I wish I could say this to her, but my guts said no.

How I lost someone because of my own carelessness.

It happened during a time that felt slow and mundane, right before we returned to campus. We were still doing online classes then. Still in between routines. Still enjoying our time at home.

She invited me to come over. Should be just the two of us for dinner.

She even suggested — no, offered a sleepover.

It wasn’t far. Her hometown was just a train ride away. Neighbouring state from mine.

But the asking felt far.

I knew what it meant: explaining who she was, asking for rides, staying overnight.

The kind of logistics that required layers of trust my parents hadn’t built with her yet. We’d only just begun to know each other in college. And my parents? They didn’t know her at all.

The truth is, I’ve only recently started going out with friends when I turned eighteen, which was about two years ago and even then, it’s always been with someone they’ve known since I was four.

That’s the only name I ever really say. It makes things easier by asking, “Mama, I’m going out with Trish (not her real name),” than saying I wanna go out with a name they aren’t familiar with.

So I didn’t ask. I told her online classes were starting the next day.

That means I couldn’t sleep over.

She reminded me that everything was online — so what was the rush?

I tried to think and come up with an answer, so I said I’d try to leave after dusk, right after dinner.

She didn’t reply with the same warmth after that.

Or maybe I just stopped knowing how to read her texts.

We fell out — not with a fight, but with a gap. A slow, quiet fade that didn’t need words to feel final.

And maybe I convinced myself she didn’t mind. That she had other people. A warmer life. A richer one without me.

But some silences leave echoes. And hers lingers.

She was my roommate in the earlier terms. Now, she’s staying right across from me. Literally a few steps away. I used to stop by her room almost every day after class. We ate together. Sometimes she’d cook and just.. let me eat. She never asked for anything. She never made me feel like a burden. She just existed like a warm blanket for my seemingly never-ending rainstorm.

But the day I realised we were different was when I stood in my room after the break, and a friend who often visits my room to rest up before going home (because she stays outside campus) had fallen asleep on my bed. Next to her was a birthday gift she’d picked up from that old roommate of mine — a scarf and a keychain wrapped in soft packaging.

On my desk, resting neatly on my laptop sleeve, was another keychain.

A different colour. Blue.

A quiet gesture, almost invisible.

She once joked that I had a “blue thing.”

I don’t, really. I don’t have a “favourite colour” as one would put it. But I didn’t have the heart to say otherwise. She always seems excited when she sees something blue because she thinks of me (at least from what I observed before).

I stared at it for too long. Too goddamn long. Then zipped it inside my laptop sleeve, untouched. Like I was hiding evidence of kindness I didn’t feel worthy of.

I never said thank you.

A week later, I posted someone else, even though it was literally the day after her birthday. So it was another friend. Another birthday. A friend from high school, actually.

And I felt a sting I didn’t want to name.

Like I was choosing.

Like I was rewriting what once mattered.

My partner encourages me to talk to her. Says she was there when I needed someone the most — during a semester that nearly crushed me.

He’s right. She was.

But every time I imagine reaching out, my chest tightens. I think I’ve convinced myself that silence is safer than explanation.

That trying now would be intrusive.

That I missed my window and I shouldn’t even try to budge it open anymore.

That me not being around anymore would make her happier (because trust me she does seem a lot better with her other friends — or maybe it’s just me convincing myself I’m doing her a good act).

Sometimes, we lose people not because they stopped trying, but because we didn’t know how to match their openness.

Because our world was built on rules we didn’t choose.

Because saying, “I wasn’t allowed,” sounds childish when you’re grown.

But there’s a kind of grief in knowing someone offered you warmth, and you handed them excuses in return.

I don’t know how she feels now.

She walks past my door sometimes. Talks to people I know.

Like it’s normal. It’s normal, really. But when we walk past each other we didn’t even look.

But I still carry that unopened keychain. Like proof that something soft once reached for me, and I flinched.

Not because I didn’t care.

But because I didn’t know how to show it in a world that didn’t make room for every kind of friendship.

And maybe that’s the hardest part — knowing you were held gently, and letting go anyway.

People often talk a lot about closure — about confrontation, apology, honesty. But some stories don’t get clean endings. Some just fade, and leave behind small, unfinished truths we carry in our pockets. If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that silence is a choice — one I made, and one I have to live with.

And if she ever reads this, I hope she knows: it was never her. It was never anything she did wrong. It was just me. And the distance I didn’t know how to cross.

I still value our friendship.

I loved her silliness and bubbly personality.

I enjoyed being around her, but sometimes, my energy depleted so quickly that it seemed like I was being too reserved. Or uncaring.

I have my walls up, and I’m sorry she had to be the one to try and tear them down when I should be the one to lower them myself.

I kept her at a distance because I’m too scared to let someone in, that close again — and for that I’ve lost someone I could call a friend.

Thank you for more than a year of joy and laughter you brought to me.

If you ever want to talk, I’m here… just scared to reach out first because I’m a coward. As always. And I’m sorry.

This was sitting in the drafts for too long. I thought I should finally let it out so I can feel better. A little selfish thing to do, but it’s honest.