Darby,
I really thought we were going to be best friends forever. In theory, we could become best friends again if I sent this letter to you, but we really wouldn't. Not with you in Rhode Island, still working towards stardom last I checked, and me still in my parents' house, writing my way out of oblivion.
Our friendship didn't last a decade, we just happened to be friends before lives could be measured in decades. You weren't even aware when I attempt to kill myself at fifteen because we had grown apart by then, separate classes and after school activities turning into separate lives. I most often think about you when bringing up my height, how you made short jokes at five feet while I'm forever at four foot eight, short enough people barely dare to joke at my expense. I loved you even when my jealousy of you felt like I was being eaten from the inside. That was just part of being friends with you. You were sought after by modeling agencies and record companies and had your mom blogging your childhood while mine insisted she had to publish a book about my brother before she would write about me, and even when she did, well, it wouldn't matter by then. New name and all, nobody would recognize me.
I wondered how you felt when your dad started teaching at our high school, but we weren't friends anymore by then so I never had the chance to ask. My dad swears your family moved to our neighborhood, waves everytime he passes the house he swears your dad now lives in. I wouldn't know. I mean, I guess maybe I could send this to you since we're still Facebook friends, but I don't know if I will. I don't know why I'm writing this.
I sometimes still remember that poem I wrote about when you found a dead rat in my neighborhood. I still know about your allergy to strawberries and wonder if you outgrew it or not. I can never forget your birthday since it's also my mom's birthday. I don't know why I'm writing this. I guess part of me misses the simplicity of having a best friend when I was five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, even twelve years old, the way our memories changed through the years, the ways we fought and you fought with my other best friend (the one I had a crush on, who I also considered writing a letter towards but I don't know, you are still more relevant to my life than she became).
I hope you're happy. I hope you stayed with that boyfriend you came to Boston Pride with, and he treats you like a princess. I hope when you remember me, it's with better memories than the pathetic ones I filled this letter with. We had many great times together, I just happen to have a memory like a colander, everything falls through.
- Felix
ns216.73.216.141da2
and then Add to home screen.