30 Day Letter Challenge 2012 - Emily

Day 22 - Someone You Want To Give A Second Chance To

I’m going to be doing two different letters for this one.

Dear Cousin,

It’s not so much that I need to give you a second chance, it’s more that I wish we could have a second change to get our old relationship back.

When we were little, we used to be so close. You’re 9 months older than I am, so I used to look up to you. You were my favourite and closest cousin, despite the fact we couldn’t see each other very often. We used to do everything together and in a way you were like a brother to me. The older brother I always wanted but never had.

I remember once we went to a park together when we were little; I think I was about six. Some older girls bullied me off the swings and I started crying. You told them off and made them apologise to me. You were always protecting me, even if it was just against a petty little problem!

When you had friends over and hanging out with your little cousin wasn’t ‘cool’ and I was too shy to join in, you still made sure I stayed with you, making sure I was happy and included. Thanks for that, it made my little self realise that not all boys were gross like the ones at school!

Remember that Easter when we were playing Balderdash and we were in fits of laughter at the ridiculous definitions we thought of? Of course everyone knew which ones were ours, but we didn’t care.

Mum and I were looking at pictures the other day and we both noticed the same thing; we were practically joined at the hip! We were the best of friends and I look back on the things we used to do with fond memories.

I don’t know what happened between us. We just sort of stopped talking to each other a few years ago. Maybe it was when you started high school, or when we started getting interested in completely different things. It might have been because your parents broke up and I didn’t understand what was happening at the time so I couldn’t be there for you. Whatever it was, I wish we could get a second chance at being cousins again.

The last time I saw you was a year ago for Christmas. The only thing I could say to you was ‘Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday for yesterday’. You didn’t initiate anymore conversation and after all these years I’ve realised that no matter what I did, you still wouldn’t open up to me. Things started getting slightly better over Christmas last year as the days went on. We went tubing, and the first time I did it, I was scared, so you made sure to come on with me, and when it looked like I was having a freak out, you would tell my uncle to slow down. But we still never really did talk.

I do love you and I will forever. I will never forget how good you were to me for so many years and the carefree fun we had when we were little.

Love Emily xxxx

Dear Person,

You started at our school last year and you immediately fit into our group. We all had a great friendship and never had any fights.

This year started and we threw you a massive surprise party for your birthday. It was so much fun and you were beside yourself with happiness. You claimed you had never had better friends and that you wouldn’t know what you would do if you didn’t have us.

Everything was great for a while friendship-wise. But then you started getting all moody. You wouldn’t tell us what was wrong and would spend days ignoring us. I then found out you’d started to see a psychologist and was wondering if it had anything to do with you family. I approached you about it and you gave me a big hug, claiming that I was a good friend. You told me you were fine. I wish you had been upfront and honest with me then about what the problem was. If you had been, maybe we wouldn’t have had all those problems we ended up having.

Your moodiness went on for months and we tried to get you to talk about what was wrong. But you refused to tell us every time we asked, so in the end, many had given up. I didn’t blame them, but I could still see something was wrong, and since I had just gone through something hard myself, I didn’t give up. I think my determination to help you made you feel closer to me than anyone else. While you ignored everyone else, you talked to me. I actually didn’t like it because it separated me from the group a bit with you always pulling me away to sit with you.

Months and months passed and I was late to school one day. I was signing in and I saw you standing by the car park talking to your mum. You were obviously crying. I waved, about to come and see you, but your mum glared at me. It made me scared. What had I done? I smiled as happily as I could at you and walked to lunch alone. I went to my locker first and when I had finished there, I saw your mum was walking just in front of me. You were nowhere in sight. I sat down quickly with the rest of my friends and your mum started going ballistic at us. She called us all bitches and accused us of bullying you. We had done none of that! One of my friends who she was targeting the most opened her mouth to say something back at your mum, but she wouldn’t let her speak. She refused to hear that her daughter was either making all of it up or was really twisted in believe that was the truth. It was really quite scary with your mum shouting at us all, and it resulted in many of us crying. We didn’t want to tell anyone, but somehow everyone already knew about it as soon as it happened, including all the teachers.

Your personality is something many people cringe at. You are overly nice, so much so that it is really fake. We were all sitting around a table in one of the teacher’s offices and you said ‘I have no more tears to cry over this.’ You said it clearly without any trace of emotion. It was such a lie! I know for a fact that running out of tears isn’t something that actually happens easily! That was the last straw for me. You didn’t talk to us about it, we had NO IDEA you had a problem with us. All those times I was there for you, that we were ALL there for you and you refused to talk about it. Mum reckons you were making a lot of it up to get attention. Nobody at school believed you anyway, because they all know our group wouldn’t do something like that to anyone.

After all of this happened, I was furious at you. But you weren’t mad at me, because I was probably the only person who stuck with you that whole time. I didn't’ care though; I wanted you to be mad at me because then I could be as well. But after a while I started to realise that people make mistakes and that even though you never apologised, you were sorry. I want you to know that I’m giving you a second chance. I never want to be one of your best friends again, but I don’t want to be mad at you anymore.

Emily