dear old friend,

i was reading through some of the notes and letters that you wrote to me all those years ago when we still called each other “best friends”. i read them and i couldn’t believe how two people who were so close could drift so far apart.

what i also couldn’t believe was the way that i treated you, someone i called my “friend” and who regarded me the same. i did some mean things, some terrible things to you. when i look back on those memories, i wonder if it was even the same person, because it surely couldn’t be me doing those things to you. all the while i was having my fun and fulfilling my own selfish needs, you were hurting and i didn’t even take the time to process the fruits of my misdeeds. i wish i had been more sensitive. i wish i could have realized that it was just high school, it wasn’t the “real world” — whatever that is. nothing is as significant and unchanging as it seems when you’re fifteen or sixteen years old. i’ll bet all of the “problems” that i’m faced with even at this present moment will also feel like vague memories of a person i hardly even know.

i just wanted to say sorry for how i behaved in the past and how i took your friendship for granted. i always tend to see myself as the victim of other people’s ethical crimes, but i now see that, between us, i was the most culpable.

we don’t talk anymore; we hardly even see each other, save for that one time in the year we might bump into each other at the mall. things are awkward between us, things will never be as they once were when we could trust each other or even be comfortable sitting beside one another without saying a word.