I was laying in bed, trying to fall asleep, thinking about Raza. Yesterday, he officially dropped me. If I thought hard enough, I might have been able to convince myself that it was his new girlfriend, Monica. Before they got back together, we were good friends, and now he’s completely cut me out of his life. She’s jealous. She’s probably forcing him not to talk to me.
It’s not all a lie. Our friendship couldn’t have been a fantasy I’ve built up in my head. I thought I was fixing him— I thought he needed me.
A little while ago he was having some trouble with school. He wasn’t very good at understanding certain assignments, or turning his homework in, or showing up to class. He’d lost motivation for writing music. He was having problems at home. I helped him through that. I edited his papers, critiqued his mixtapes, lended him a shoulder to cry on.
I thought I was fixing him.
As I rolled around aimlessly, I couldn’t help but be angry at myself. How could I have fallen for it? Naive girl attempts to save the damaged boy. Classic. A couple of months ago, he told me I was the only person – other than his mother – who had seen him cry. Being one of the two people he’d let himself be vulnerable around felt like a medal of honor. I was tricking myself into liking him even though I just enjoyed being a white knight.
I wondered, though, why I was so quick to put blame on this poor girl, when Raza was the one who made the decision to cut me off? It was because I was desperately looking for an excuse to justify my savior complex. It couldn’t be because he simply didn’t care about me like I cared about him, right?
It was.
When I realized this, I understood that we were never really friends to begin with. True friendship isn’t qualified with a gold star for every time one of us opens up. I may not have had Raza in my life anymore, but that was okay.
It wasn’t my job to fix him anyway.
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