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*unrevised*

I remember my first love, he was the boy that moved into the rental across the road. We both had trampolines in our yards and would occasionally say hi to one another when we would go outside. It was fourth grade when I walked into my class with a high mohawk and awkwardly sat next to me. I spoke little English but we would sign at each other to communicate better. Even when he was moved into a different class we remained friends until 5th grade when we finally got into the same class and our friendship bloomed. I kept my crush a secret since all of my friends liked him but a friendship was much more valuable than anything that year. That year I stopped talking to a lot of people but not him, he stayed through it all and listened to me when I needed someone. This continued through 6th grade where he would help me with small deeds and favors. He would make me mad, happy, sad, and all the feelings in between but he was still the same friend. Until he moved one day I learned through one of our mutual friends that his lease ended and he moved away. I tried reaching out to him through Facebook but would always end with a "delivered" and would just forget I ever texted him. Until one day he finally replied, and we began texting and calling as if no time had ever passed between the last conversation and the message. I remember him telling me he was interested in a girl and as much as I wished it was me, I knew he was talking about someone else. I helped him pursue her and indeed he won her heart. According to him, he was madly in love with her at the ripe age of 14, but those were the years people thought they found their true love. I stayed friends with him during the start of their relationship and even got requested by his girlfriend, not having any malice I accepted it thinking we would be friends as well, but instead got accused of flirting and trying to sabotage their relationship. I tried reasoning with her but her lack of understanding led to me arguing with her and the decision of girlfriend or friend came up and I was immediately removed from all socials. He sent one message before ultimately ending the friendship, to take care of myself and good luck in life. I was devastated he chose her over me, how I had known him for all those years but she who met him less than a year got him to leave me. It took me a while to get over what happened and my friends would try to motivate me to not push people away, but the fear of them easily replacing me would always be there. A year or two later he finally replied to my blocked messages which I would occasionally send messages to as a keep safe (obsessive, I know) and I finally got a reply, which was an apology for his ways all that time ago and although I accepted his apology, it was a half-assed apology only to make him feel better. He was still with her at the time of the text message but I found out a few months after that message they broke up. He's with someone else now, but I wonder if he ever cherished our friendship, he might've not seen it as a first love story, but he was mine. A one-sided first love, a platonic friendship.

A few years after his apology my best friend told me about her knowing everything that happened since he texted her as I argued with his girlfriend. She hated that he chose her over me, but he told her he still cared about me and he knew I was having problems at home but he knew he could trust her with me and to take care of me. He knew he was gonna lose me forever by choosing her but he wanted to show her he was being serious about her and sacrificed our rekindled friendship. It sucked to hear but it helped a little that he wanted to set things up for me to know I won't push everyone completely out. Unfortunately, I'm not friends with her anymore, so it wasn't worth his time after all. Regardless of that, thank you for being my first love CC.

This song has nothing to do with the story but I listened to it a lot the year we rekindled our friendship.

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I remember talking about all the concerts we would go to together in the future. Sharing so many favorite bands and artists. Of course, without a doubt, you claimed to introduce them to me, but the truth was I knew of them but never cared to remember the artist or the name. I would look for a Playlist and just listen to them, did you believe me? Of course not. It's been years since our friendship ended, so why does it hurt me so much seeing people I never knew were close to going to those concerts with you? I don't ever think I would describe this feeling as being FOMO or jealousy. I think I'm still in agony, you're probably doing better than me honestly. Finally doing what we both dreamed of with the people you're the closest to. I remember you comparing your hurt with mine and yours would always surpass me because death is the worst event to go through. But if you knew what struggles I've gone through since our friendship ended, would your life events still be worse than mine? If I could have a life update with you, I don't think I would even show up, because no matter what I've gone through, my feelings never mattered. After our long-term friendship, people's feelings always come before mine, right? Maybe I should thank you for teaching me worse problems are going on than what I'm going through. I'm being overdramatic with my life events, right? I guess that's why I minimized my problems and numbed out my emotions when it came to my personal life. I know I'm over our one-sided friendship, so why do I always feel shaken up by seeing a picture of you? Should I just block all of the mutual friends we had? Should I erase all of my socials where I'm bound to see you? Should I truly replace you as you asked me to do so? Out of our time together, I always thought if we fell out, we would at the bare minimum agree to remain acquaintances. So why did you wish me good luck with my life?

