Heal From What, Exactly?

Dear you,

You said you wanted to heal.

And I’ve been sitting with those words ever since.

Heal.

From what, exactly?

From me?

From our friendship?

From the years I spent caring about you?

From the person who stayed when things were complicated?

Because somehow, in your version of healing, I became someone you needed to leave behind.

And I still don’t understand why.

You made a decision for your peace, then left me with the confusion.

How convenient.

You get to call it healing.

I get to deal with the aftermath.

I get the questions.

I get the silence.

I get to sit here wondering how someone I considered a friend could decide that removing me from her life was somehow necessary for things to become better.

I didn’t create your chaos.

I didn’t make your decisions.

I didn’t build the circumstances you’re exhausted from.

Those were yours.

And yet somehow, I became part of what needed to be removed.

That’s the part I can’t understand.

Because if you were hurting, I would have helped you heal.

If you needed space, I would have given you space.

If you needed boundaries, I would have respected them.

If things needed to change, we could have changed them.

I wasn’t asking you to stay exactly the same.

I wasn’t asking you to choose me over anyone.

I wasn’t asking you to destroy your life just so I could remain in it.

I would have understood.

God, I would have tried so fucking hard to understand.

Because you were my friend.

At least I thought you were.

And maybe that’s where I got everything wrong.

Maybe I thought friendship meant something different to you.

Maybe I thought all those years gave me at least enough value to deserve a conversation.

Maybe I thought I mattered enough that you wouldn’t simply decide what was best for both of us without letting me speak.

Maybe I thought being your friend meant that when life became difficult, we talked.

We adjusted.

We figured out what could stay and what needed to change.

But you didn’t give me that.

You gave me a conclusion.

You decided.

And I was expected to accept it because you wrapped it in words like healing and peace.

Do you know what I actually needed from you?

Not promises.

Not some dramatic declaration that I mattered more than everyone else.

Not for you to choose me.

You just had to treat me like your fucking friend.

That’s all I wanted from you.

A conversation.

Honesty.

Enough respect to let me understand what was happening instead of leaving me to reconstruct everything from the silence you left behind.

I could have accepted boundaries.

I could have accepted distance.

I could have accepted that your life had changed.

I could have accepted that our friendship needed to change with it.

What I couldn’t understand was why change had to mean losing me completely.

Why was I the thing that had to disappear?

Why did your healing require hurting me?

Maybe you have an answer.

Maybe you don’t.

Maybe someday you’ll convince yourself that this was the healthiest decision you could have made.

Maybe you’ll tell yourself there was no other way.

I don’t know.

But I know there were other ways.

There was honesty.

There were boundaries.

There was distance.

There was a difficult conversation.

There was the possibility of treating someone who cared about you like an actual human being instead of a chapter you needed to close.

You had choices.

And this was the one you made.

So heal.

I mean that.

Go fix whatever you believe needs fixing.

Build whatever life you think will finally make you happy.

Find your peace.

But don’t rewrite me into one of your wounds simply because leaving me was easier than explaining yourself.

Don’t make me responsible for a life I didn’t create.

And don’t call what you did kindness just because you used the language of healing.

I deserved honesty.

I deserved a conversation.

Most of all, after eight years, I deserved to be treated like a friend.

God, I wish you had treated me like one.

– Zoe