No one is obligated to read this, I welcome your comments, questions and thoughts, but this post is really for myself to try and let go by getting this out in the open, something Ive been wanting to say for a while to a specific person but I am not as brave as I like to think I am so instead Im sending it out to you all, for my sake more than yours. therefore, if it isnt what you expected and you dont like it, please, I would rather you keep it to yourself because everyone has their own internal problems and obstacles that they just cant overcome.  This is mine, as immature as it might seem. 

Dear  Sarah*

I like to think that we were best friends, or at least somewhere close to it. 
We became friends in 5th grade, when we were too young to even know what real friends meant, but that didnt matter.  In middle school we became even closer, we took dance together, we hung out with the same people- you were one of my best friends. In the middle of 6th grade[?] we had our first fight.  It was when you hurt your foot and had to take the elevator and I helped you out.  That was when I noticed that the girls in our class started using you.  Pretending to be your friend so that they could take the elevator with you.  I knew that they were faking because when I broke my leg that same year, a girl who i barely talked to even had the nerve to call me up and ask me to go on the elevator with me. But when I tried to tell you, you didnt believe me.  After that, you started changing, it was like you started getting more hyper and more.. fake because thats what the "popular girls" liked you for.  And then, in the middle of class one day you called me out on being "too serious"  If you were going to say that to me you couldve said it not in front of everyone. 

I imed you that day after school, I know, not the best way to have a fight, especially not right before that dance rehearsal we had (you were the girl that broke their leg in center stage.)  I told you that you changed and you said it right back and we fought for 15 minutes?
and then I saw you at dance rehearsal and so i said sorry, because I knew it was easier, and I knew that we were going to be spending the summer together so it might be a good idea to stay friends.  We made up and it was fine and then, we went to Camp Minter(?) in Canada. 

His name was Adam  And he was older.  Much, much older.  He was going to be a  junior in high school I think, and we were going into 7th grade.  And it started with playful flirting with both of us.  He pushed our canoe onto a rock in the middle of the lake and stranded us,  we had a shaving cream fight with him.  He poured chocolate pudding on us at lunch.  Camp ended, and you and Adam stayed in touch while he and I did not. 

Next summer:
He definetly liked YOU.  and It wasnt that I liked him.  It was weird though how you left me alone for him, and I wasnt ready to be alone.  And then, since he was a councelor and you were a camper, things started getting weird.  The other councellors would talk about how you too would always be alone together, and how they suspected you guys were dating, which wasnt illegal or anyting but it was against staff rules, and so, you asked me to defend you, and watch your back,  and I did, i really did.  only, okay
ill admit that I was jealous, not because Adam talked to you more, not because it was clear that he liked you after he gave u that bracelet he made, but because you had a boy and i didnt, you were winning the undeclared war that had started that summer. 

Next year in school:
I talked to Adam online that year, just like you did.  I heard both sides of the falling out that you had  "He was too clingy,"  "she never had time to talk to me and was always making excuses"  I ended up being the weak link in your relationship, uninentionally
"Hailey, please get her to forgive me, I'm not even sure what I did, but please, I miss her." 
"Hailey! hes coming to new york, oh my god, you have to save me, I have to sleep at your house and we have to avoid him like the plague." I was in the middle of a place that I was not asked to be in and I hated it. 
I hated the late night conversations with him telling me how embarassed he was that he liked someone four years younger than him.  I hated the conversations I had with you when you denied your love for him.  
you  didnt come back with me that next summer.  I knew it wasnt because "Oh I needed to do something new" I knew it eas because of him, and so did he, and yet, while we both werent over it, (him, because he still liked youand me because i was for the first time on my own) we both went back. 

that summer:
was the best summer of my entire life.  I fell in love with him, for a short while.  you were our connection.  I became the "new sarah" as my friend jon called it.  And I hated that, but i liked him too much to stop hanging out with him after the bonfire, and to stop having waterfights with him, and to stop him from picking me up and spinning me around when he got an e-mail from you for the first time in months.  I am ashamed to admit that I longed for his touch upon my skin, i faked that I was upset simply because I knew he would ask me about it and we'd have an excuse to be alone together when I could look into his green/hazel orange eyes. 
I was so angry with you for not coming back that I wrote you a letter.  and you wrote me back apologizing, that old game that we played with one another. 
I cried a lot that summer.

