rachelleneveu | Honey, you're like a bad movie

Dear Blondie,

This has been very difficult to write, but it is something that I have needed to say for a long, long time.

We were close longer than I expected us to be – since I was thirteen and you were fourteen – and the fact that this friendship is over makes me sadder than you’ll ever know. You introduced me to The Weepies and convinced me that it wasn’t such a bad idea to audition for Concert Choir, you taught me how to play Guitar Hero and were my partner in crime through most of the drama going on backstage during the musicals. I still remember all of our long walks home, and mornings with the others in the Math Office hallway, and sitting with you at prom under the rose arch, you in pink and me in black, stars above our head and pretty lights woven in through all the leaves and flowers. I still have the valentine you made for me the year I graduated high school, right in the box with the letters I kept from all our bitter, silent fights.

I still think of you whenever the shuffle button brings up For Good on my iPod.

But the last time we spoke face-to-face was last August, and ten minutes into our last-minute luncheon you chastised me for “forgetting your birthday” the month before – even citing that as your reason for being “angry” with me prior to our meeting. Like an idiot, I apologized, and claimed that a book I had left in my car to read on my lunch break was an unwrapped present I had been meaning to drop off at your house and simply hadn’t found the time to.

An entire year has passed since that brief meeting at Starbucks, and I feel like I am entitled to ask you, sweetheart, where the fuck have you been? Where were you when Tessa threatened to burn all my books during our worst argument in years? Where were you when my favorite uncle passed away? Where were you when it felt like just getting out of bed and making the drive to school would finally be the thing that killed me? Where were you when I needed a friend, Blondie? Where were you when I needed someone to tell me that things would be all right, that the world wasn’t crumbling around me and that my continued existence actually meant something? Where were you on my birthday, when everyone but Harper and McBuff and my parents forgot?

Or is it only okay to mention these things when it is coming from your side of the argument? I was at the same college for three years, dear. I’ve worked in the same place since the summer of my graduation, I’ve had the same phone number since high school and I’ve lived barely a mile from you for years. You have no excuse for this extended absence – you have no right to claim that this is solely my fault. As self-centered as it might be to quote myself, this isn’t a one-way street, Blondie. It’s an intersection. You can’t just ignore me for a whole fucking year and expect me to come running back the second you start having problems. I’m sorry your ex-boyfriend broke your heart, I’m sorry all the new “friends” you made in his social circle dropped you like a bad habit the minute you two ended things on less-than-friendly terms, I’m sorry that the stupid Tolkien tattoo that you got for him makes you cringe in shame whenever you look at it. I’m sorry that he’s gotten himself engaged to a girl he’s known for only four months when you two went out for three years. I’m sorry your new boyfriend “doesn’t understand” how you’re feeling and that there isn’t anyone in your life you can talk to about this. But none of this is my problem anymore.

Sometimes it feels like all I have ever done is apologize to you, or agreed with you, or talked you down or comforted you or convinced you that whatever terrible thing was going on would, ultimately, work out for you. Sometimes it feels like you only kept me around because you wanted someone to hurt from time to time; a puppy you could kick and cuddle and reward, on occasion, with a treat in the form of praise or hugs or a pat on the head. Sometimes it feels like that all I ever was when I was around you was your shadow: no substance, no body, nothing…just a grayed-out little mimic that couldn’t even exist without you as a point of reference. And sometimes it feels like if you hadn’t shut me out, I might not have grown as much as I have, because however long it’s taken me to realize it, I’m not your sidekick anymore, honey. I’m not a parrot on your shoulder or a dog you can tie up outside of the grocery store; I’m not a magic mirror that will tell you what you want to hear or a studio audience that will react the way you want them to. I’ve outgrown that.

I’m moving on and out and up and I no longer need you to validate who I am. I have pens in my pockets and words in my head and I have seen some of this wide, beautiful world that lies beyond the intersections the streets in my hometown make. I have a new school and a new car and a brand new bookcase, I have people that love me and strangers that care and a dream that might actually get me somewhere if I try hard enough. Someone, whose opinion I value much, much more than yours, once described me as “important.”

As much as I would like to reminisce over the bones and bodies we buried together, to do so any further would be pointless. I’m not that person anymore. I’m over you, and that’s all I have left to say.

Goodbye, Blondie, and this time it’s for good. I wish you nothing but the best, but maybe a little bit of trouble, too…just because I’m mean.

Sincerely,

~~Sparky~~

~~Madame~~

~~Rachelle Neveu~~