#basically fuck

it’s so hard to come back from being blindsided by someone who doesn’t want you in their life anymore, and it’s harder still when they truly didn’t do it out of malice or desire to hurt you. you somehow wake up and just don’t fit as people anymore and when you were fine, totally happy with how things were, finding out that the other person wasn’t and hadn’t been for a long time is so fucking earth-shattering.

regardless of how many times they tell you you were good, you can’t believe it anymore. if i was good, how did this happen? and how far does my responsibility even go in the first place? you’re stuck between putting all the blame on yourself and all the blame on them. it’d be so much easier if they had been a petty, shitty person but they weren’t; they were just a person. 

there’s a selfish part of you that hopes they made a mistake, that they’ll realize in a few weeks or a few months that they miss you, and an even more selfish, slightly sadistic part that wants that to happen just so you can say ‘fuck you’ and laugh in their face. you won’t, though, even if it does. 

you know the worst part is going to be the rest of the routine staying the same; working shifts together, having the same physical proximity as ever, but with a giant censor wedged in the middle. you can’t talk to them anymore. they don’t want you to. you still don’t know exactly what the catalyst was, they couldn’t seem to elaborate, so it’s not like you can act around it. 

in the past, the key to situations like these was to find the break and fix it. find the thing you did wrong and never do it again. find the thing someone else did wrong and talk through it. but now there’s no thing, not that you’ve been told about anyway, so you can’t do anything. it’s going to be weird no matter what and that kind of cringey awkwardness is literally the worst feeling.

it’d be so much easier to hate them. it’d be so much easier to put all that sad energy into mentally calling them a lying cunt every time you happened to pass by each other, but you can’t even do that without lying to yourself. you know that’s not what they are.

and if they’re such a good, genuine person (they are), what are you? how did you not notice? 

how long? you’re not sure you want to know; part of you wants to know so badly it sort of feels like you’re having an asthma attack, and part of you wants so badly not to give a fuck. how many compliments were heartfelt and how many were faked? why, why, why, why did they stick around for so much longer than they should have when they could’ve just gone? despite knowing that it probably would’ve hurt just as much a few months ago as it does now, you still wish it could’ve been sooner rather than later. it’s easier to snap a twig than to cut down a tree.

plus with the tree, there’s a big ugly stump in the ground that’s a lot of extra work to get rid of.

you’d been told in the past that you shouldn’t jump the gun, shouldn’t overreact and panic just because something seems off, something you just can’t put your finger on. you have a history of overreacting like this so this time, you didn’t, and look where it got you. the one time you’d successfully convinced yourself it wasn’t gonna be the end of the world and it was. you’ll be literally consumed by the maybes if you think about them too hard; maybe i should’ve said something when i first noticed. maybe i should’ve pushed it. but you know it wouldn’t have done anything. you know exactly what the answers would have been. if you’re right about when it all started, they had already begun with avoiding the honesty you probably both needed.

it all begs the question to be asked, and asked over and over and over; what’s wrong with me? is it that something’s wrong with me? is it really just situational? you’re stuck going from i’m a good fucking person, a good friend (somehow they still tell you that you were) and i’m going to end up all alone and that’s just as selfish as the first thought or maybe even more.

you’ve also cried more about this than the death of your own mother and that’s also pretty fucked up.

you don’t have to stand next to your dead mother at work and pretend you didn’t really love this person next to you and pretend not to feel literally nauseated by the fact that despite what’s been said, they probably never felt that strongly about you. you were a friend. approximately two years of an experience that you guess wasn’t built to last. you weren’t used, so you can’t feel used, but you feel something similar to that that you can’t think of a word to describe right now.

even if something changed in a few weeks or months (and wow that’s even more nauseating to think about) you’re not sure you’d want to try again anyway. you’re the type of overly-dramatic person that always insists they’d do anything for the people they love, but what now? would you still move mountains to help them if they needed it? probably. but not at the expense of yourself and that’s a good first step. you just couldn’t ever believe them if they said nice things to you. you probably should. they’ve never been the type to lie, or make trouble for the sake of trouble. still, you can’t.

you wonder if anybody else knew before you. anybody who shares this perception of you that drove this friend away. who else, if anyone else, wants an out they’re too scared to ask for? too scared of hurting you to ask for? isn’t that just the most fuckedly neutral disaster that’s ever been. it’s humiliating, not knowing who is looking at you in a way you didn’t plan for, that you didn’t set yourself up for. beyond the loss of just a friendship, your entire perception is just fucked sideways and it probably isn’t going to get upright any time soon.

are you going to be fine? probably. is this going to keep you up at night for a long while yet? definitely. you accumulate stuff like this as you grow up, but you’ve never been very good at keeping an organized storage of anything, so it’s more or less just a big mess.

maybe you’re supposed to be a mess right now.