For Tahlia.

I have to say this. And after September of 2010, I really thought I'd never hear myself say it. But I miss Tahlia. I miss her a lot. We had the most amazing, random, fun and deep conversations. We spoke for hours EVERY NIGHT on the phone, and when we weren't on the phone, wherever possible, we were on MSN talking.
I'm going to backtrack a bit, for those of you who don't know who I'm talking about.
Tahlia Ford. I met her in about May of 2009 on the Delta Goodrem Official Forum. We sent each other a couple of DMs on it, just being friendly and introducing ourselves. Then we progressed to swapping MSN addresses and talking on there. A lot. After a while, we started texting lots and talking on the phone. We became so close, it was so amazing. I wasn't particularly close with anyone at school at the time, except for maybe one amazing person who I still love to bits now. And she was also really the only one who understood me and Tahlia. Eventually, Tahlia and I became best friends. Sure, we had never met (she lives in Melbourne, I live in Adelaide), but we talked all the time. Sometimes our conversations were fun, random and lighthearted, and I still vividly remember one of them. It is making me cry just thinking about it now, because it was hilarious and ridiculous and was one of the most amazing times in my life, I loved her so much. We helped each other get through a lot of problems. I like to think I helped her largely to stop self harming herself. We would stay strong for one another when we needed each other. Our 'song' was Never Fades Away, a beautiful Delta song that summed up our relationship perfectly.
About a year after we met, we started talking about meeting. Surprisingly, my parents agreed to have her come over and stay for a week in the school holidays. We arranged everything and were both so excited.
She came in July for a week. We went shopping together, one day we went to the zoo. We had a personal joke about the pandas, Wang Wang and Funi, and went to see them together. I had an amazing week, and I was so happy just hanging out with her 24/7. She was my best friend, after all, and I'd never had a proper best friend before. Not in kindergarten, not all through primary school, not in the first couple of years of high school either.
When she left, I was upset but knew we would still talk lots. We even talked about me going to visit her at some stage as well.
I texted her a couple of times in the week after she left, and she didn't reply. I started sending her some facebook messages and more texts and everything, and she just never replied. Eventually, I kind of gave up. At the start of September, I tried one more time because I really missed her. She finally replied to that message on facebook. And I still have her reply. You have no idea how much I cried over it. For HOURS, I bawled my eyes out. She didn't give a shit about me. She said that she'd had a terrible time when she stayed with me and I treated her like shit. All of what she said was total crap, and it upset me so much. She said she didn't want to be friends anymore because it just didn't work out. I didn't understand, it seemed like she was enjoying herself the whole time.
We stopped talking, but I was still so upset. She deleted me from facebook, and I deleted all her messages I had saved on my phone, and photos we'd taken. It hurt too much to look at them.
About a year later, she added me on facebook again. I didn't know what to do, and the same amazing friend mentioned above (she knows who she is, and if you're reading this, I love you so much beautiful!) encouraged me to accept it and talk to her. So I did. She gave me these excuses, saying she was having a really hard time when she sent me that message and was pissed off and upset. That hurt too, because even if she was telling the truth this time, she lied before and caused me hours of crying.
Since we talked that last time, we haven't talked again. We're just too different now. From what I can see on facebook at the moment, she's in hospital. I'm not sure exactly what for, but I'm thinking maybe an eating disorder. She had always been paranoid about her weight, even though she's beautiful. That was one of the things I thought I'd helped her to get over, but I guess not.
Oh well. What's done is done, and I don't think we're probably ever going to speak to each other again. But I do really miss her, and even though she hurt me a lot, and even though she annoys me with her over-dramatic statuses and photo captions on facebook, there is still part of me that loves her.
It sounds stupid, but she was my first real best friend. Losing someone like that will always hurt, and because she was so special to me, I will probably never completely forget her and stop loving her.
I haven't listened to Never Fades Away since September 2010. I don't know when I will, it reminds me of her too much.
I don't know how many people will read this whole post and care about anything I've said, but this is for Tahlia. And anyone who's ever lost someone that special to them.