, and I’m thankful for that every day. She was, and still is, the best friend I have ever had. We were inseparable, it didn’t matter where we were or what we were doing. As long as we were together it was all smiles all the time. For the first few months of the two of you dating that didn’t change. She was still my silly, happy, fun, loving best friend, and I was actually thrilled that she had found you, somebody to love her the way she deserved to be loved. It wasn’t until several months into the relationship that I really began to notice how much you had changed her.

You tried to isolate her from everyone who loved her, and I saw it happening. After the first few months, I could tell that you weren’t good for her and I didn’t hesitate to tell her so. The response I was met with shocked and scared me. She was angry with me and defensive of you, and for the next few months we argued more than we had done throughout the entirety of our friendship. I felt her slipping away from me, and so I eventually stopped fighting with her about you. I kept my mouth shut, and maybe it was because I knew she was going to need me as you continued to hurt her, or maybe I was just being selfish and I didn’t want to risk losing my friend. I made the choice to stop trying to make her see how awful you were for her. I still don’t know if I made the right choice, but I can’t go back and change it.

After spending a year as a person I didn't recognize, she started to come back to me. We were supposed to be spending the day with her family to celebrate her birthday and we drove over to your house to pick you up. You weren’t ready to go, and so we sat in the car and waited while you finished what you were doing. After about twenty minutes, she called out to you and asked if you were close to done. You responded by cursing at her and complaining about how she hadn’t thought to help you, even though you hadn’t asked her to. I remember how furious I was. I unbuckled my seatbelt and went to get out of the car to put you in your place, to tell you that you could not talk to her like that, but she put her hand on my arm and told me to just leave it alone. I remember feeling sick to my stomach as I looked at her that day and saw, for the first time, the extent of damage you’d done.

After that day, things began to get better. She started talking to me again, really talking about how hard things had been between the two of you, and how the way you had treated her in front of me was just the beginning of how bad it really was. A few months later, she called me crying. She told me she knew she had to break up with you, and I swear, I have never been more relieved to hear anything in my entire life.

She did it a week later over the phone, and I know that it was hard for her despite all that you had done. You were her first love, even though you never loved her, and it still pained her to say goodbye. After that things seemed to get worse instead of better, and I didn’t understand why. It wasn’t until about six months later when she told me how much damage you had really done that I finally began to understand. With that understanding came a lot of guilt. I feel that I should have been able to prevent the pain she endured, no matter how many times she told me I couldn’t have done anything. It has been two years, and I still carry that weight with me every day.

Now I know everything. I know how you manipulated her and treated her like a possession. How you told her that everything that went wrong in your world was her fault. You intimidated her, disrespected her, and made her feel like you were all she had in the world. You reveled in every tear that she shed and gloried in her misery, and I hated you for it. I hated you for every time you made her feel unloved, for every moment she felt that there was no way out, for hurting her more severely than I had ever seen anybody hurt, and for trying as hard as you possibly could to take her away from everyone who loved her. The summer after you started dating I was going through a hard time, and you told her to stop talking to me because “I was probably going to kill myself anyway”. Well I hate to break it to you, I’m still here, and I haven’t forgiven, and I will never forget.

I wish you could see her now, all whole and healed and happy. She has done so many incredible things since you tried your hardest to break her, and I would love nothing more than for you to know that. My best friend is smart, funny, beautiful, supportive, loving, and stronger than anyone I have ever known. You didn’t break her - you didn’t even come close. I could not be more proud of who she is now, and how well she has healed despite all the hurt you put her through. So, I hope you see this. I hope you know that though you caused her pain, she was strong enough to take the hurt and use it to grow into the incredible person she is today. I want you to read this and know how happy and loved and successful she is now, and most of all I want you to know that you will never be any small fraction of the incredible person that she has always been.

All wounds will heal, all pain will end, all scars will fade, and no matter how long it takes happiness will be found again.