“I love you so much.”

And it’s done. The right thing is done. You’ve acted in tough love and now your own heart is shredding. You take a deep breath and remind yourself that you have to be brave. Closing the laptop, you go on with your day.

But then the day is over sooner than you expected, and you’re sitting in front of your laptop screen again. Again the pointer hovers over a button. Should you click it? Will she be angry? Will she hate you? Will she not care? You just told your best friend that you and she can’t be such close friends anymore. How will she take it? Will you survive?

You click the button and open your inbox. Scrolling down the list of emails, you see her name. Without thinking, you click it open and read.

As you read, you wonder why she sounds so calm. It’s almost as if . . . as if she doesn’t mind. The horrible thought comes: did she want this? Then again, you told her that you want it! Perhaps she’s just being the good friend she’s always been . . .

You realize, in that moment, how much that last little part of your heart had wanted her to say no. To refuse. To fight back. To say something, anything, that would change your mind. Make you go back and try again. But you know – and you know she knows – that trying again will only cause pain. More pain than it’s worth. Your heart feels calloused at the matter-of-fact tone in her writing, and you close your inbox.

You head to another website and see that a person there has roasted you for sharing your beliefs. You close the page. You read another email on a different account. It’s your other close friend. He just hate-talked you like you’ve never been talked to before. You close the page.

After wandering around the internet, feeling like the loneliest person on earth, you open another website and go to a friend who you hope is awake. You message her. She replies. You tell her everything and as you get it all into words, your heart starts crumbling. It doesn’t stop. It keeps falling apart inside your chest, and you understand, once more, what people mean by heart-ache. Your heart literally aches like as if some hand were crushing it. Were crushing all the hope, joy and love out of your very soul. You feel empty and collapsed as you return, once more, to your inbox.

And there you see another email. Your friend has posted something on her blog. Opening the email, you read her story.

You read her story.

You read your story.

And you realize how much pain you’ve really caused. She was not callous after all! She was hurting just as much as you. Oh, God help . . .

“Oh, God help me. I hurt too much. I hurt too much.” You whisper, sobbing, clutching your chest and rocking back and forth as you read her agony. Your agony. The pain you’ve caused.

But you don’t regret. You know you’ve done the right thing. Love hurts. It hurts so much . . .

And you know you will miss her too.

It is so strange, you think, as you write your feeling in a black-and-white that could never say them strongly enough, The only times I have begun chronicles before was when I was either crushed or inspired.

Now you are crushed and inspired. Does this even make sense? No . . . it doesn’t.

Nothing makes perfect sense. Not friendship. Not pain. Not sorrow. Not love.

Somehow, though, the words have made it make a little more sense. You draw a deep breath and let it out slowly. Your heart is still crushed, and as you wonder if it will ever stop hurting, you remind yourself that, no, things like this never stop hurting.

Then again, perhaps they do.

“God, you understand. You understand better than I do,” you whisper, sobbing again. Why can’t you stop crying?! “I trust You. I love You. Help me bear this.”

The most crushing thought of all is not losing your friend, but leaving her. Leaving her alone. Leaving her perhaps without hope. The idea of her pain hurts more than your own, and you sob until your chest feels like it’s on fire because of her pain inside you.

You don’t want her in pain.

What can you do?

What can you do?

What can you do?

You start slowly typing:

“Dear friend. Dear best friend. Dear you who have been my own dearest heart. I love you and I know you love me. Remember the letter you wrote me? How you said “remember the good times”? I will do that. I will do that for you because I love you so much. Because this request will allow me to show my love by granting it no matter how much memory hurts.

"Now, please, I want you to do something for me: I will remember. Please, would you look ahead? Would you hope? Do this – for me. Remember that life is short, but that’s OK. Life is painful, but that’s OK. I know it sounds cliché, but it is so true: Everything will be all right in the end. We’ve messed up because we’re broken. Guess what! One day we won’t be broken! One day this short life will be over and when we meet in Heaven there is nothing we will be able to do to hurt each other ever again. No mistakes. No tears. No pain. Love will not hurt anymore.

“Promise me. Promise me you’ll look forward. Promise me that you’ll be there, and when we are perfect in Heaven, we’ll be able to be best friends in the best of ways. Even better – fire won’t hurt anymore. It’ll just be beautiful, intense, exciting, and the truest metaphor for love.

“You’re never alone. I’ll see you there.”

You put the last quotation mark, but a slow smirk twitches your lips up. You write:

“P.S. Better watch out, ‘cause when we get there, I am SO going to wallop you in our first fire-fight.”

You smile through your tears and close the document, knowing that you’ve tried. Knowing that it’ll be all right. Knowing that, no matter how much it hurts now, you will be healed.

Knowing, hoping, remembering, believing that there is a Someone out there who is going to take all of this pain and make it so glorious, you’ll finally see, it was all for the best.