To my 3 AM Friend

Hey,

How have you been? I am reading this book called “Beautiful world, where are you.” There are two characters, Eileen and Simon, whose rocky relationship reminds me so much of our own relationship.

You were one of the first people I could call a best friend and mean it because, for the first time in my life, I felt that my feelings were being reciprocated. In fact, I think you were my first love. I didn’t even know it for a long time, I suppose. What we had was a cute thing. The one friend who bothered to check up on me after I left school. You stayed in touch. We had our monthly phone calls and met over averagely made pizza when we visited home for the holidays. I don’t know when I fell in love with you. It was all friendship at the beginning. But I felt like you saw me when I was invisible to everyone around me.

I felt safe with you. And you made sure to keep me safe too. Even when I woke up from nightmares and called you at 3 am, you were fine sacrificing your sleep to pacify me and assure me that I was safe, even though we were both close to 1500 km away from each other.

God, I miss you. I am writing this now because this book stirred all my memories, and I wonder how you are doing now. Probably married and living a pleasant life. I once dreamt of being married to you, having kids with you. I imagined you would go travel the world and come back home to me. That was a beautiful dream that lasted for a very short time. I still cherish it despite it being painful.

You were not so nice to me in the end though. Incredibly hurtful and invalidated my trauma, saying I’m lying to get your attention. I just wanted you to be a part of my life, at least as a friend.

We were never shy to say we loved each other. But for a long time, I didn’t realise it meant something different to both of us. When I said I was in love with you, you could have asked for time or anything. But you said you were in love with your childhood friend and couldn’t get over her. I mean, fair enough. I had you. You had her. What turned you against me was when I moved on fairly soon.

You refused to acknowledge that at that point in our lives, we were enduring so much suffering that we were taking it out on each other. I apologised, you didn’t. That hurt me. Made me feel like I was some backup plan. Thank God we never made the “when we turn 30 if we are still single” pact. Imagine reaching out now and talking. The horror!

I am writing this courageously because I know you have long moved on from my memory, and none of our mutuals even know I write or, well, know me for that matter. Even if someone saw this and connected the dots, I frankly don’t care. This is me pouring out my heart. A deep scar I have tied with a stinky bandage for so long that it has started festering parasites, for all I know. I am just exhausted to tend to the wound at this point as well. And no, I don’t want to reconcile with you, my friend. I will always love you. But you hurt me beyond repair. No amount of apology can fix that. We are just two very different people now. A part of me is sad that nothing ever came out of my brave confession of love. I was never shy to express my feelings. That’s why I was always the one to get hurt the most.

I sometimes daydream about what would have happened if we did give dating a try.

Could’ve

Would’ve

Should’ve

Here’s me reminiscing about what could have been a long-lasting friendship, but life had other plans. And well, you just didn’t want to be part of mine anyways!

But all in all I really do have a life that you dreamt of. I would be happy that at least one of us got what we dreamt of!