Sharp Edges

You are made of sharp edges. You are made of words that cut and jokes that sting and comments that bite. You are made of weapons, and I was never prepared to defend myself from a friend.

You are made of sharp edges, but you conceal them in softness. You are a caress laced with a knife’s edge, spilling innocent blood down an unknowing cheek. You are a playful nudge with a dagger in your hand, slipped between two ribs. You are a smile with blades for teeth, with poison for spit, with lies for lips and a whip for a tongue.

You hide in plain sight, insults and envy framed as friendly teasing and jokes – but never about someone who might hear. You told us all about your friends from high school, the girl who got your dream trip to New York, or the one who had a better violin than you. You told us they didn’t appreciate it – they didn’t deserve it. And I suppose it occurred to me to wonder why you were friends with them, when you thought so little of them. But it never occurred to me to wonder if we weren’t the same.

Because of course we were friends – we hung out, we talked, we did homework together. We lived in the same suite, separated only by a single thin dorm wall. I made the same mistake as your friends from home. They thought they mattered. They thought you cared. They thought wrong.

I still remember the day I overheard you, talking on the phone. You were telling the same stinging jokes, making the same complaints I’d found so entertaining – but this time, they were about me. I can still hear every word, all my greatest insecurities laid bare, but no longer just my voice speaking them.

The thing about insecurities is that I tell myself over and over that they’re not true, that it’s just my brain lying to me, that I’ll do fine on that test and my zits aren’t that noticeable and my friends don’t hate me, that’s silly, don’t be silly… The thing about insecurities is that once someone else says everything I tried to tell myself was just in my head – I can never quite believe that argument again.

That was January, the first week of a new semester and a new year and a new world, one where the ground seemed to crumble beneath my feet at every step. I no longer knew who I could trust, not when I’d been so wrong about you. If I could spend four months sleeping barely ten feet away from you and never guess what you were, what weapons might everyone else be burying beneath smiles and laughter?

It has been two years now, and I am still rebuilding. But I am no longer afraid of you. In weaker moments, I might wish I could hurt you like you hurt me, but I have already lost enough at your hands – my confidence, my security, my friends. I will not lose myself to you too. I will not let you cut me down to your size, reshape me in your own image. I may not be able to bury the hatchet, but I am leaving it here.

‘Log in / Sign up’ to like & comment!