Dear friend,

I don’t know if you ever realized how much influence you had over me.

When you’re a kid, your best friend feels like they know everything. You trust them. You copy them. You believe that if they say something is normal, then maybe it is.

I didn’t know any different.

I thought best friends were supposed to teach each other things.

I just never imagined those things would include hurting yourself.

I still remember the conversations we had. The way we talked about starving ourselves like it was an accomplishment. The way self-harm became something that was shared instead of questioned. Looking back now, it breaks my heart that neither of us stopped and said, “This isn’t okay.”

We were children.

Children aren’t supposed to know those things.

They’re supposed to compare stickers and argue over whose turn it is on the swings. They’re supposed to worry about homework and sleepovers, not calories, blades, or how to hide pain from the people around them.

Sometimes I wonder where those ideas came from. I wonder who taught you. I wonder what you were carrying that made those things seem normal enough to pass on to someone else.

I’ll probably never know.

For a long time, I blamed myself.

I wondered why I didn’t say no.

Why I kept going.

Why those habits followed me long after our friendship ended.

Now that I’m older, I know the answer is painfully simple.

I was a child.

Children don’t always know when they’re being led somewhere dangerous, especially when the person leading them is someone they love.

That doesn’t erase what happened.

The years that followed were harder than they ever should have been. I carried lessons that no child should have to unlearn. They became habits. Then coping mechanisms. Then battles that lasted far longer than our friendship ever did.

There are still days when I wish I could go back and find the younger version of me.

I’d tell them that pain isn’t something to compete over.

That hunger isn’t an achievement.

That scars aren’t proof of strength.

I’d tell them that they deserve kindness—even from themselves.

I don’t know where life took you.

I don’t know if you healed.

I hope you did.

Not because what happened didn’t matter, but because I can’t imagine a child teaching those things without having learned them from pain of their own.

I spent years carrying anger toward you.

These days, what I feel most is sadness.

Sadness that we were both so young.

Sadness that we mistook suffering for friendship.

Sadness that two children were trying to survive with tools that only caused more hurt.

I’m still unlearning those lessons.

Some days are easier than others.

But every day that I choose to care for myself instead of hurt myself is a lesson you never got to teach me.

Those are lessons I’ve had to learn on my own.

And I’m proud of that.

Not because my story is over.

But because, little by little, I’m writing a different ending.

Goodbye.