Ache.

These bones, once filled with spite and anger, are tired. You've exhausted them, left them bruised to the marrow. I guess, even if you'd held back whatever it was you felt when you left me, we'd have eventually reached this crossroads, where we are right now. It was inevitable, and at this point, no amount of separation or silence will compel either of us to move, but then again, neither will words. Sometimes words just fail.

For weeks, I hated myself for needing you. I could feel myself drifting towards writing your name on some hopeful correspondence, an unpronounced gravity, every successive letter building on the pressure, pulling me in. I fell again and again, hopelessly transfixed on your absence. Thoughts of you flooded into my mind, spilling into my dreams.

Some mornings, I would lie awake, my eyelids clinging to one another trying to recover disfigured images of you, images of you smiling and happy. It was a nightly siege, a storm in my head. My conscious self fought to erase you, while my unconscious self spent hours recreating memories of us and making new ones. The two halves of me warred with one another, neither knowing whether you were ever coming back. I ached to hear your voice, to see your face, subconsciously searching crowds and passing cars for some trace or sign of you. But I've always been strong willed, prideful even, and I broke that need for you. I isolated it in my mind, analyzed it, and eventually talked myself into a state of contentment. Not happiness, but contentment.

Now, I don't know if I'd recognize your voice. It hurt me deeper than you could possibly fathom, all the things I've heard, the lies you've believed. I know that you couldn't have known though. No one who truly understood how it's affected me, how devastated I am could've possibly put me through this. No one is that heartless.

We tried to work it out, but apparently, that was perceived as yet another attempt to manipulate you. That day, we left with the same tension that hangs over our heads today, that tension that continues to force apart the walls of this ever-widening rift between us. For weeks, any communication I received from you was nothing short of accusatory. I felt like, when we spoke, I wasn't breathing oxygen, just the heat from your anger. I refuse to believe that anger was self-generated because, for quite awhile now, someone else has been calling your shots. That's why I can't bring myself to speak anymore, knowing every word will be twisted and mangled by your self-serving interpreter. I know it's not you, not the girl I love and am terrified of losing forever.

I wish I could prove to you that I care. God, I wish I could show you how so, so very much I care. But my hands are bound, my words have to pass through her filter before they reach you, and whatever comes out the other side is out of my control entirely. Heck, even if I gave you my words directly, it'd be only a matter of time before they were repurposed to fit her agenda.

I realize you've replaced me, you don't trust me, and you don't feel that I'm worth that effort, but out respect for what we had, please be you. Some people are very, very good at putting on a show, at gaining power through varied manipulative means. Some people absolutely want to use you. Don't let that happen. Don't let someone else tell you the whos, whats, and whens. It's your life, follow your dreams. If someone hates you for it, forget them.

This entire situation is beyond any influence I have or ever had. Everything I do backfires, pushing you farther away, and so, shutting down was and is the best course of action. Even now, I realize that the very words on this page will be used against me, but it's worth the risk. You're worth the risk. I never intended to hurt you, never EVER felt you were my pawn or puppet, and I most certainly didn't base our entire friendship on manipulation. I believe you've contributed very little to this situation, and you're most certainly not the one to blame.

I care about you, and even if this merits absolutely nothing, I want you to be happy. I want you to be famous, to catch all those dreams you used to chase, to see the world, to find true love. I want you to have the greatest life you can possibly have, God's blessings through and through, even if I'm not in it.

As I write this, I feel an ache leaving my body that has haunted it for far too long. Should she tell you, as I expect, that I'm trying to lure you back into my "power" (the power she so fervently wrote about, berating me for holding over you for the past ten years), just know she's a liar. She may have swept all solid traces of her manipulative pries under the rug, but I won't. Here are my words, my feelings. Take them and keep them.

You may shake your head violently, screaming that none of this is true. But I have never written anything so true in my entire life. You can curse the ground I walk on, burn every last bridge between us, but I'll always be here if you need it. If you need one, you have a friend, unconditionally.