Dear you,

You know who you are, regardless of if you want to deny it or not. When I first met you, you were just another person. You were someone that I passed in the hallways, someone I knew of but didn’t really know. You were not my friend, you were hardly even someone that I could call an acquaintance. I don’t even really know what you were to me, but you were there. Your presence was felt through our mutual friends, I laughed at things that you said even though they weren’t directed at me. You were with a girl, someone whom I knew. She would pull you into our conversations, make you sit with us at lunch. My first real glimpse of you was through her eyes.

It wasn’t until I moved down the street when I finally started to see you with my own eyes. I don’t know what it was that drew me to you, maybe it was your stupid jokes, maybe it was the convenience of it all, or perhaps it was just a weird twist of fate that brought us together. I wiggled myself into your life, not so much finding a spot there but creating one for myself. I would text you every day, first trying to make myself small in a pathetic attempt not to annoy you — but I soon realized that I wasn’t meant to do that. I was meant to be in your life, meant to listen to all of your complaints, meant to annoy the living crap out of you until you kicked me out of your home. Spending time with you became my favorite pastime. You opened me up to a world of new experiences and endless, crazy, stupid adventures. You became my best friend, the person that I ran to whenever I needed something. You were my go-to person when something was going wrong, you were the one I sought advice in, the one who gave me the biggest hugs whenever I was sad. There was just something about you that fit so well with me. We were like two puzzle pieces coming together after being lost for so long. You helped me put all of my pieces back together, and I could never thank you enough for that.

I will always cherish the beginnings of our friendship more than anything else. That long summer that felt like it would never end. We were so happy, so full of life. There was never a day when we weren’t laughing together, enjoying everything that life had to offer while getting to know each other more and more each day. The long summer nights where we would steal food from your house and walk down the street, looking at the stars or watching the fireworks going off from the neighbor’s back yard. That was the summer before you could drive, when we literally walked everywhere. God knows how many miles we walked around that silly little town. And that was when we discovered the steps — do you remember that day? The day that we almost got arrested and I sat on the steps “our steps” and just cried. I remember how calm you were, how you wrapped your arm around me and chuckled at how ridiculous I was being. There has never been a time when you weren’t there for me when I needed you. Our friendship was so special, it can’t compare to anything I’ve ever experienced. You were the one, I will always be convinced of that. No one has ever looked at me the way that you have. No one has ever made me laugh until I cried or made me feel so completely safe and comfortable. I have never had someone accept me so fully into their lives, without question or fear.

Don’t get me wrong, there was a lot of fear between the two of us once we realized what was happening. As our friendship grew, the bond between our hearts strengthened. Maybe you realized it before I did, but we were falling — and falling hard. I fell in love with you so slowly, fell in love without even realizing what it was. I am still unsure of what love really is, but I know that we had it. It’s one of those things that is so hard to explain, something that you can’t put into words unless you’re in it. Perhaps I’ll never fully capture what it’s like to fall in love with you. The feeling is so sacred and so private, I’m not sure the rest of the world deserves to understand what it’s like. Falling in love with you was not scary, not scary in the least. Falling in love with you was so natural that I hardly noticed it happening. I had already grown to love you in everything that you were, our unconventional friendship did that for me. What I hadn’t realized was that through our friendship I had fallen in love with every thing about you. I hadn’t just fallen in love with who you were, but I had fallen in love with who you weren’t. I fell in love with the boy that you used to be, with the person that you were afraid of, with the man that you were becoming. I fell in love with every corner of your soul no mattered how tattered it seemed to you. I fell in love with my best friend, the guy who cried in secret, covered by his blanket in the darkness of his room. I fell in love with the man who laughed louder than anyone in the room, unapologetically and unabashed. I fell in love with your anger, your sadness, your unrequited rage at the world and God and anyone else who had wronged you. I fell in love with your kindness, your unending joy, your optimism that everything would be okay in the end. I fell in love with all of the pieces that made you whole and all of the pieces that I had yet to find.

No, what scared me about our love was that someone like you could find the pieces of me that I had thrown away. You found all of my broken pieces and you cradled them in your hands, waiting to glue them back together. The way that you sat by my side with such patience and love terrified me. I let you in without knowing how far you would really get. I let you into my mind, my heart, and the very essence of my being without any knowledge of what you would do once you were there. To say that you were the best thing to walk into my life might be a cliché, but it is without a doubt the truth. You were meant to come into my life, regardless of where we stand now. I was supposed to meet you and we were supposed to fall in love and we were supposed to fix each other. We were two broken puzzles missing too many of our pieces, and we needed to find each other in order to find parts of ourselves. Without you, I wouldn’t really know who I am. I wouldn’t have found the strength to get through my darkest times. I wouldn’t have found the courage within myself to continue living. Through you, I have found strength and confidence. You have made me brave, fearless, and unapologetic. You taught me how to love myself — hell, you showed me that there was someone in me who was worth loving. You saw her when I couldn’t, you unleashed her into this world and I couldn’t be more grateful for that. Before you, I don’t think I really existed. I have turned into the girl that you always talked about. The one who was talented and passionate about what she loved, the one who looked at people and really saw them instead of seeing through them. You showed me that she was there, underneath all of my flaws and insecurities. You taught me that even the flaws could be something wonderful, that they were nothing to be ashamed of — that they deserved love too. You didn’t see through my darkness, you saw exactly what the darkness was. Your darkness matched mine — you understood who I was and decided to love me anyway. You loved me even when I hated myself, and you saved me from destroying the girl that I hated so much. You have saved me in every way possible, and I’m not sure you fully understand that.

