Dear Ex-Friend,
I heard the other day that you are thinking about transferring here next fall. At first, I was a bit in shock. I spread the news like a faithful Southern gossip. I told those that had once been our mutual friends, I told some of my best friends, I told my mother. And then, I expected the shock to go away as the news faded in its newness. But it didn’t. It persisted. Now, everywhere I looked, I caught glimpses of guys I thought might’ve been you. It’s been messing with my head for days.
So now, I’ve decided: I don’t want you to come here. I told everyone that I thought it was a great idea, that it would be perfect for you, that it was exciting, your decision to return home. But I take it all back. I am angry. I am anxious. I do not want you here.
And I thought I had come so far. I thought that I had forgiven you. I still believe that you are forgiven: I said I was sorry for my mistakes, you said you were sorry for yours, and we have thus moved on. I have learned the lessons there are to be learned from our failed friendship: about love and loyalty and forgiveness—of others and of yourself—and hurting. I’ve even almost completely gotten over the fact that everyone else still seems to think that you are this tremendous person, incapable of wrong.
I had moved on. At a new school, in a new city, here at my college, I did that. I made new friends, who understood being used and sympathized with my anger and my hurt and my sadness. I made memories, fabulous memories of side-splitting laughter and memories that only seem to happen in movies, memories of astounding life-lesson understanding. No, I didn’t go far away like you, but I made a new me. A me that would not make the same mistakes that I had made with you.
And now you want to come back. You want to be here. Yes, things are different. I have my new friends and my new lessons and my new memories and my new hair, and you have your girlfriend, your old friends, your old personality. As surely as I know that we can never be friends again, I know you. I know what you’ll want. You’ll want to pretend like we’re friends. You’ll want to do friend things together and give me hugs and act like nothing bad ever happened between us. And a childish part of me still wants that too, so I’ll bend a little. And then I’ll bend some more because I’m a good person and I don’t like saying no. And then I’ll bend even more because you are you and I am me and that’s what our relationship always was before, for seven years: you using and pushing and asking and me bending and bending and bending.
But I don’t want to bend. I am standing and I am saying that I am angry. This place, which felt so wrong at first, has grown on me. There were times that I hid in my room and bawled my eyes out, because I hated this place. But it loved me still. It was patient and it let me adjust. It surrounded me, holding me in its traditions and its citizens and its scenery, waiting for me to realize what a resource I had in its presence. It has helped me grow and become a better person. I can be me here, but I can’t be me here with you.
Stay Gone,
M
