I had to leave my English class to cry. Just for a moment, it all got too much, and so I stood outside in the unseasonably warm almost-September night on the balcony of the old Art building and cried. Two hours later we were no longer friends.

I can't talk when I'm upset; our fights were always defined by long, uncomfortable silences. It freaks people out, because I'm one of those people who has the reputation of one with the inability to shut up, and they think I'm deliberately making them uncomfortable. A lot of people assume that smart people do everything deliberately, but I'm the most reckless and impulsive person I know. Conversely, I mean it when I say I can not talk, rather than I will not talk. I knew something had changed when I was upset and you forced me to talk. Maybe that's when we stopped being friends. But, seeing as I'm not entirely sure when this all started, I guess it makes sense that I'll never know when it actually ended. Does it matter? All that matters is that it ended, and now I am broken. 

But not broken enough to not come back into class, sit down, and argue with my classmates. I wanted to sit there in miserable mopey silence, in the full knowledge that 'miserable mopey silence' translates into 'shit tutorial participation marks', but I couldn't. Somebody said something so wonderfully interesting that I had to have my say. Somebody asked me a question and I couldn't help but answer it, honestly, and therefore controversially, and then I couldn't help but get caught up in the whirlwind of discussion. A discussion that was interrupted by you being a dick one last time, but it almost made me forget. It almost numbed everything, blocked everything out. Somewhere in the tearstains I found this incredible focus, and I knew that I was doing the right thing, I was being the right person, and anyone who didn't agree with me on this account had to be left behind. I have no issue with squabbles and conflict; I am not a peaceful sort of person, and neither are you. But I'm on the right path, I'm doing the right thing, and I'll get to the right place, someday. And you weren't there, in that room, where I spoke loudly and proudly even though my voice quavered with tears. That is who I am. I've never been as strong as you said I was, or brave - but what I lacked in bravery I made up for in bravado. My fearlessness is that I do things even though I'm terrified, because I have to; my fearlessness isn't that I'm not afraid, but that I'll do anything in spite of my fear. Maybe you won't be there anymore, to listen to me, to talk to me, to give me advice and to stand with me when they leave me all alone to fend for myself, but I was alone and abandoned then, and I was doing what I do best, at my best, so I know I'll do just fine. I told you once that maybe happiness isn't my lot in life at the moment; definitely having a friend to stand by me isn't my lot in life at the moment. Maybe my lot in life is that my voice will always quaver with tears, but that's okay. Because my lot in life is also to have a voice that is loud and proud, no matter what. And I'm very okay with that.