The Things I Never Said to My Best Friend

The Things I Never Said to My Best Friend

Somewhere between late-night car rides and early morning coffee runs, we built something that felt invincible. Or maybe it only felt that way because we never acknowledged the parts of ourselves we were too scared to show.

And now, with time and silence stretching between us like an unspoken apology, I find myself thinking about all the things I never said to you.

Here they are — a list for no one but me.

1. I envied you more often than I admitted.

You always carried yourself like the world made sense. Like you knew exactly where you were headed while the rest of us stumbled through the fog. I never told you how many times I wished I had your confidence, your charm, the way people gravitated toward you at parties without even trying.

I played it off, joked about being the sidekick, but sometimes it stung. And I hated myself for it.

2. I lied about why I didn’t come to your birthday party that year.

I said I was sick. The truth is, I was drowning in one of those invisible sadnesses I didn’t have words for yet. The kind where getting out of bed felt like an act of war. I didn’t want to ruin your day with my heaviness, so I stayed home and watched old movies, trying to quiet the ache.

I should’ve told you. Maybe you would’ve understood.

3. I kept your secrets like they were my own.

The night you called me crying about your dad, about how you felt like a stranger in your own house — I never told a soul. Not even when people asked what was wrong with you that week, or why you were avoiding everyone.

Some things, I decided, weren’t mine to explain.

4. I knew you were in love before you did.

It was obvious in the way your voice changed when you said his name, how you stayed up late just to “accidentally” run into him online. The way you wore his favorite color like it wasn’t on purpose.

You kept saying it was nothing. I kept pretending to believe you.

5. I resented you for leaving first.

When you moved away for college, you promised nothing would change. You swore we’d still talk every day, that distance wasn’t a big deal. But texts got shorter, calls grew infrequent, and suddenly I was standing in places we used to haunt alone.

I smiled through it, acted like I was fine, but part of me felt abandoned. I wish I’d told you how much it hurt.

6. I loved you in ways I didn’t have language for.

Not in a romantic sense, though maybe sometimes it got confusing. But you were my person. The one I wanted to tell first when something good happened, the one I trusted with the raw, ugly parts of me. You felt like home in a way people don’t talk about enough.

I wonder if you knew.

7. I still keep the letters you wrote me in middle school.

You probably don’t even remember them — silly notes passed during math class about teachers we hated and crushes we obsessed over. But I kept them, folded in a box under my bed. Because even then, part of me understood that nothing stays the same forever.

8. I regret not fighting harder for us.

Friendships aren’t always lost in dramatic betrayals. Sometimes they fade in missed calls, unanswered texts, and invitations declined. I let us drift because it felt easier than confronting the space growing between us.

I wish I’d reached out one more time.

9. I still hope you’re happy.

I check your social media sometimes, though we don’t follow each other anymore. I see your new friends, your new city, the life you built without me. I’m not bitter. Not anymore.

I hope someone else holds your secrets now. I hope you feel known.

10. If you called tomorrow, I’d answer.

No questions asked. No rehearsed bitterness or careful distance. I’d pick up like no time had passed and pretend, for a little while, that we were still those two girls who swore nothing would ever pull us apart.

Because some things — no matter how much they hurt, no matter how long it’s been — never really leave you.

We never had a proper goodbye. Maybe we didn’t need one. Maybe some friendships end quietly, not with a slammed door, but with a soft closing you don’t notice until it’s over.

But I still carry you, in ways you’ll never know.

And maybe that’s enough.