I wish I had been a better friend

Dear Sacred Posts,

I need to get this off my chest. It's been eating me alive for years, and I don't know who else to tell. It's about a friend I had in high school named Mark. We were inseparable. We did everything together: video games, late-night talks, stupid dares, everything. He was… well, he was like a brother to me. Maybe even closer. I never had a brother, just me and my sister who was always too cool to hang out with me.

Mark wasn't popular. He was kind of awkward, a bit nerdy. He was always picked on. I was… I was okay. Not popular, but not a complete outcast either. I think I liked having Mark as my friend because, honestly, it made me feel better about myself. Like I was doing something good, being a decent person. Looking back, that's a shitty reason to be someone's friend.

The thing is, senior year came around, and I started caring way too much about what people thought. I wanted to fit in, to be cool. And Mark… he didn't fit that image. So, I started drifting away. I made excuses to avoid him. I started hanging out with different people. I even joined the football team, something Mark would have laughed his ass off at if I'd told him the year before.

I remember one day, he tried to talk to me after practice. I brushed him off, said I was busy. He looked… hurt. I saw it, but I ignored it. I just wanted to get away from him, to not be seen with him by my new 'friends'. That's the part that kills me the most. How easily I threw him away.

He stopped trying after that. We barely spoke for the rest of the year. I saw him sometimes in the hallways, and we'd just nod at each other. Coldly. It felt awful, but I told myself it was for the best. That I was moving on, growing up.

Then graduation came. And we went our separate ways. I went to college, he stayed local and went to community college. We never spoke again. I heard through mutual friends that he was doing okay, that he had found other people who appreciated him for who he was. I was happy for him, I guess. But also… guilty.

It's been fifteen years since then. I still think about Mark sometimes. Especially when I’m feeling lonely, or when I realize that the friends I have now... they don’t really KNOW me like he did. I wonder if he ever thinks about me. I wonder if he hates me.

I know I messed up. I let him down. I wasn't the friend he deserved. And for that, I'm truly sorry. I wish I could go back and do things differently. I wish I had been a better friend.