"Not all heartbreaks come from lovers. Some are stitched into the silence of friendships lost."
We were once two peas in a pod. Where there was you, there was me. People saw us as a pair, always in tandem. Every time I walked on my own, they would ask about you.
"Are you two related?"
"Are you twins?"
And in that, I felt seen. I felt known. I felt loved by you.
Growing up as an only child, with no siblings to lean on, I became the eldest cousin. The responsible one. The one expected to hold everyone together.
They call me when they need money.
They call me when they need answers.
They call me when they need to be saved.
But when I need someone, who do I call?
I have only me.
Me, myself, and I.
Until you came along.
You were the first person I truly let in.
We figured out life together.
We shared music, memes, and heartbreaks.
We bashed the boys who broke our hearts.
We danced in kitchens and dreamed on balconies.
We held hands through grief and laughed until we cried.
You were my one and only friend.
You were family.
But now things are different.
You don't have time anymore.
I send a text and pray, pray, that you'll respond.
I watch the ticks turn blue but stay silent.
I know I don't have space in your life anymore.
When he came into the picture, my image became blurry.
Now he is your world.
He gets your time.
He gets your laughter.
He gets the you that once belonged to me.
When I call, you drop it for him.
And I am left holding onto fragments, pretending I'm happy for you.
Smiling through the grief of a friendship that used to be my home.
All I did was miss you.
Yearn for you.
Call you.
Seek you.
Like a fool.
And now I am alone.
I guess we've reached a crossroad.
I guess this is the story of girls who used to laugh at boys for breaking our hearts, only to one day become those stories ourselves.
At least this heartbreak is mine.
And I will learn how to mend it.
Piece by piece.
Praying that I never grow to resent you.
Because resentment feels like poison, and I am already choking on too much.
I text first.
I call first.
I plan first.
And each time, I wonder if you even notice how much of myself I'm offering.
How exhausting it is to always be the one to reach out.
To be the one who keeps trying.
To hold the rope while the other person just lets go.
You didn't even notice me slipping.
Tales of a girl who was never loved back.
Not by the crush.
And not by the friend.
Maybe this was our situationship all along.
Our dreams now lie like dead wood, dried out and forgotten.
Phone numbers deleted.
Messages unanswered.
The warmth now gone cold.
We are strangers now.
Strangers with memories.
Strangers with the remnants of a fragmented friendship.
But what hurts more than the silence
Is knowing that the secrets I whispered to you
The stories I trusted you with
The pieces of me I gave you
Have now become pillow talk.
A bonding session between you and him.
A sharing of my wounds in the comfort of his arms.
Left vulnerable in the eyes of someone I never gave permission to know me.
Do you even know how that makes me feel?
Naked.
Exposed.
Violated.
Not with hands but with words.
With betrayal.
Like the ripping of a skirt
The echo of a scream
And no one stopping to ask if I was okay.
My soul feels stripped.
And I am forced to stay indoors, to stay invisible,
Because I no longer feel safe.
I feel taken advantage of.
I feel erased.
A dwelling heart cannot explain betrayal.
It simply aches.
And so I smile.
Because I have to.
Because the world doesn't stop for girls like me to grieve lost friendships.
I smile while I learn how to breathe again.
And in all of this, I whisper what I wish you had once said to me,
"I'm sorry."
But you never did.
You brought this all to yourself.
Breathe.