In retrospect, to my future ex-friend

Dear Alana,

You got to know me in the darkest period of my life. You might be surprised by me saying this, because how could it be worse than what came after meeting Hannibal? Truthfully, I'd rather relieve that a thousand times than before. I can take the pain, it makes me grow and discover myself (be it for the better or for the worse, it's not for me to say), what I can't take is the boredom, the utter monotony I surrounded myself with just to not move even an inch out of the safety of my comfort zone.

You also got to know me when I was my mellower self. Hannibal did not change me, the darkness was in me, flowing in my veins, encrypted in my DNA. I was born wrong (some might say right). I never fit in. I was still trying during high school and college; I knew everyone could see right through it – I was wearing a poorly fitted mask. And this made me angry, with me, with others, with the injustice of fate itself. So, I started hurting people left and right with vicious words and manipulating those around me for the sake of it, just to see the puppets dance. My empathy allows me to be inhumanely cruel.

What goes around, comes around, so right after college, my heart got broken. Or maybe it was not that, maybe my soul shattered to pieces. Nonetheless, I stopped trying. That also meant I accepted my position as an outsider and the fury stopped. Therefore, I became kinder. The nasty thoughts were still in my head, but I kept shushing them, dead set on my redemption ark. I told you several times I used to be a bad person, but you never believed me.

You always believed the best in me. I'm both resentful and thankful for it. It made me want to be better, but it made me feel like a failure when I wasn't. And I'm not inherently good. Also, it put you in a superior position to me: you – the goddess of morality and doing what's right, me – a wanna-be reformed demon. I know, I know, you never saw it this way, it was never meant to be like this. I know it was in my brain, but that's honestly how it felt. 'If I just could kiss her feet and be blessed with her goodness', that's how I used to think at the beginning of our relationship. I aspired to be you. I knew you existed years before you knew I did. I wanted to be your friend ages before you saw me as one (yet another reason why our relationship was a bit unbalanced).

By some miracle, you took an interest in me. I got to know you – the flawed you, the real you. The one who is egoistic, envious, and a bit fake. I did begrudge you for your flaws, I don't want to lie to you. It felt as if I had been cheated, you were supposed to be perfect. That's my fault, not yours, so don't blame yourself for this. I also found flaws in you that most people overlook simply because your actions tell them otherwise, but I know. I see you, Alana, I see the you behind the way you present yourself to others – a stagnant, fearful little creature that feels like throwing up the first sign of change. That's our secret, I won't tell anyone else, I wrote it here half out of spite and half out of a real need to let you know, even if nobody else sees you, I do.

After a while, my resentment of you faded and I started growing fond of you despite your flaws. I even convinced myself it's part of your charm. They could be attractive enough if you put a positive spin on them, can't they? Here, I made another mistake in how I related myself to you – I thought I was developing a crush on you. You're beautiful, smart, and funny – nobody can take that away from you. So, it was easy envisioning myself as your man. The one who you pick up from the streets, the one who makes you say: "I can change him." (I do have this odd feeling you actually thought this while looking at me several times, even if you won't admit it to yourself, but I might be wrong.) The one who betters himself just by being around the brightness of your very being.

Nonetheless, you kept looking for love in every other direction rather than mine, and even when I came extremely close to getting into your area of sight, you realized something I did not: we're not compatible. Well, you said I'm too unstable for you, but I think it boils down to us not being a match, rather than me being that unhinged. Wishful thinking?