I wish you the best

He stared out the window as they sat there, papers between them. Looking out into the idyllic countryside, he sought in them the words that would be the deliverance of his emotions, something to quell his long held malaise over this broken relationship. The light of a waning sun played across green pastures, fat with sheep. There was a long silence, broken only by the rhythmic drumming of his figures, a way to help him steady himself.

“I’ve never been good at starting things,” he probed, stumbling across a thesaurus in his mind, “Nor have I ever been good at being selfish, a trait that in any other situation would be a virtue, but only impedes my progress here” The other person in the room started to arise. He held up his hand, signaling that he finally found the stream of thought to break through the dyke of ambivalence. “You have hurt me, plain and simple.” The other person, politely, sat back down. For the past they shared, this is something they could do, to provide closure for their former friend whom they harbored no ill will for. “Now, I shall try to do both of these things I am not very good at. Should I say something untoward, please rectify it.

“I have tried being patient, I have tried giving you space, but I fear that the very thing our friendship was founded on, our mutual traits, has made this attempt at reconciliation moot.” He drank deeply from his glass, still not facing the person who hurt him, for he knew his heart would ache if he did so. “I have kept my door open to you always, and it still is, but I feel as if your ignorance of your own emotions and penchant for strength has strained this relationship until this, the straw that broke its back.

“I feel you fear to be vulnerable, to hold intimacy gently in your hands as every time you’ve done so you’ve been hurt, abused, or far worse. In such a way you’ve unwittingly weaponized apathy against me, for which I harbor no resentment towards you. You know that if you tried with me, if you allowed yourself to be vulnerable and open, you’d be placing your heart wrapped in velvet into my hands.” He paused to give them any room to discount his claims. The other person, resolved to listen to the end, drank a sip from their cup before motioning to continue. “And I do not believe that you do not trust me to treat it with the tenderness and delicacy such a commitment requires, nay I believe that you simply abhor being treated in such a way. That your own basis for strength and need for stoicism denies you the simple truth, that you are still not more than a person, and thus inherently imperfect.

“Ironically, this facade of strength is one of the things that, I feel, drew us to be friends in the first place.” He swirled the contents of his glass, finishing them off in one large swig before gingerly laying the empty receptacle on the tray from which it came. “Though I have seen it crack many times, I have never balked at it. I have stuck with you through thick and thin, been there when you cried, when you could hardly keep your eyes open from thoughts that plagued you, held the vigil as you studiously poured your heart out onto paper. Yet, even proven time and time again that I would not abandon you no matter what I saw in your reflection, you have headed off the idea of vulnerability and abandoned me.

“It is this very act that has wounded me deeper than any I have yet experienced. That you should so easily discard me with not even a break in the armor you’ve made. That over the months you’ve never once reached out to me, not at my lows nor my highs, for naught so much as a ‘how do you do?’ That you’ve treated me with medical quarantine for reasons I feel are problems of your own making, that my presence causes you fear and hurt. Fear that you may grow too comfortable with my presence, that I may become a permanent residence in your heart, that you should give me such power to hurt you as so many others have done in your past. This in turn has caused hurt, for even as much as you disdain me, you cannot bring yourself to harbor any ill will towards me.” His reflection smirks at the irony of the situation. “That either of us were bad people, that either of us could look at the other and say ‘I am glad they are out of my life’ would be a balm upon at least my psyche, but alas I cannot and I feel the same is true for you.

“And yet, despite your own admittance to there being no wrong I have committed, to your own admittance that you could have thought of me in some other imagined intimacy than the one I was looking for, you have chosen to end this as it is.” His hands run across the grain of the windowsill, unconsciously counting them, anchoring himself. “Know that, as said before, my door shall always be open to you. What is done cannot be undone, but should you ever need me, and be willing to open yourself up to the idea of friendship once more, I shall answer any call. You are, were, my first friend in this new place and I shall always treasure that time we spent together” He collected himself, wiping the tears that sneaked down his face. Drawing himself to his full height, he chanced one look at them, their face a mask meant to hide themselves. They knew such tactics were not effective upon him, yet another thing he thought they feared.

“More than anything else, I truly wish you the best.”