I’m sorry.

I’m sorry for the way I treated you. For lying about everything. For throwing away our friendship without a second thought. But I’m mostly sorry that you’re not even the first person I’ve done this to.

I don’t even remember how we got here. I know things got bad, and I know we fought a lot. All I can remember is one day we were friends, the next we weren’t. It’s never a mutual thing when I get rid of friends, but maybe that’s why this time is so different. Maybe you didn’t want to be friends either.

It happens every year. One friend is a little too whiny, a little too creepy, a little too annoying and I kick them out of my life. They never see it coming. One minute we’re friends and the next they’re gone. It’s a bad habit I’ve struggled with for years.

You know what happened. You made some mistakes that I let you get away with. I led you to believe that everything was fine while every day I was getting more frustrated with you. One day, it all came out. It was downhill from there.

It’s never a clean break. There’s always a messy fight. By the end, my former friend is torn to pieces. The friendship is damaged beyond repair. No one comes out of a fight with me unharmed.

Only after the damage has been done do I realize I made a mistake. If you were any other friend, I’d talk to you and ask forgiveness. Not one of them has turned me down.

You’re different, though. You know all my games and you can play them just as well, if not better. If I gave you some sob story about how I miss you and want our friendship back, you wouldn’t believe me.

You’d think I would’ve learned by now that when you treat people badly they won’t be too happy about forgiving you, but it had never ended badly before. I’d always been forgiven. I always came out on top. But now I don’t know what to do or how to fix things. For the first time in my life, I’ve lost.

I don’t like to take a risk and put myself out there unless I know I won’t get hurt. I’ve always treated life like a game that I couldn’t lose. Now that I have lost, I realize I can’t treat people like pawns in my greater plan. I can’t just use my friends to get what I want and then drop them and pick them back up, over and over again. I need to end the cycle now.

It’s not a lie when I say I miss you. I’m not trying to manipulate you when I say I need you in my life. I’m going to try being honest this time. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m going to do it right.

I hope you can forgive me, but I’ll understand if you don’t.