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Relationships

To The Best Friend I Loved And Lost

Sometimes when you finally realize it, it is too late.

5
To The Best Friend I Loved And Lost
Mark Manson

Every person has their person in their life. Whether you really called them that before "Grey’s Anatomy" made it a thing, you did. That person is always your best friend, the one person you rely on to have your back, to cheer you up, and to help you back down when you’ve let yourself get too far off the ground.

You were that person for me. But you never knew that.

We didn’t meet until that first week of 10th grade, when we both got stuck in a class that would soon be filled with the weirdest group of teenagers who ever called each other friends. But we clicked, we instantly had similar life struggles going around us. We shared so many similarities it seemed crazy that we hadn’t met before, although we later figured out that my ex kept me from talking to you out of fear of me leaving him.

Before we knew it we were talking constantly, making plans to do things I never had the courage to do until I met you, because I was shy where you were outgoing and I was centered where you were free-spirited. We meshed in a way that made sense to everyone around us that we should be together. But we didn’t.

Years later and we are both in college and even though we don’t see each other every day I help you with work and your relationship problems and you do the same for me. I start to think that no matter how hard I try I won’t be able to find someone on campus to fill your space when you aren’t around. I wasn’t looking for a replacement, I was looking for a new friend who would take to the equation we had built.

I never found that person. But you did. And I was crushed when you did because the late night talks paused and the phone calls describing hilarious scenarios became far and few and the inside jokes never bounced around in our conversations as often because you made new ones. And I wasn’t there so how could I understand it?

So I sunk myself deeper into a relationship that I never truly expected anything from and I can still clearly remember that day when it all ended and he said:

“I can’t be ____. You can’t make me like him.”

I had never had someone say that to me before. All of my other friends always said we should be together but they were jokes, right? I didn’t want to date you, I always said, I thought too much of you like a brother. But did I?

So I sat down and thought about our whole time together and how we meshed and mixed and just fit and I realized after all those years, I loved you. Not in the family way, not in the friend way, but in the romantic way. I loved you.

I put it upon myself that next summer to tell you, to admit to you how I felt, if only just to get it off my chest because I missed you and I needed you to be around even if you didn’t reciprocate my feelings.

Then I never saw you. I barely heard from you. I spent weeks trying to make plans but everything conflicted and fell through and suddenly -poof- you were no more. I still saw what you posted and who you were with and when you did things but I was no longer tagged in the events. I was a bystander. I was just a friend. You had moved on.

You had unknowingly broken my heart.

To this day I haven’t told you, because you are still an enigma floating around me unable to attain but able to be seen. I have grieved in my own special way but I still think about what could have been if I had just gotten to pin you down.

I have come out stronger and more aware of who I am and how I feel towards people, but you will always be the only person who talked to me in class. You will be my funny stories on a Friday night.

But you can only now be, my friend.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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