Apologies in a Letter You’ll Never Read

To whom it may concern,

It might come off strange that I talk about you this way, even if I knew better than anyone else that words didn’t sway you no matter how much I prayed. I thought I’d gotten over the bittersweet taste of our friendship losing its pace, yet even in this bitter reality, it’s you I still somehow decide to chase. You moved on without a single trace — a little gesture I wish I had the guts to face.

Do you still remember the simpler days, when you’d start bickering about phones and cars until you’d run out of details to say? I’d listen to all of it, even if I didn’t understand how all of it fascinated you to bits. What about our little calls when we worked as we talked? Our voices caught in the minutes that were clocked, our topics ranging from our day to whatever the fuck. What about the rainy nights when you’d vent about that special someone you treated like a pearl, how your parents' bullshit made you hurl, or the latest failure that kept your mind in a deep swirl? I’d stay up with you until the loneliness of your mind began to subside. Every piece of unwarranted advice on how you should decide should’ve stayed in the feelings I couldn’t keep inside. Our banter, our quirks, our language was our own, but now I refuse to speak for there are sins written on my hands — the ones I wish to atone.

I thought I knew you like the back of my hand. Every secret you gave is still buried within my mental sand. Every heartbreak you had is etched into the cracks of mine. Everytime you said sorry, I patched myself together and said “I’m fine.” Every moment I looked at you is still a photograph I keep in the back of my mind. Every smile you made looked so kind, before you wore handcrafted masks without a hint of pride. Every word that left me in pieces still finds me in the dark to leave my tongue tied. All these were left in me, these silly moments we shared that I have no choice but to hide.

But bliss is in faithful misery, I was wrong to keep hoping for sincerity. It turned me bitter and all sorts of angry , even if I chose to remain a blind kind of friendly. I failed to understand the distance that constructed a boundary, so I overstepped all the lines with hopeless inquiries. I got no satisfying answers, because you had all the right to believe I knew better. My steps were impulses that led to consequences that would punish us much later. Our dance of mixed signals left traces of confusions written in stutters. I wearily look back to the days when words left no fracture, but even those look unreachable — a stack of unrecognizable and blurry pictures.

I’d like to think we were doomed from the start, because none of our memories mattered the moment you broke everyone’s heart. Mistake after mistake, you’d plead forgiveness for friendship’s sake, only to be met with pitiful stares that you couldn’t take. I even stood by you for as long as I allowed myself to unfortunately love you, heeding my words, lying to myself that I mattered to you. My hands trembled with guilt for not doing enough, because I knew falling for my best friend was a failure too tough. It broke us apart the moment you stopped looking for long lost trust, so our lonely conversations merely turned to dust.

I was once important to you, but now I am no longer useful to us. What we had is no longer true, it was a deceptive illusion of trust. The years we built have fallen before us now mock our youth — a blank space as empty as a husk.

I wish things were different, so that things stayed the same. Our friendship turned sour the moment your mistakes took the spotlight’s fame. It’s funny that to this day, you lurk in the alleys of my thoughts. You were priceless, you were precious, you were someone I sought.

But despite this quiet apology, I’ll end this letter you’ll never read with a lesson I was taught.

I wouldn’t trade our past for the world. It’s the only thing left that’s ours. I wish you well, even if I was never in your cards. I loved you, even the worst of your parts. I miss you, even if we’re actually strangers from the start.

If there’s anything I can swear from the bottom of my heart, whether you find this letter or not, I’m sorry I let us fall apart.