WESLEY, YOU KNOW AS WELL AS I DO that there are some things said that can't be taken back.

What you said to me that day in the tent was a perfect example of one of those irreversible comments.

The rest of the summer was difficult without you. I resented everything about you, but most importantly, I resented how much I missed you. I didn't go out a ton, save for the occasions when my parents would drag me to a neighborhood barbecue. 

I hated going, because going to community events like that always meant there was a chance that I would run into you.  I'd catch sight of you sometimes, with Elodie or another girl by your side. You'd talk to her like she was your world. I no longer existed.

Sometimes, I would touch my lips and think of lost days in June where everything was perfect, where no one else mattered but us. Most times, I would think of lazy days we would spend together in middle school before everything fell apart. 

I thought first loves were supposed to work. In every rom-com I'd seen, first love was written into the stars. The first kiss was a promise. And it took a long time for me to realize that you kissed me because you knew that you could ask for the world and that I'd try and give it to you. You had no one else, but you had realized that I would always be there. 

It's funny, because I was, wasn't I? In fact, even at the end of the day, you had left me. I would've never done the same thing to you. Not only because of the crush I'd been nursing on you for years, but because you were my friend. 

We were goddamn jam and peanut butter. We were supposed to go well together: I was serious and staid, while you were free and careless. Maybe you still are. I wouldn't know. We didn't do much talking even after we had both graduated. 

August was painful. 

It's not the hardest era I've experienced it, but it was my first taste of real heartbreak and I didn't like it. It's like bitter medicine; a dose of reality. 

Romantic heartbreak is one thing to deal with, but a friendship breakup is on an entirely different level. To lose a friend, to lose one of my only friends was a lot. 

I wrote songs in August, not because I was good at it, but because if I didn't have music that summer, what did I have? I lost a crush and a best friend, and now I wonder if you ever actually saw me as either of those two things. 

Because looking back, it was so clear how one-sided our relationship was. If I could draw a painting to describe us, Wesley, it would be that of a starry-eyed girl staring at a handsome boy with his eyes elsewhere. 

I saw you, Wesley, but you didn't see me. 

Even now, it's sort of hard to reconcile the fact.

But miraculously, I made it through summer. I'm still not sure if that was such a great thing, because I emerged in sophomore year with no friends, no boyfriend and honestly, little to no dignity left intact. 

There was a school-ran barbecue orchestrated in September. I volunteered to help with the set-up for extra credit, which was really the only reason why I was there at all. It was supposed to be a fundraiser, and it was packed with sophomores by 6 PM that night, an hour after it officially started.

With all the outdoor tables set and work done, I walked around aimlessly. I'd caught a glimpse of you that evening. You were at a table with Elodie and all of her other friends, kids who wouldn't be caught dead with me. 

You were also trying out for the lacrosse team that year, from what I heard. With Elodie captain of the girl's volleyball team, you two would make the perfect athletic duo. You two were perfect, and you had shot up even more in the month that I hadn't seen you. Your skin was sunkissed, hair bleached by the sun as you held Elodie to your side. 

My gaze flicked away. As my work here was done, there was really no reason for me to stay. I no longer existed to you— except permanently this time — and making new friends in sophomore year proved a difficult feat given that I was horrible at starting conversations and even worse at maintaining them.  

I'm marginally better at it now.

I dug my hands into my denim jeans, my flannel coat billowing in the wind. I settled down on one of the outdoor chairs, writing meaningless lyrics on a piece of paper and sipping  from one last soda before I would leave the scene. 

And then, as I was rising to my feet, my goddamn loose leaf paper flew away. 

I'm not even kidding when I say my heart dropped to my feet. I cursed, which you would probably find amusing, because I was never a curser. But then again, I wasn't exactly the same girl I was in freshman year and certainly not the same girl from middle school.

Then, I chased the loose leaf paper around the barbecue. 

Somewhere, I could hear Elodie's laughter and feel your piercing gaze on me, but I ignored both to the best of my ability. My face tinged with heat and I was certain that the universe was not only rooting for my downfall, but was willing to be an active participant in it. 

I didn't cry like I might have the year before. I was unwilling to give anyone else even a slight inkling that I might be falling apart. Besides, a lot of folks stop caring about tears once you hit twelve. I was a big kid now, and I figured that crying would only make this situation worse. 

I was just about ready to give up a minute into chasing that damn paper. At that point, it could've flown into an active volcano for all I cared. 

Stumbling, I fell to my knees. Grass tickled at my skin and my fists clenched. This was ridiculous. Alas, I had no friends to help me retrieve my note, so there was nothing else to do but give up. My eyes burned into the grass. 

And somewhere from the heavens, an arm bestowed my note to me. 

I stared at it like an idiot for a few seconds. 

Squinting, I shielded my eyes from the sun to catch sight of my guardian angel who was shaped like a tawny-skinned teenage boy with hazel eyes, a nose ring and a half-grin. 

He knelt down in front of me, he looked into my eyes and he saw me.

Now I know how you felt when I looked at you, Wesley. You were visible. No one could ever tell you that you weren't, not when you had me staring at you everyday like the starry-eyed girl in a painting. 

I wasn't the type of girl to get noticed. My parents damn near thought I was the prettiest girl in the world, but teenagers were far more critical.

Don't get me wrong, I'd received compliments before. You know, the sweet compliments from girls in the hallway who I never assembled the courage to make friends with, despite badly wanting to.

So, I knew that I wasn't some totally deplorable creature to look at. However, with my eyes on you, I had never noticed anyone's eyes on me. In fact, I didn't realize that was a possibility, not with the way your eyes would look at me but never really see me.

