Why?

Why would you ask that of me? If you really love me, the way that you've always said, why in the holy hell would you ask me to keep being kicked, and making myself sick, trying to keep everything going?

You don't want me. That's fine. You made your choice. And that's fine, you made an adult decision, all by yourself. And I have to live with that decision, and I am. But you can't keep asking me to sit and accept everything else, all the petty bullshit, and drama, and pain and hurt. Day after day after day. You can't expect that of me.

You can't expect me to listen to my name being slandered, and the vicious remarks, and the bullshit accusations. You can't expect me to put up with all of that sanctimonious *crap* in the name of a friendship that's hidden and sneaky and underhanded. You can't honestly believe that the "improvements", where I get stood up, and I get slipped in as long as everyone else has something else planned, then you have time, you can't honestly think that's an improvement for *me*?

It's still the same bullshit set of excuses I've been fed for months, and it's still not going to work. And you don't understand that, and you want me to keep giving out chances, and giving you time to "fix" something that has no real chance of getting fixed. There *is* no good solution.

She got what she wanted. I'm gone now, and she has you all to herself. There won't be a niggling little ex-best-friend, or ex-girlfriend that she can blame for whatever problems there are now. I won't be the convenient excuse for the lack of things in common anymore. I won't be the convenient excuse for the fights, or the convenient excuse for anything else anymore.

And I won't sit and cry when you kick me off the phone, because you got home, and you have to boot me, because it's time to go back to your real life, and I'm not a part of it. I'm just the dirty secret that you spend time with, until you get to the real life you're living the rest of the time. Or maybe it's that I'm the part you still miss, and you can't have at the same time you're living the real life?

But I can't keep throwing up after every conversation where I feel like someone's secret. The person you spend time with, when everybody else has something else planned. The best friend, who isn't anymore. You call me that, but in all honesty, the best friend is something that you see *no matter what*, not someone you see *only when* everyone else is tied up with other plans. And that's what I've become.

You make it to the Linux meet-up, no matter what else is going on. You manage to go out to see Mike when he makes it into town, no matter whether or not everybody else would rather you were home. But me? You only have time for me, if she has a Purse party to go to. Or some other place she has to be. You never, ever, come and see me, or hang out with me, or talk to me, unless she has somewhere else she has to be. Ever. Unless she's asleep, or out somewhere, I'm invisible and irrelevant.

I'm not your best friend anymore. I'm barely even your friend. And at this point? I'm not even that. So let me go. There's nothing left. You made your choice, and now you need to live with it, and just let it go. You wanted to do the adult thing, but you can't keep hurting me, just because you claim to not want to lose a friendship that got killed long before now. You simply didn't see it, because you didn't want to. Because I wasn't willing to cry *at* you, every time. I don't use guilt that way. I get accused of it, but I don't actually do it.

You want to pretend that everything is fine, and it can still be the way it was. But it can't. Because all the things that made us friends had to do with trust, loyalty and the fact that we actually *did* spend time together, we did interact, and we were close, and talked, and shared secrets, and were involved in each others' day to day lives. And we haven't been, not in months. Because it wasn't allowed.

You want it in a nutshell? You aren't allowed to be my friend. I'm not allowed to be yours. You chose a partner who wants to more than halfway run your life, at least insofar as which *female* people you're allowed to interact with. She doesn't give a shit who you hang out with, go out with, or interact with, as long as they aren't female. And that's just how it is. That's how it's been with all her boyfriends. It's fine who they spend their time with, as long as they aren't of the opposite sex. And she immediately laid that down with you, and you allowed it, without even realizing it.

And now you've lost a friendship that lasted almost thirteen years, because I won't keep being tossed aside, and hidden away, and snuck in ten minute bits while you're at the store, and then told "whoops, gotta go" as soon as you're home again.

And I'm sorry. More sorry than you will ever know, or understand. But you've asked so much more than you could have expected. And I kept trying and trying and trying, because I didn't want to lose you. You kept me sane, and I loved you. But at some point, I had to walk away, and say enough. Because what you're doing? It isn't fair. It hasn't been fair. You want a way to make it all work, and there simply isn't one.

You banish me from your home. Without having done anything at all *to* her, I'm told I'm vile, I'm hated, I'm a selfish, unconscionable bitch, who needs to go and shove it up her ass. And you don't defend me. You tell me to just wait it out. And that's not fair. And it's not right.

She wants love and understanding. And she's got it. In spades. Undeserving, to be sure, as she has proven to be an untrustworthy little shit, who has no compunctions about cheating, and lying. But she gets loads of love and understanding. And I get dumped on and told to just sit tight, and let it blow over.

Well you know what? I don't need to let it blow over. I didn't deserve this crap, not from you. And I'm not obligated to keep beating my head against a wall, trying to keep it all together anymore. I got absolutely no understanding. And nobody defending *me*. And nothing even vaguely resembling courtesy or respect from you, or a show of loyalty in a way that would have salvaged that thirteen year friendship. That wasn't important enough to put your foot down for. And I know it won't ever be important enough. You say all the right words. But I've heard them before. The actions didn't follow.

And I don't believe anything that's words anymore. And I'm out of second chances. And the phone ringing and ringing won't change my mind anymore. And the fact that I end up throwing my guts up after the round of phone calls, because I miss you that badly? Isn't going to make me answer it. It's just going to make me miss you more. And make me hate her more, for having made it so that our friendship was blown to smithereens, because she has her claws sunk so far into you that you're not allowed to be your own person without her having a full on meltdown, because she needs so much love and understanding. Because after all, she never guilts anyone into doing anything. Isn't that what she said? She'd never use guilt to get her way?

Oh, wait. That's supposedly me.