Love, Scarlett | WATQ WINNER

➵ dear nicole

Dear Nicole,

You must be thinking right now that what do you have to do with all this commotion. All this is an inconvenience to you, isn't it? Well, for the first and last time, I don't care. You are going to listen to me till the end till the end of this. Because you don't have a choice. You can crumple this paper and throw it away, but I know you won't. You practically live on gossip and news, like a parasite. And what is more interesting on a school night than a letter by your former best friend who died?

God, I'm so disgusted with you, but even more so by myself. How did I let myself be moulded to what you desired, scathing and breaking myself to fit into your ideal conventions, when in the end all you did was throw me away like an old, battered rag doll.

I know no one in our school has the guts to tell you this to your face, I mean c'mon, evefreedom I'm telling you that you are a monster. The kind that has lethal looks and scavenging jaws, but in reality they are nothing more than the normal person. The outer appearance being deceptive. Too deceptive. To the point that people consider that layer to be your true self. Even you, Nicole, thought that to be your true self, when you were just a scared little girl in reality.

You let yourself be moulded into that monster, but your true self was still hiding in there somewhere, scared and bruised but never giving up. Fighting to come out. You did suppress it well, but it always retaliated. And because your inner selves aren't at peace, you as a whole aren't at peace.

That is why you bully people, you make your peers' life hell because of your inner war that is waging on. You feel that if you make people suffer as you are suffering, everything will be okay. You have led yourself to believe that this whole thing, this process is fair - you aren't happy, hence others shouldn't be too.

But my dear Nicole, the world doesn't work that way. You have to give want you want to have, then only you can be truly happy.

Being aware of your shortcomings and working on your strengths is what takes us forward in life. You can't just put a mask on everyday and expect it to work. Some day or the other, the mask will peel off, leave you vulnerable to this cruel world. Being real is what being human is all about.

I'm pretty sure that whatever I'm saying will fall deaf on your ears. But for once, I don't give a damn. I have been wanting to say it all since so many years. But I never did, in the fear of the risk of our friendship going up in flames.

But what I realised a little too late was that not our friendship, but you had already gone up in flames, and I did nothing to save you. I regret it, I regret not saying anything so fucking much.

I forgive you Nicole, for all you did, because sometimes forgiveness is meant for starting on the journey to become a better person.

Love,
Scarlett