A Mutual Misunderstanding

By Charlotte Poon

“Why don’t you ever talk to me now,” I groaned over text. I had to be the one to stop these two years of friendship from going to waste.

She had left my message on read again. 

I was infuriated, once more. Who else would have agreed to stay by my side for so long? And why, just why, did this also have to end? 

“If you really want nothing to do with me anymore, why don’t you just tell me??” 

That was the next message I sent. 

She was the most whimsical person I’d possibly ever met. She was always so carefree and easy to approach, yet she could also be so sincere and understanding. We would talk about everything, from our everyday lives and favourite books and shows, to the most ridiculous inside jokes and the deepest feelings we never thought we could explain.

Lately, it hadn’t been this way. 

Then I saw her typing. Oh great, I just knew what she would say. I glared at her across the screen in anxious anticipation. 

After several long minutes, she finally had the nerve to send her paragraph explaining why she was growing tired and bored to tears of me and that we just had to cut each other off. 

“I’m sorry.”

That was it? 

A tremendous wall of text had popped up, stretching across the screen. 

“I haven’t talked to anyone for days, being for real. Heck I don’t even have the energy to get out of bed. I’m tired of everyone to be honest but I still see you as my best friend. So stop saying weird things about me hating you it’s scaring me.”

After that, she went offline. 

What the hell is wrong with her, I thought. At the same time, I understood she was struggling. 

However, she would always come to me when she struggled. I understood her, but why wouldn’t she understand me? I struggled as well, she was all I had left, but she was being incredibly selfish.

If she truly tried to understand me, she would have communicated.

Rationale: This is a written piece relating to the theme of mental health awareness, or rather, a lack of it. The two characters in this piece are struggling with their own mental health, yet they subconsciously refuse to acknowledge the mental state of the other.