Dear Grace,

I do not think I had fully understood the extent to which I valued our friendship until I watched it dissolve before my very eyes.

I believe I always expected it to fail, to fall apart at its fickle foundations, but I did not expect it to hurt as it did.  My chest still pangs whenever you give me that polite, closed-mouthed smile you save for strangers, because I know there was a time you called me “sister”.  A time we spent countless hours speaking of everything and laughing over nothing, and now there is simply nothing between us but space.  I miss your voice, your love, your presence.  I tell myself it couldn’t have ended any differently for us, yet my mind still wanders back to that single, profound question: What if?  

I play back our final conversations in my head on repeat.  What if I had overcome my insecurities, or been more forthright about my feelings? What if I had spoken these tedious thoughts out loud, rather than scribbling them down in a years-late letter you will likely never read? Would you still be here, by my side?

Truly, Grace, you meant everything to me.  You were my anchor and my lighthouse.  Learning to live without you was like learning how to walk all over again; even after all this time, I still stumble, for I am weighed down by your memory.  I wonder—do you feel the same?  Or am I alone in my grief? 

Please forgive me for my complaints, but I feel I have left them unexpressed for too long.  It really is funny how the winds changed on us—were either of us really to blame?

Yours, still sincerely,

An old friend