It was on my wedding night that I realized I was heartbroken. I laid awake with intense acid reflux from the champagne I drank all night. Isn’t expensive champagne supposed to feel better? I realized I hadn’t heard from you that day, nor any day in the three weeks since I had let you know that I was getting married.
When I first met my husband Ben, I told him there was no way I could ever love him more than I loved you. Our friendship was so intense that it seemed impossible that any relationship could compare. You were at the epicenter of all my memories, the person next to me on every plane. Closer than family. A twin flame for my soul.
I have written about every heartbreak I have ever encountered. But I never thought you’d make it past the drafts. To blog about it makes it real. It’s been 16 months since we’ve last spoken. It was always real. I have sent countless, desperate texts. Attempted spontaneous phone calls, thought out emails, a small number of social media messages and have even sent gifts. I thought that your favorite snacks and books would help you through what I couldn’t.
Being ghosted is a horrible feeling. Unlike a clean break, ghosts haunt you. There are memories that you always imagine will stay sweet. Pure, joyful, once-in-a-lifetime moments that aren’t meant to last, but are supposed to provide lingering happiness when they come up in conversation. So many places I’ve been, things that I’ve done, reflections that once made me smile instead sour my stomach as they pass through my mind. I search for clues in the last decade that could lead us to where we ended up. I browse your abandoned accounts, a shrine to our friendship. Did I mean as much to you as you meant to me? Ultimately I update my settings to block memories of us from popping up. An amazing feature, Facebook.
I wonder if you’ve talked about me to mutual friends who were always more yours. Do they have all the answers I’ve been looking for? Or have they been abandoned too? I have spent the last year wondering if I am a friend worth having. I have asked my friends if they secretly hate me. I have needed others to assure me that what we were was not a figment of my imagination.
Why am I not someone you can come to when life gets hard? Have I alluded to such a perfect life on social media that you believed it to be true? I see you watching my Instagram stories. I’m caught between anger that you have the nerve to see into my life while banishing me from yours and gratitude that you still care enough to look. Do you see the subliminal messages I send? When I share a story on a tiktok video and refer to you as my best friend in present tense? Is it delusional that I do that?
It feels ignorant to believe that anything could last if we couldn’t. My soul has been crushed and my fear has sent me to therapy. I have been left insecure and heartbroken, spending days in bed absorbed in my pain. But mostly I am terrified that your reason for leaving has nothing to do with me at all.
