There was a time I couldn't imagine a world where we didn't talk.
Now, we pass each other like we were never anything at all. Like we didn't stay up whispering secrets until sunrise. Like we didn't share inside jokes that made our stomachs hurt from laughing. Like we didn't swear-out loud, with our whole hearts - that we'd be in each other's lives forever.
And yet here we are.
I don't even remember the last thing we said. Isn't that strange? You'd think you'd notice the moment a friendship ends. That it would be loud or messy. But ours just faded. Like a song that slowly got quieter until neither of us reached out to press play again.
There wasn't a fight. No betrayal. No dramatic falling out.
Just.... distance.
You started replying less. I stopped initiating. You made new friends and I pretended it didn't sting. I watched from a quiet place while you became someone I didn't recognize or maybe someone you were always meant to be, just not with me.
And I don't blame you for growing.
I really don't.
Sometimes I wonder if the very things that once bonded us became the things that slowly pulled us apart. The jokes, the routines, the comfort - maybe they turned into background noise while life's louder demands drowned them out. And maybe neither of us knew how to turn the volume back up.
The cruelty of life.... so cruel.
That's the hard part about healing and changing something the people who mattered most don't fit anymore, even if they were once everything.
But I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt.
I still scroll past your name sometimes, wondering if you ever think about me. If you ever catch yourself laughing at something and realize it was one of our old jokes. If there's still a small, dusty part of your heart where I live.
Because you still live in mine.
In the way I can't listen to certain songs without remembering that night we danced barefoot in the kitchen, too loud and too free to care. In the way I flinch when I hear someone say, "best friends forever" - because I believed that once. In the way I sometimes still turn to my phone, thinking, "They would get this," before I remember we don't talk anymore.
Losing a friend is a different kind of heartbreak.
It doesn't come with the same rituals as a breakup.
There's no closure, no labels, no timeline for when the grief should end.
You just carry it around quiet and unspoken.
I've wanted to reach out a thousand times.
Just to say, "Hey, I miss you." But I don't, Not because I don't care. But because I don't know if you care anymore. Because I'm afraid of what silence would feel like the second time around.
Sometimes I wonder if we outgrew each other, or if we just forgot how to water what we had. Friendships need tending. And we both got busy. Tired. Distracted by our own lives. Maybe we thought the foundation was strong enough to hold without effort. But even the best-built bridges crumble when no one crosses them.
Still, I want you to know this:
You mattered to me.
You still do.
I look back on our friendship, and it wasn't perfect - God, we had our mess - but it was real. You were there when I needed someone to remind me who I was. When I couldn't breathe through the weight of everything. When I forgot how to laugh.
You showed up. Again and again.
And maybe that's why it hurts - because I never imagined a version of my life where you weren't in it. I thought we were permanent.
But the truth is, not everyone stays.
And that doesn't mean it wasn't beautiful.
It just means it was temporary.
And maybe that's okay.
Maybe we weren't meant to walk this whole road together. Maybe we were only meant to share a stretch of it the messy, formative, unforgettable part. The part where we learned who we were by growing beside someone who loved us without condition.
That's what you were to me.
Even if we don't speak anymore.
Even if we never find our way back.
And if, someday, we cross paths again I won't pretend I don't know you. I won't shrink or turn away. I'll smile. I'll hope you're well. I'll silently thank you for the chapter you gave me. Because it mattered. it shaped me.
You helped build the person I'm becoming.
So here's to the sleepovers and the shared playlists.
The long rants and the quiet understanding.
The loyalty. The ridiculous nicknames.
The seasons we survived together. The love we never had to question.
And here's to the silence too.
To the space between us now.
Even that has something to teach me.
I won't force the past to repeat itself. I won't beg you to come back or reopen something that maybe needed to close. I respect where you are. I respect where I am too.
But I just needed to say it:
You were my person for a long time.
And I'll never forget how that felt.
So thank you - for showing up when you did.
For being exactly who I needed, exactly when I needed you.
And even though we've become strangers again,
I love you like family. Still do, in a quiet way.
Wherever you are now, I hope someone's laughing with you the way I used to. I hope you've found peace. And I hope, deep down, you know you were loved even after the texts stopped, even after the birthdays were missed, even after the thread frayed.
Because love like that doesn't disappear.
It just changes shape.
And this letter?
It's not about asking you to come back.
It's just me finally letting go of the version of us I held onto.
Not in bitterness, but in gratitude.
you were a part of me.
A beautiful, messy, unforgettable part.
And I'll always wish you well.
With nothing but love.