An Open Letter To My Toxic Ex-Best Friend Forever

There have been times when I started this letter just to trash it. I didn’t know how to address everything, even nine months after the fact.

Are you happy that you got everything you wanted? You trashed my relationship, trashed what little confidence I had in myself, ruined everything that I had going for me. Was that your intention the whole time? I mean, we were “friends” for almost four years. I even moved far, far away from the town I grew up in to avoid running into you in public.

I finally made the decision to write this when I walked into the gas station we always bought beer in illegally and I ran into your new friends with benefits, or boyfriend, or whatever. I’ve long since blocked you from every outlet of contacting me that I could; I don’t want to see your face come up on my screen while you watch my life spiral out of control. But this boy who was definitely your type spoke your name and I turned and looked at my friend as we legally purchased beer, my eyeballs wide. I proceeded to get drunk afterwards. Just your name can still ruin my day.

I’m done letting you ruin my day.

I don’t know why I even stayed friends with you so long. You left such a permanent mark on my life (including the tattoo on my foot and the hole in my nose) that I can’t outrun you even on my best days. I moved back to the town I grew up in, and there are ghosts of our friendship running around.

You made me a worse person. The kind of person I never would have been without you. I was a mean girl, a bitch actually. I hurt people intentionally because I thought that it would make me seem better in your eyes.

While you’re busy hanging out with drug dealers and drinking away your life, I’m busy repairing the relationship you tried to bring down around me. I’m busy repairing my relationships with the people that you made me hurt. I’m busy trying to find a way to cover up the tattoo on my foot.

Toxic doesn’t even begin to describe us. We were more than toxic, maybe more akin to an atomic bomb. We were guaranteed to blow up; it was a sure fact that we would destroy everything around us.

I hope you’re happy with your new roommate, I hope you can micromanage her life in a way that makes you comfortable. She’s exactly like you, a conniving little bitch that will destroy lives around her. She’ll sleep with another girl’s boyfriend. She’ll sell her friends out for a bet.

I won’t.

I wish that a part of me didn’t miss you. Your birthday is coming up soon, and I watch the days tick by wondering what it would have been like if everything didn’t happen when it did. I wonder what would have happened if you would have acted like an adult instead of a petulant child when you didn’t get your way.

Back to my second paragraph, though, Bella (my nickname for you because it means beautiful)… you didn’t get everything you wanted. I’m fine, now. It took me nine months to put back together the pieces of everything you tried to blow up. I’m sometimes held together with duct tape and glue, but I’m fine now.

Thanks for reminding me that things that are broken just grow back twice as strong.

But for everything else, everything you tried to do to me, fuck you. Never again will you ruin me. I won’t ever let you back in.

Rot in hell, spoiled bitch.