The Words I Can't Say

This is a letter about revenge. No, maybe it’s about acceptance. Or maybe self love, rising above, and being the better person. Or maybe, it’s about revenge.

You know that moment when you learn something that changes your entire perspective on something you thought you knew? That moment when your entire body goes on high alert, you can feel your heart beating, tightening, expanding, and memories fly by your vision one after the other as you relive them in this new light? And it’s never a happier, prettier light. It’s a shade darker, more hateful, more alone. I’ve known this feeling before, and I know it now. I wish curiosity was nice to the cat, and didn’t kill it, but I’ve learned that curiosity does, in fact, kill the cat, and maybe sometimes it’s better not to know some things. Maybe it’s better to leave some things in the dust behind you. It’s just so hard when, even 2 years later, someone says, “they talked shit about you to me”, and not want to know what they said. I’m only human, of course.

I am a mature, empathetic person. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, a benefit they didn’t deserve, now that I know what I know. We’ve all had shitty friends. I’ve had my fair share. I thought they were nothing more than your average shitty people, and we just didn’t match as friends, so I left. Not every person you meet has to be your best friend. Just because you met them at a time that seemed right, they might suck, and you might realize that. And so I went on with my life, found new friends, much, much, better friends, who are better people and fit my puzzle of life snugly. I never really thought about them again. How they left me out or how they made me feel unwanted, because their leaving out led me to my best friend, and I couldn’t thank them more for that.

You see, they began leaving me out at every turn, and because of my celiac disease, there were tons of places I couldn’t eat. They would eat at those places on purpose. So it was your average day, eating alone, and I don’t believe in God, but I think maybe that day someone was on my side, bending the world to let us fall on each other's paths. I asked to sit with her. I've never done that before, and I’ve never done it since, but I was alone, and scared, and I needed a friend. And whoever was looking out for me that day handed me her, someone who was also scared and in need of a friend. In my whole life I have never had a friend I’ve loved so whole heartedly like I love her. My platonic soulmate. And so yes, I thank them for that, because their general shittyness pushed me in her direction. From then on, I took the hint and stopped trying to be friends with people who didn’t want to be my friend back. No hard feelings, that’s just how it is. That’s how life goes. And so I never spoke poorly of them. When asked, I said we weren’t a match and that’s okay. I was incredibly nice, something I feel so, so stupid for now. Given the chance, I’m not a mean person, but maybe if I had known, I wouldn’t have been so naively, idiotically nice.

Something you should know about me, and I don’t share this lightly, I have an eating disorder. This isn’t a flippant matter, even though it may come off that way, this disorder has completely derailed and changed my life. Most people I know don’t know about it, or so I thought, and I hide it like it is a dirty secret, like I am a second class citizen who deserves shame for my blight. It scares me to write about it, to you, even now. And I write about it because my best friend has changed this shameful feeling I have kept in my heart for so long. For so long, I was afraid that if anyone knew, they wouldn’t want to be my friend. That they wouldn’t want to eat with me, and talk behind my back about how vain and gross I am. That I would infect my friends with it if I shared my feelings. And so I bottled it all up until it spilled out on my best friend’s feet, and she didn’t shove it all back in, she let it dry out. She showed me that I am still worthy of love even though I am struggling. That good friends care, and they want their friend to get better, and they give them love instead of hate. And so on two feet I stood, rising up in the ranks of recovery, pushed by the love of my parents, and now also by my friends.

So when the blow came, pushing my mind back two years, I didn’t expect it to hurt so much. I didn’t expect those people I had long forgotten to haunt me still. The words still echo in my head. They stole my sleep last night, and maybe tonight as well. In my hopeful beginnings, when I felt close to those people, like they might be my forever friends, I had shared my disorder. A grave mistake. A mistake only because of the people they are, which I know now. They took that confession, of a mentally ill girl who just wanted to be loved, and squashed it like scum on their boots.

They said I was “projecting my eating disorder on them” to anyone that would hear it, behind my back. Because apparently when half of them individually come to me to confess their struggle with eating and how we can help each other, they didn’t mean it. That when they skipped lunch, and called themselves fat and how they should eat less and exercise more, I was supposed to agree, not say they are beautiful how they are, or maybe you shouldn’t skip lunch. Specifically, they said “just because she thinks she’s eating too much doesn’t mean we are eating too little”. Right. So when you don’t eat anything but a bag of chips all day that’s normal. In the background, they were talking about me. They were deciding to go to restaurants like Olive Garden with zero gluten free options so I was forced to sit there and order a Diet Coke and watch them all take one bite of their food and hand it back to the waiter. That would make any person crazy. I thought they wouldn’t eat with me because they didn’t like the food at the only gluten free place on campus, but in reality, they were telling people they couldn’t eat with me, it was “too hard”. And what’s worse, when I made new friends, they told them, so as to prevent me from moving on. Luckily, my friends are amazing, and they didn’t care, and also knew they were making it up.

And so, two years later, all the things I used to fear confirmed, and I have hate in my heart for people I can’t confront. Like finding out the boyfriend you broke up with a year ago was cheating on you (which happened to me as well of course). All of these things I want to say, that I can’t say. I want to yell at them, tell them they are awful people. That I didn’t know people could be so cruel. But it’s been so long they would think I was a crazy person to still care. I only care because I found out yesterday. And now there’s no way for me to express my feelings. And once again, I feel bottled up and about to explode with things I can’t say.

I want to say, “fuck you, you’re a terrible person” to each one of them. I want to tell them that I would endure their “friendship” a million times over just so I could find my best friend. To ask them why, not because I don't know why, but because I want them to think of a reason and come up blank. Because they had no reason other than being bad people. That maybe when confronted with their actions, they will see it was wrong, and maybe they will grow as people and be nicer in the future. But again, I’m being naively hopeful. They will probably always suck, some people don’t change. If they can’t learn from this, then I will. I will turn this fuming anger into motivation. I’ll push forward in my recovery with fervor, fueled not only by the love of my friends and family, but now also by the hate of those people. If I can’t say anything to them, maybe I can prove them wrong by getting better. Even though I still want to say it to them.

So I say it here. Because I know a lot of us have had shitty friends. Have told the wrong people a secret, and they shared it. Have been excluded with no explanation. Maybe this should give me closure. I finally know why they left me out, because before I just thought they didn’t like my entire person. Now I know they all just suck. Yay! Can you tell that it doesn’t make me feel any better.

Yes, this is about revenge. I hope they see this. I want them to read my words and realize how mean they were, but I know they won’t. Won’t read it, and if they did, won’t see anything wrong with what they did. So this is for you instead. This is for every broken girl, who wants a friend and feels hopeless. You will find your best friend. You will find people who support you. You are good enough. You are beautiful on the inside as well as the outside, and there will be people who love you unconditionally, even if you can’t see that future right now. Life can be amazing, in spite of shitty people, and maybe even because of them.