Product of Silence: Combustible Friendship

This month's Product of Silence prompt is to "write a letter that you never intend to send".

Dear Marcie,

You gave me a first taste of betrayal.  It's funny now to remember your involvement in my life and the value I once placed on our friendship, because when you demolished all of that you did it so thoroughly.  The pain that once choked my mind is now so distant because of the way that experience repeated itself with new people, making me seasoned in these situations.

I guess that what you are to me now isn't so much a traitor or a liar as just an introduction to the concepts.

You had no way of knowing at the time how hard a chronically shy and insecure girl would take it when you stabbed her in the back, but honestly, I don't think you even gave a thought to the fact that other people had feelings because it was so long ago and at that age everyone is decisively selfish.  Then again, I know more than my fair share of people who never grew out of that, and I can't help imagining that you're one of them.

You certainly held your impact for me when we were friends; enough to leave a lasting impression.  I can still remember both of your names with no effort, which I can't say for anyone else that left my life when you did.  And I can still remember the way your freckles covered every inch of your skin, as if one separate part of you was trying to envelop the original.  You probably don't remember that I ever existed for you because out of the two of us, I was the one looking across whatever connecting lines we'd sown.

I know you were more to me than I was to you, because you had options.  I, on the other hand, was so shy that I had found myself unable to talk to anyone else.  They already had their choice of friends, and there was no room for me there.  That meant that when you talked to me, I felt my world open up in a drastic way.  There was finally some sort of communication between me and the world outside of my head, some rope thrown to me from the darkness that I could just see my end of.  I grabbed hold of it with fervor, desperate to experience what seemed so normal for everyone else I had ever seen.  Before you, I had been spending my days in nothing but loneliness, and to this day that is the one emotion that could make me feel insane with despair because it comes with a lifetime of bad memories.

When you told others how you really felt about our "friendship", I was absolutely crushed.  That one rope, that single hope, had been yanked away right before my eyes.  That was many years before I began developing my inner strength, so at the time, there was almost none to rely on.

I still don't know how I floundered through that darkness after you left.  When you were gone I didn't know if anyone would ever throw a rope to me again, and it was years before someone finally did.  I've had other so-called "friends" do the same malicious things since you, and the story only changes in the smaller details and the fact that I was quickly becoming better equipped to handle it by the time they came along.

That journey must have started with you, putting me in a situation where I would either learn to adapt or be destined never to recover.  The flavors of treachery and disillusionment soon become familiar, but with the power of your destructive friendship, I suppose I never forgot my first taste.

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