"i completely understand and i felt this distancing as well and i just wanna say thank you for being a part of my life and helping me make memories. i hope you accomplish all your goals and dreams. thank you for everything"

This was your last message to me, if you were to read this, would you have worded it better? Or would you have not sent it at all? I sometimes wonder if we were face to face and you had no time to plan a message, would it have been the same? I thought I knew you as a person and a friend, but I didn't even know you. Sadly, you didn't know me either.

This song goes out to you dear old friend, a song we both enjoyed together. We sat outside of the school door along with all the other car riders waiting for the doors to open and let us in. Sharing earbuds while sitting on the cold cement. The simple times when we shared our life stories and opened up to one another. A time when our only worry was getting to school on time to warm up our favorite spot before the other arrived.

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When I was a freshman in high school I befriended a girl named A. We met through a mutual friend or cousin and got along rather quickly. We had very similar interests and hobbies and joined our friend groups to be a big friend group. We joined a school team together to be admitted for our sophomore year. My best friend (E) was already on the team and all of my friends from my middle school years were in it as well so I was pretty excited. We did everything together, A and I were close in doing things as friends and would even hang out outside of school. During this time she had a boyfriend that I hated but would deal with. I also had a bad reputation with classmates and was looked down upon for being an overreacter for everything, but I didn't believe them because I knew A. I would defend her and support her when I could. In the winter season, we had a lower classman join the team (G) and befriended her quickly and became the 3 musketeers of our small group. During our junior year though, I began to notice A talk to E more, and began to exclude me from conversations and hung out with one another seemingly leaving me out of. I decided to leave things as is and ignore them. They confronted me about it of course and I told them the truth on how I felt and was let into their conversations. Thinking I won my place back for a close friend and best friend, I felt the tension and began to leave them behind or find excuses to leave earlier.

One day during a practice a teammate was messing up and the group stayed behind to do the consequences. They placed A in charge and she took her position very seriously, to the point of yelling at a freshman. I pulled her away to make sense in her head if he fuck up and when doing the exercise, A smacked my head and I fell back but I got up and finished. We left off the hook and while walking back A kept asking if I was okay and if it hurt while trying to touch it. I would pull away and tell her it was fine and that I was doing good, everything was fine and it was okay, at least I got hit and understood. At the time my dad and I were not on the best terms and was getting picked up by him so I had to leave early to wait outside right on time. When I made it back to place my equipment in its place I saw A come in and a call on my phone from my dad. I waved bye while answering the call when I heard A call me. We were going back and forth while I was trying to leave trying to make her understand my dad would beat me for not being on time and she would stress that I was always talking about being confronted with people people had with me but would run away and try to defect it. She would cuss me out until I responded the same way and left angrily. My dad didn't question me since he had the call connected to the car speakers and he ended the call and drove me home. I know that I should have reacted differently but I was just so angry and thought that if anyone should apologize it would be her since she started with the name-calling when I was busy and had to leave. In actuality, she took me off of her social media accounts and blocked me on all of them, and the next day seeing if things simmered down she walked past me ignoring me. This happened for months until we just stopped caring for one another. I started getting looks when I would walk down the hallways, more specifically from the people in our group and the team, I asked E about it and she said she had no clue. I asked G about it and she said she overheard A telling people I was messed up, stuck up, and conceited. Everyone would agree and there began the ignoring, I didn't mind it since I saw friendships as an earned thing between people and if they didn't want to talk to me it was okay.

A year passed and it was our first game of the season, A walked up to me and asked if she could talk to me about something. Previous to this G warned me about her trying to mend things and I wanted to see how she would say it. "Hey, I know it's been a. However, I wanted to apologize for what happened that time in the hallway. I'm sorry, I just don't want any bad blood between me and people for my senior year. I just want to be stress-free this year with 0 problems". I received the apology I needed, but not the way it had to be stated, but the apology was accepted. She would try to fix things and talk to me more but it wouldn't work at all. She would tell me about her relationship with her toxic boyfriend and I would just nod, I knew there was no genuine reason behind it other than helping her. I went through my senior year and graduated without ever thinking about her or worrying about her even though she followed me back on social media.