I wish that I could make you understand everything that you have made me feel, but I know that I can’t. Just like I don’t really understand how you have felt over the years, you’ll probably never understand how I feel. I can try all I might, but it won’t ever be the same. You can peer into my soul and there will still be emotions that just cannot be fathomed by another person. You know…I don’t even remember the first time I looked at you and knew that I loved you. In more than a friendly “oh my gosh, I love you so much” kind of way. I’m not even sure when the transition happened. I just know that we were sitting there, on our steps, and I couldn’t stop smiling at you. I looked over at you and I just knew. Who knows what we were talking about, it probably wasn’t important. We were always blabbing on about the future and what we wanted out of life. It was always something silly, but it was almost always important too. That’s the funny thing about love, you don’t know when it’s happening, you don’t notice it sneaking up on you. And perhaps it doesn’t even sneak…maybe it is there to begin with and you just have to let it out. If people are meant to be in love, maybe the love is always there…just waiting for them to come together and discover it.

Our love was messy and big and loud and extraordinary. It was the greatest thing to happen to us and the worst. It changed us within ourselves, it let us develop as individuals and as a couple. It did big, big things to who we are. There were times when we dove in headfirst, and there were times when we both ran away and hid from it. But neither of us can deny that it was there, we cannot deny the power that it had over us, whether we believe that it was good or bad now. Our fights were excruciating, though we could never be mad at each other for too long. There was a pull between us that we couldn’t ignore, or maybe we just didn’t want to ignore it. We always came back to each other and attempted to fix each other all over again.

There comes a time when great things must come to an end. I can say that I’m not really sure why things ended, but that would be a lie. We both know exactly why things went the way that they did. Can we say it out loud? No…at least, I can’t. I can’t sit around and say what happened out loud because there is no way to spin it where we both win. There are no winners here. No one has progressed more than the other, no one has survived better. We have both lost. We lost each other, we lost a part of ourselves, we lost the most wonderful thing that someone can have in this world: true love. I don’t know how you feel anymore, I don’t know how your life is going. We don’t talk anymore, but you’re still in my life. Whenever a song comes on that you liked, or a show that we watched together, or even just a food that I know you would love to try. You infect every part of my life, and how can you not? Up until now, you were everything to me. You knew every part of me and I knew every part of you. Now that it’s over it’s impossible to forget any of that. It’s impossible to forget you, to forget the love that we shared and the pain that came after.

It’s so weird that you helped me through all of my darkest times, and yet you have created the darkest one yet. This pain, the pain of living without you, is the worst pain I could have ever imagined. Some days I think that I’m okay without you, and other days all I feel is a gaping hole in my chest where my heart should be. I know that we both need to be okay, that we are both moving on with our lives, finding other people who make us happy in ways that we could never truly do for each other. But I can’t help but wonder if you still think about me in the way that I think about you. Maybe you don’t, maybe you do, and maybe I’ll never know. I just have to learn to live without you, and I have to learn to let you go. Maybe one day I will be able to eat peanut butter without thinking of you, or hear that one Pink song without hearing you singing along. Maybe I’ll be able to look at the stars without hearing you point out the constellations — or maybe I won’t. Maybe I’m destined to live my life with the ghost of what we used to be constantly following me. Maybe every new memory I make with someone else will have a trace of you in it. I’m not sure how I feel about that yet, but I know that it makes my heart ache. The thought of you brings a smile to my face and tears to my eyes. The memory of being with you makes me laugh and weep. What we once were leaves a hurricane of emotions in my head and my heart, leaving me utterly breathless.

You saved me from myself when I was my worst enemy, and now you have turned into the only enemy that I fear. You singlehandedly pieced me together and tore me apart. You changed me into someone that I was proud of and yet pushed her away. The woman that I became was too much for you to handle. The inevitable truth is that we have grown apart. As much as I wanted you to be “the one” I am forced to accept that you might not be. The more I think about it, the more I question if such a person can exist. Maybe we don’t get a one person, maybe we are meant to find so many more “the ones” in this lifetime. Maybe it was just necessary for us to meet in order for us to add such a significant aspect to each other. Now we have served our purpose and it’s over. It’s time to move on and discover the next chapter of our lives on our own, however terrifying that might be. I don’t want to think that our time together is over, it’s hard to imagine that life can go on if you aren’t in it…

But life is going to continue to move, time is still finding a way to pass, and we are walking on different paths now. What we had might be over, but it remains in our lives. It isn’t any less important, just no longer a constant. We were everything that we needed once upon a time, but now we need something different. Different might not always be negative, but it sure feels like it late at night when I miss you so much that I can’t breathe. One day I will not only be able to breathe, but I will be able to sing and laugh again without my heart longing for you to be there too. I hope that this new path brings you more joy than you ever thought imaginable. I might be broken, but I am figuring out a way to put these broken pieces back together myself. I’ll even keep the pieces that you constructed from scratch, and I know that we will both find new pieces of ourselves to carry with us on this journey that we are no longer on together. I’ll probably always miss you, but I know that this is the best possible thing for us. I will always love you and the broken pieces of yourself that you shared with me. My pieces will always have your name written on them. My heart will always whisper your name at three in the morning when I am lonely. But one day I will be okay. One day we will have all of the pieces that we imagined for ourselves, it is just bittersweet that I may never know some of the pieces that make you who you are.

Sincerely,

The girl who you helped to put together and rip apart.