I dreamed of you again. It’s been, what, nine years? Almost 10. In my head you are saying (and I know you, so I know what you’re saying) that I’ll never be rid of you. That I might try to run away, but we’re tied to each other, the two of us, we made a pact, we made several pacts, to be best friends forever and go to college together. And I know you expect me to argue back, like how my other best friend did when I accused her of having changed. To say that I’m different, I’m new. Our deal is no more.

But I won’t say that. Not now, not ever. The deal holds up. I know you’re always inside me; I see you there. In my favorite books. In the stories that I write. In the way my brain criticizes the others around me, automatically lauching insults I learned from you, which I entertain for longer than I should. You go wherever I go. And I dreamed of you.

So long as I write this, you live on inside me, and now on the page, too. Is that unfair? To immortalize you within me, this wicked and monstrous version of you that I made from your worst times, which I’d accumulated over those years the way mercury accumulates in large species of fish. Is that how you want us to stay together?

I’d apologize, but this is how stories are written. The other day, my friend showed me his blog. There I was! That ugly version of myself, or so he says, the one who annoyed him. How could I say anything about it, though, considering all the ugly ways I’ve immortalized my friends, peers, acquaintances, people I barely even knew, capturing the shortcomings I’d selectively chosen to backdrop my beautiful story. Crafted. Out of misfortune and embarrassment.

So I bore it, my friend’s portrayal of me, for the art. Taking one for the team, I say, except the team is all of the writers in this world and we are all taking it, all the time, every one of us. So please, will you just stay quiet, and take this one, too?