A few years later I received a message from A asking for us to meet up and talk about things. She wanted to apologize and catch up. Not knowing what to do I asked my boyfriend at the time what he recommended to do and mentioned the fact that I took his apology and to look at us now. Taking it we met at a boba place and we were there for 2 or 3 hours talking. She told me she was a stay-at-home mom with a special needs baby living with her mother-in-law to get the extra hands. She wanted to move out but her boyfriend started working in the gas company and was doing very well, and not to worry about him. Ever since he became a dad, they both matured for the baby and have a good relationship. I was taking it all in and finally, she asked about me, I just told her I was trying to finish up school and had a boyfriend but that was pretty much it. We slowly started talking about what happened all those years back and for some reason, she kept saying I was wrong and remembered wrong. She said, in summary, it was from before the bonk and it was me who started it because of my tone and downplaying things that were missing me. I told her she misunderstood the situation and I never meant for things to be interpreted that way. I told her we both messed up and there was no true victim in the situation and she told me to agree to disagree but still apologized for everything. She asked about my friendship status with G and E. Unfortunately I don't talk to either of them but with E I had an ugly friendship break up and was confused at her not knowing. Not that she should know, but she was part of E's friend group and it was still a pretty fresh event. She denied it but would ask questions that would insinuate she knew everything. After everything we hugged and said goodbye, we had to do it more often and so on. I texted her the next day to follow up on her request, but nothing. I texted her a week later, but nothing. I decided to just leave it and take it as her way of "clearing her head" and taking the weight off her shoulders. Maybe some friendships are meant to end and never be fixed.

A, I know that you were known in high school as a drama queen and exaggerated everything from panic attacks in the lunchroom leading to a trip to the ER, admitting yourself in, and yelling at me. But when you name-called me in front of others and talked shit behind my back, I still wanted your friendship and thought you would want mine. Instead, I was a conceited person then and never a true friend. At least I outgrew those titles whereas yours perfectly fit you.

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My mom showed me an invitation from an old friend to her daughter's graduation. Her daughter(S) and I met after our moms met in a workout class together. They brought up the idea of each other bringing us together and becoming friends, naturally, we ended up meeting and hitting it off. When S and I were friends I would go over to her house and we would share our interests and hobbies, so I understand her mom wanting to invite us since it's been 10 years since we met. I just can't wrap my head around the idea that S wouldn't tell her about the argument we had which ultimately ended our friendship. At the time, my best friend(E) brought up a painful memory and poked fun at it with her friends in front of me. E knew she messed up after I started to ignore her, her reaction to my ignoring was to cry in front of everyone. But I was blamed for making the "sweetest person" cry. S, after seeing E cry, came up to me and said I was a horrible friend and to call myself her best friend but making her cry so easily was messed up. I told her if I was such a bad friend, she should go and be her friend instead then maybe it wouldn't have happened in the first place. Looking back, I know I was just a kid and it was probably very immature to say, but I knew we needed space after what happened. But when S butted into the situation after seeing E cry rather than asking me what happened was uncalled for. Sounding as petty as it was, how come she never brought up our fallout to her mom? I know her mom LOVED to compare our accomplishments with one another, and S would always be "better" than me in all remarks. I thought S would bring up the argument or even the fallout we had and maybe wouldn't have even thought of inviting us. Instead, it's been 6 years, and it seems as though her mom is clueless about the fact that S and I have had no contact since the dispute. My mom and I have the conclusion that she just wants to show off that her daughter graduated college and wants to ask what I've been doing with my life while her daughter finished her degree to compare us at least one more time.

I found out a couple of days after our argument that you found out what E did to me and you felt too bad to come and say sorry. I guess staying silent was always your style of dealing when dealing with things that didn't go your way. It's okay S, I forgive you for blindly blaming me, but I'll never forget the way you screamed at me in the hallway while I was on the phone with my mom.

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