But in front of me knelt a boy, a boy who wasn't just looking at me but seeing me. His lips quirked upward. He had messy dark hair, and one of those wicked grins. The boy I met that day was the first to remind me that there were boys outside of you.

"Thanks," I'd said, taking the note out of his hands. 

He'd nodded with a grin. 

"Are you new here?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "Moved from New York." It took me a while to notice he had a bass guitar slung over his shoulders. Following my gaze, he said, "It's not mine. It's my cousin's. I sing though."

The boy was from New York, he was pretty, and he could sing. Folks would be all over him by the end of the week. He was the dream new boy, the type of guy everyone got flustered around. 

"Are you real?" I wanted to laugh because the situation just seemed entirely absurd.

The boy reached forward and pulled my falling flannel coat back over my shoulder. I found myself shivering, although there is no breeze. 

"You tell me," he said. Then he made his way to his feet and pulled me up to mine. I wasn't sure what to say. 

He opened his mouth to say something, and I leaned close to hear him speak. But then someone's voice slipped into the air, footsteps approaching us.

And of course, it was you and Elodie. 

"Hey," Elodie chirped. Her elbow was still linked with yours. "Would ya like to join us? We're sitting back there."

Elodie had gotten even more beautiful over the summer. I wasn't sure if she'd made a deal with the devil, but her messy bun was artistic, and her crop top paired with short-shorts was a deadly duo on her frame.

Next to her, your eyes had taken over a level of dull. But you were smiling, which I thought odd. "Eden," you said my name, and my heart paused. "You can come over too. It's been a while, huh?"

Elodie seemed less thrilled about that invitation but she recovered quickly enough. Elodie had decided to lay off me once sophomore year rolled around. She already had everything she wanted and now, she felt no need to compete with me. She'd won, essentially. 

So, her neutral reaction to your invitation was not what shocked me. No, what shocked me was the invitation in and of itself. For weeks, nearly months, you had ignored me. I was no longer anything to you. 

Slowly but surely, I was beginning to accept that. And now, suddenly you said this? Your invitation, I knew, was more than just an invitation to sit with the kids who ran the school. Instead, it was an invitation to be your friend again.

Now, standing in front of me, I could read signs of tension between you and Elodie. The two of you had unlocked your elbows, you were now standing about two feet apart and each of you seemed to be speaking as though the other person wasn't present.

I predicted then that you two probably wouldn't be a couple by the end of the barbecue. 

And now, I understood your offhanded invitation, Wesley. You could sense that Elodie was about to break up with you or you with her, so you needed your rock to be there for you. You needed me so that I could once again be your emotional punching bag. You needed me so that I could be there for you until another pretty girl caught your interest.

You know that "eureka" moment? That moment when the lead character realizes they're being played? That moment when the tables have turned and your character has finally woken out of an oblivious slumber? That moment when you yell "finally!" at the screen?

That was me in that moment. I saw how this would go if I accepted your invitation: I would uncomfortably sit with you, Elodie and all your other friends at your outdoor table until the end of the barbecue. Sometime toward the end, you and Elodie would break up. You would look like you were on the brink of tears and you would ask me if we could go home. 

We would walk home together. We'd go to my tent in the backyard or maybe to the hammocks on your front porch. You might even apologize for what you said to me in the tent that day. I'd be euphoric. You would rant and unload all your emotional baggage onto me. I would take it because I cared about you. You would cry. I would hold you.  You would let it out. 

You would fall asleep in my arms, perhaps like all the other times. We would hang out. You'd be all about me for maybe a week. Then, someday, you would come over and tell me that you met a girl, and you're sure about her. She's different, you'd say. 

And then I wouldn't see you for the next month. You would brush me off like I'm nothing. Then you'd break up with her. You wouldn't even need to come back groveling because my arms and heart would already be open for you.

The cycle would repeat. 

I shook awake in that moment. The boy from New York who I'd just met had noticed me more in five minutes than you had in three years. And he was standing right in front of me. He looked at me, eyebrows raised. If I said yes, we would both go.

"I think I'm okay here," I said. You were stunned, but you recovered quickly enough. You headed back to the table, Elodie sticking back for a few minutes until she saw that the boy I had just met wasn't leaving anytime soon. His name was Santiago Mendez, and I spent the rest of the barbecue talking to him.

Saying no is a powerful thing. I didn't realize its impact until it occurred to me that I could end the cycle, that I had the power to do so. But I wasn't just saying no to you that day. I was saying goodbye.

I was saying goodbye to the class clown I met in seventh grade, to the boy I'd spent an unforgettable chunk of my childhood with, to the boy that changed before my very eyes, to the boy who was once my best friend, to the boy who was my first kiss. 

People change. I realize that now. The moment you started dating Elodie marked the beginning of the end of our bond. It sounds dramatic, but it's true. Sometimes, people believe something has to give when they enter a new relationship or a new chapter of their lives. Wesley, you decided that you were okay with the thing you sacrificed being us.

I can't resent you, Wesley. For years, it was fun. You were fun. I regret allowing you to wrap me around your fingertips, but I don't regret the day we met in seventh grade. And I know, somewhere deep down, that I will always have a place in my heart dedicated to the goofy boy with blue braces that complimented my pink glasses back in middle school. 

I found a home in you, but you used me. You used me to pass the time and lied that you liked me back until you found someone better, someone you were really willing to love. I wish you'd have been honest with me from the start. Often, I wish you never kissed me in the tent that summer evening.

You taught me something that would haunt me for years: that I would always be someone's second choice. After all, I realized that I was never your first.

But Wesley Byrne, while you were my first heartbreak, you weren't my worst. Thank you for your friendship for those three years. Despite how it all ended, I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Sincerely, 

Eden