To my best friend that wasn’t my best friend, I trusted you.

There were times when others told me that you weren’t a good friend, but I blew them off. I always believed that there was good in you, that you didn’t mean to be mad, that it was just the circumstances. But there was that one week when we didn’t talk, when I saw the way that you looked at me while I sat at one table and you sat at the other.

But still, I went back to you.

Maybe I was wrong all those years. Maybe I was wrong in trusting you, but I still did it.

And when I say that I trusted you, I mean I trusted you with everything in my being. I told you about everything that happened. I told you about who I liked. I told you about something I stole years ago, and about my embarrassing stories. I told you all those things in hopes that you would guard them as closely as I did your secrets, your fears, your hopes. But I would always find out that someone else knew.

But I was convinced that you were my friend; and not only my friend, but my best friend.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I never was your best friend, or maybe I was only your best friend when you needed me. I was there to give you everything you wanted because I cared for you. I feel like I was always there for you, but you were never there for me. I feel like you only wanted me around when something wasn’t going right for you, or whenever you just wanted me around - someone to confide in, someone that I was also searching for.

I figured out I was wrong those years. The nights when we hung out were the best, but the nights and days when you snubbed my friends, my family, those nights weren’t. Those were the times when I thought that you were just using me.

I figured out you were, too.

Why else would you take and take and take from me without ever giving back the same amount? Why else would you show up to talk to me only when things were going wrong, when other people were treating you the way that you were treating me?

I trusted you. I wanted to be best friends. I had heard that college friends were the ones you would most likely have for a life time, and that was just a dream that I had. It was brief and fleeting. Maybe college friends are the friends that will be around you forever, who will be best friends with you. Maybe I just met the wrong person, had the wrong roommate, had the wrong boyfriend, classmates. Whatever it is; I thought it was right, but it was wrong. You aren’t a lifelong friend.

And I wanted you to be so badly! I wanted to be friends with you. I wanted to grow old with you, joke around with you until we were old and gray. I wanted memories, goddaughters and godsons. I wanted it all. What I got was a broken heart and a friend who isn’t even a friend anymore, who won’t talk to me when I enter the room, who like people that I don’t like even though those people have hurt me.

You’re not even a friend anymore. You’re just a ghost of a friend, because I still have the things that you gave me, the cards that you wrote to me. I still have the matching toys. The matching socks. I still have my memories. But the person I see now isn’t the same person. You’re not the same person that I could laugh with and talk to. You’re not the same person I fell in love with.

And that’s okay. I’ve moved on. There are other people to talk to, even though you’re the only person I really wanted. There are other people to laugh with. There are other people like me. And I hope that you find the same kind of people, the kind of people that invite you in with welcome arms, that embrace you and never let go. Because that’s really what you need - you need a type of grounding. You bounce around too often because you don’t know what you want or who you are. So I hope that you find your best friend. I hope you find someone who will love you in a way that only friends can, a way that’s different than that of a significant other, different than that of parents, of grandparents.

I hope that you can find that someone, because that’s what I’m still looking for.

After all, I thought you were my best friend.