DELLINGER.

I have always been just a little bit jealous of you.

Perhaps that's not the greatest foundation for friendship. It certainly can't help- nor could resentment, secrets, poisonous anger, or brooding guilt. It ripped us apart pretty quickly, and I think we knew it.

I'm sorry that I made your senior year a living hell.
You deserved a best friend; so did I.

You are an amazing human being. I have always known that, but I made a mistake in letting it consume me, allowing myself to feel like I wanted to prove to you that I was smart, attractive, and as industrious an individual as I felt you are. I felt like the little kid who would always be just a bit too immature to stand beside someone who knew they were going to do something great.
I got clingy- I wanted every moment to be about me, I wanted to play dress-up, historian, activist, gossip, and I wanted to do all of it with you.
I suffocated you, I think. I was afraid to get left behind, as I'm afraid will happen in the coming weeks. I truly don't want that to happen, nor do I want it to be the sentiment that filters through me as I start the new life that college offers me.

But I want my best friend to be a part of that life. I need that.

You found an amazing man to share time with. I just wanted to be the girl that got to sit alongside and gossip, to experience with you the fact that you had, at long last, met someone that was destined to become a great, mighty force in your life. I got jealous- and you knew that. But I was never jealous of the fact that you found Matt: I was jealous that I couldn't share my closest companion with him, that she had to simply be taken from me. I felt abandoned. And I missed you.
I worked harder than ever to become friends with Matt. I figured that I could at least share time with the two of you, even if you seemed to want to have nothing to do with me outside of his presence.

Yet, I was never disappointed in you, just saddened that you refused my confidence. It was suddenly as though we had never met. We had never shared stupid chattering giggles, we had never made fun of Deborah Casillo, never watched I-Robot with PJ. I felt like an absolute failure. I had driven away the one person who seemed to understand me, who would indulge the fact that my showtune obsession was beyond intolerable, and who would be there to back me up when big Italian kids called me names. You had ripped yourself out of my life, and it broke my heart.

But I still didn't understand what I had done. Was it all about Matt? Had we simply grown apart? Was I turning into the kind of person I didn't want to become, and driving you away in the process? I never knew if our friendship was going to be Jekyll or Hyde, and I wasn't sure I could tell the difference anymore. I couldn't take it. I don't know how many times I went to Matt (and other assorted communal friends), asking desperately and wildly if you had mentioned some careless action or misjudged moment of mine that had left you so relentlessly disgusted with me. It was always to no avail.

And so, I went on a vendetta- if my senior year was going to be an emotional failure, why not at least make something of myself?
An ass, perhaps?
I worked so hard to prove that I could hold my own, that I could be as wonderfully intelligent, gifted, passionate, and successful as you. And I pushed you out of the way many times to do so. I knew you were hurt, but so was I. It's not an excuse, it's not justification, it's simply the truth. I wasn't going to be trampled on without a fight.

I didn't want to admit that it was over for you and I. The dearest friend I'd ever had, gone, and without excuse? I couldn't accept that. And I don't know how many calls or emails or frantic IMs I sent out in the past two months, just praying that this was all a joke, that you were in the Peace Corp and had been wisked away for urgent duty the day after Graduation. You disappeared from my life, the summer before I had to start a new one, and I hated you for it.

I think I had finally come to terms with it when I posted that entry. Maybe not, but it was an outward sign that I had to, that I desperately needed to change how hurt I felt. I didn't ever expect it to evoke a makeshift confessional out of both our Blogs, but it did.

(So much for acceptance of the situation, huh?)

I have four million moments I wish I could re-live with you from this year. Prom. Graduation. Senior Lunches. Regular lunches. Moments that were false and distorted because we let them become that way. I hate that I will remember this year for that, but grateful that I may get to try to restore some of the communion we shared.

You are my best friend. The dearest, truest friend I have ever had. I miss you.
I don't know what else I can say.
Wait- yes, I do.

I love you. And I'm sorry.