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| "This person isn't receiving messages from you right now." |
So, recently, my best friend of three or four years blocked me out of nowhere.
In short, this drawing is a depiction of my initial feelings upon realization that she'd cut me off. There was a mixture of fear and disbelief, but most of all there was pain. It was the kind of pain that sears the center of your chest before it scorches your veins, shuddering through your entire body.
What makes it worse is that there was no warning.
There was little to no build up.
In the last message she sent me she said "I loves you bestie, thank you for helping me feel better." That was Tuesday. We didn't talk Wednesday, and come Thursday she removed me from her life.
I immediately began wondering what I did wrong. Was it because we didn't talk on Wednesday? We've gone days without speaking before, and it never led to this. Was it something else? Did I say something without realizing the negative impact of my words?
What did I do wrong?
I desperately began searching for answers; I spoke to one of her friends, asked if they knew anything, and they didn't. My next decision was to tirelessly hunt through my phone's call log for her number, because I called it just a week or two ago when she couldn't find her cell. The message I sent wasn't angry, it wasn't bitter, it was confused and it would've been heartbroken had I not kept myself from that level of immaturity.
She had to have a good reason, and I wanted to know. I needed to know. Where did I go wrong? How did I ruin this friendship in the course of 24 hours?
What did I do wrong?
She responded, but she didn't provide me the understanding I desired.
Instead of clarifying what I could've done differently, she specified that she was the one who wrong, and that she made the decision to block me for my sake. She elaborated that she can't talk to me without feeling sad, and that she hasn't felt anything beyond that since our previous fallout (something I've moved on from, but apparently she hasn't). Again, she clarified that this was for my sake. You can imagine I wasn't pleased with this.
I felt, in her text at least, that she'd made a very strong case stating that I became the toxin, so I pointed that out and apologized before wishing her well.
Again, she corrected me by saying that she was the toxin.
My first thought was What is this anime hero bullshit?
What bullshit. What tremendously horrible bullshit is that? This stuff isn't supposed to be real. This stuff is only supposed to exist in tv's and movies and books, often as a means of creating empathy between the audience and the protagonist. But, apparently, real life people are just as idiotic as fictional characters, and it sucks.
At that moment, I wanted to yell at her. I wanted to scream and argue and say that she had no right to decide who's bad for me and who's not because as far as I was concerned, she wasn't. In fact, even now, I'm certain that she was by far one of the best things for me. She was a friend, one of the few who understood me and cared for me, and when I was sad she knew how to get me through it. It was something I'd believed, up until now, that we did for each other. I wanted to argue, and I almost started when that same friend I'd contacted before sent me an image.
It was a screen shot.
On my screen, I saw my best friend's latest post, time stamped 11 hours prior to that instant, which read with a sort of vindictive disdain I've suffered before, but never by her.
"People change," it read, "and not always for the better. I've changed, so has the person I just let go of."
Okay. I could understand that. That makes more sense.
Then I get to the last line.
"I just don't want any part of what they're turning into."
It sounds dramatic, but for a second I died. My heart stopped, my lungs paused, even my mind was totally paralyzed. I was, for just one moment, broken into a dust of despair so powerful I believed that life itself had been sapped from my core. This sensation was the culmination of so many things; I realized she lied to me over our texts. I realized I truly have done something, perhaps a string of things, that disparaged my friendship with her. I realized this wasn't a peaceful parting of ways, and that although I would remember her fondly her experience would be different.
She won't speak kindly of me; she never does about people who leave her life.
She won't miss me.
She won't be back.
And, once again, I am alone.
I send her one last text, aware now that she won't respond after this, and tell her she doesn't have to lie.
It's okay. If she doesn't like me for who I've allegedly become, that's alright. I can understand that. I've distanced myself from people for the same reason, so there's no blaming her for that.
Today, I'm upset. Tomorrow, I'll be upset. Maybe even the day after that, I'll be upset.
I'll comb through my memories for examples of how I've changed, but all the differences I come up with are linked to her. They're alterations crafted to better suit what she required after she and I stopped talking months ago, because that's what I thought she wanted. It's what she said she needed before. I'll keep looking until it dawns on me, or until I give up looking.
I'll miss her.
But I'm thankful that I was her friend at all, and in the future I'll reminisce about our memories and time together happily.
