September 3rd

I woke up with anticipation. Perhaps I knew that she had responded-- perhaps I expected what was coming. Perhaps I was afraid, perhaps not. Perhaps everything took control of me at once and I picked up that phone and checked the notifications, my heart racing.

She responded.

I knew as soon as I saw the first few words that this was not good.

I had gotten angry yesterday. I had sent a message of rants and misunderstanding and anger, pounding my fists against the keyboard. I was unreasonably mad at her for something that caused her anxiety (though at the time, I hadn't known) and I had thrown all of my frustration from the day at her. Without knowing, I had caused her pain.

She was going to leave. For real.

The past three months had been an incredible emotional rollercoaster for me. First came the message that she was going on a temporary hiatus because she was feeling anxious and scared, was hiding things from me, and needed some time for herself. I took that to heart, terrified that I had done something to harm her, and spent the next month shivering in my bed.

But I had the knowledge that she was coming back, then, and I wasn't afraid. I eventually got over it.

Until August 10th. That was when the weight of the world smacked me down.

She told me that she was leaving forever.

We had been friends for over nine years. I met her when I was 5. She was shorter than me, but older. We quickly assumed the title of "best friends" after I accidentally pushed everyone else in my life out of the way for her. That is why it made it so hard for me to process what happened on August 10th-- because I clung to her.

I had clung to her, in fact. From the moment we met to then, I had clung to her as my one and only true friend who always stuck by my side and always talked with me about anything and everything and was always there. I had pushed everyone else unwillingly out of my life to be with her. That was the mistake I had made. Our friendship became toxic, without my knowing. She became anxious and horrified and was hiding it from me. And after a time, she decided to leave.

That was what she said on August 10th. That she was leaving.

And what hurt the worst was that I could not say goodbye.

I thought she would never see anything I said to her ever again, and so I went and emailed a soft "goodbye" message explaining my thoughts in the sentences that a little 4-year-old would write. Just because I thought I had lost her forever.

I spent the day sobbing into my pillow until she answered me back with "goodbye."

Then I found out that I could email her. And so I did. I was on Cloud 9.

But then I found out that my emails were going to Spam, and she would never check that folder for anything.

September 3rd was even worse. It was worse because, in the past three days, she had gotten me excited. She said that she was coming back, and she was going to let me talk to her again. She said that we could talk again. She said that we could be friends again.

But now, on the 3rd, she said that she was going to let go. She was going to say goodbye. She was going to give closure. She did not want to be friends anymore.

I didn't know why. As I stared at the words on the little, glowing screen in my hand, I started to cry. It was August 10th all over again. She was leaving me all over again. But this time it was for real. This time, she would never check her Spam folder. This time, she was saying goodbye.

And I kept crying. And crying. And crying. Because crying was all that I could do. Crying turned to sobbing, and sobbing switched to weeping fairly quickly. I told her, between shaky breaths, that I could not say goodbye.

How could I? How could I have done that? All I ever wanted was for me to have the knowledge that she was there. She was there if I wanted to talk. She was there if I needed to talk. She was there. So how could I, after nine years, tell her goodbye? Tell her that I was OK with the decision that broke my heart? The decision that she was making? The decision that made me weep for days at a time?

I didn't. I couldn't. I wouldn't. I only said the words that I knew were lies:

"See you later."

And I begged her to respond.

I rushed out of the room, the word "Mom!" escaping my throat in a horrible hiccup before I could consider what was happening. I fell into my mother's arms and shook with sobs. She left me! She left me again! She left me again! I repeated the words until I couldn't make words anymore. I was a mess of coughing and crying and gasping for air.

We talked. I don't know how... but I slowly began to feel better. Perhaps the realization just hadn't hit me yet, as it was preparing to drag me down later in the day, hours after the incident had occurred.

I returned to my room to find that she had responded. It was because I begged her to, and because I couldn't say goodbye.

She told me that life gets better. That everything turns out OK in the end.

But it wouldn't be OK without her. Because I clung to her. Because she was my only friend that I relied on. Because she was my person. And because no one else ever made up for her. No one else could ever replace her.

She said that it must've really hurt if I couldn't say goodbye.

Of course it hurt. She had me thinking that we could return to the old days, that we could start talking again, and then she dropped the "closure" on me like an anvil.

She said to take care of myself.

And then she said goodbye.

September 3rd was the worst day of my life.