you told me the truth about what u felt about adam one time, and i promised I wouldnt tell anyone especially not him.  And I didnt, I swear I didnt

we went to high school together.  "LETS STICK TOGETHER THE ENTIRE TIME UNTIL WE MAKE FRIENDS< OKAY HAILEY???"     thats what YOU said to ME.  And then, on freshmen retreat you told me we shouldnt be close anymore
"lets not really be close anymore, well thats not what I mean we should still be close just not, that close, like lets spread out and make our own friends in our own ways."  you indirectly ruined me. I cried a lot that weekend.  In my bed, while trying to fall asleep, on the phone in the closet of another friends room where you wouldnt hear me.  You wounded me so bad and yet when you needed me I still came back to be your friend. 


At the end of that year you imed me one day, much like that first fight we had back in 6th grade.  You told me how I "Stole?" your friends. and then when I countered your attacks saying you stole my friends, you told me that saying someone was stealing friends is immature to say, because we can be friends with the same people.  But you said it first. 
You said you thought I was replacing YOU within our group of mutual friends from home.  You said when you came to me with your Adam problem I laughed in your face.  You said that i prevented you from making friends, that you cried yourself to sleep every night, partly because of me.  That it was my fault that OUR friends didnt invite you on trips with us sometimes, when they did the same thing to me.  you said that I told Adam, everything that you had told me and made me promise not to when I didnt. You accused me and blamed me.  I cursed at you a bit because I didnt know how to deal with the things you were saying to me, and because When I clam up, when i get angry, I curse, you should have known that about me.
I cried so much that night, more than I ever cried in my life. 
that night ended our friendship
completely.

I tried to talk to you about it. 
A few weeks after ignoring each other, after painfully talking to each other because we had to present a school project together I finally mustered up the courage to march right up to your locker and say "dont you think we should stop ignoring each other already, its getting kind of silly"  
to which you replied "I dont know why you are mad at me, but I sure am mad at you"
"for what?"
"well, besides ffor evrything we fought about, maybe the fact that you told ADAM everything I told you [which i didnt]"
"I didnt, I swear to god, I didnt"
"then how did he know that I said he was the reason I didnt go back to camp"
"I swear I didnt tell him I swear,  he probably thought that on his own, Sarah, i swear i would never do that to---"
and then you turned your back on me, and walked away in the middle of my sentence with fresh tears pouring down my cheeks in the middle of the hallway.  If Dana hadnt been standing there, oh god, if she hadnt been right at the next locker overhearing everything I would have collapsed on the floor, but instead when I turned around I collapsed into her arms, tears overwhelming me as I cried my heart out on her shoulder. 

I will never forgive you for walking away from me. 

After that we were aquaintences, we talked a bit,  but it was hard.  and now we barely talk at all., which is even harder because we have every single class together.  When I see my friends becoming your friends I get so angry that my blood boils.  that you have the nerve  to "steal" my friends after everything weve talked about. 
I tried to be friends with you again, I really did, but you ignored my efforts. 
I am sorry if I was a bad friend
I am sorry that things turned out the way they did
and I am sorry to myself that I for some reason just cant let go. 

I hate this, and I hate you, and I hate myself for it.
I still wish that we could be friends, and I think that is one of my major flows, that I just cant let go of a friend, but you are starting to make me think that I might have to, that I already have. 

I still cry at night a lot.  And a lot of the time it is because of you
I shouldnt care this much, but I do anyway.
I hope one day that I have the courage to show you this letter, to show you how much you tortured me, and how much I tortured myself for what happened with our friendship.  I hope that I can give u this letter and then turn my back on you and walk away like you did to me when I tried to apologize, but I know that I am bigger and better than that. 

and so until that day comes i will continue to beat myself up over something out of my control because that is just the way I am, and probably always will be. 

SIncerely,
-Hailey


*names have been changed to protect the identity of the individuals involved in the actual story