Split Sides

To Hayley (Interest #4)

This is the hardest, most heartfelt, and emotionally revealing letter I have ever done. This is gonna be my most personal letter for someone. I don't say this lightly. I'm not saying these words for the sake of saying something. I'm saying them primarily because I have the need to express my unspoken thoughts and feelings for you, and secondly because I have this restless urge to get everything out of my mind and my heart and my soul before the year ends. Everything I will say is true, and I'm purging myself of these bygone feelings that refuse to leave me until I have released them. You may not like it, or you may not care anymore, it's all up to you. But my piece needs to be said, because these words don't deserve to be hidden away and forever kept in peace. They must be said and they will be said.

I'm also aware that you no longer go by Hayley anymore, possibly because that name reminds you of your torrid past you just want to burn and forget about. Or possibly because that was your old life, and you want a clean slate for yourself to grow from. That's understandable. That's why I'm calling you by your old name, for the last time. This is my belated toast for you and the memories we had, and the dreams we planned for that came undone. This is a wake for that old person you once was, the Hayley that existed prior to your vanishing. And this is my personal tribute to all of that. May she rest in peace.

Now, on to the business at hand.

24 March 2016. I'll always remember that date for the rest of my life. That was the date we first met, probably by chance, in the Wattpad Club's Music Bulletin Board, back when such a place existed. I don't know why Wattpad took it down because I enjoyed it. It was a safe space for me to find like-minded people like you and to find temporary solace from the mental, emotional, and psychological turmoil that defined my college years. By the time I met you I was a wreck, a suicidal wreck that was more ghost than human.

I'll never get tired of telling people the story of our first meeting. The board's rules are simply to write down the most recent song one had heard. I wrote something down, and you popped along and said you were listening to a Fall Out Boy song. I remarked how your username was from Hayley Williams of Paramore. Then you said your name really was Hayley. And I was completely surprised by that. It was the first time I met someone named Hayley. Your energy, your outspoken nature, and your openness to show emotion were all new to me. After four years of brutal loneliness and self-hatred, here was somebody who felt exactly what I felt and suffered the same anguish as I did. You were a kindred spirit, and I gravitated to you and clung on to you like a blinding ray of light in pitch black darkness. And I remember what started this journey and made me stick with you through all these years. You sent a message to all your friends and followers saying you had a panic attack and needed immediate help. Everyone was giving advice, and I helped out the only way I knew how. I gave you a song. It was Souvenir by OMD. It was a song from 1983, so it was too old for you, but it was soulful and calming, so I thought it would help you. It was the first song I ever gave you. I hope it helped you in some way and I hope it still helps you to this day and beyond.

March 2016. I don't know if you knew this, but the day we met was the day I lined up at the payment registry to inform them of my plan to switch colleges. It was unbearable, I couldn't take the strain anymore. I was cutting classes, failing grades, and feeling lost and uncertain about myself. I thought what I needed was a change in atmosphere, a different environment to be around. I was 19 years of age, two months before I turned 20. You were 15 years of age, which I didn't know at the time. But the four-year gap between us was no trouble, or so I thought. Oh, how little I knew of the rollercoaster ride our lives were about to go on, and how we would change each other's lives.

2016 filtered down and we kept in touch, as I was familiarizing myself with my new college, having switched courses from Marketing to Literature. I was still failing subjects and receiving abysmal grades, but I was no longer cutting classes and my classmates were of a similar temperament to me, so overall it was an improvement. My mom wasn't happy of course, but I felt more relaxed, more at ease with myself, and that was what mattered. And you maintained a constant presence throughout that time, always checking my moods and empathising with me during my troubles, down to the last month of my studies there. December 2016.