Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 138: Brianna

Prompt: "A song that reminds you of the worst thing you've ever done"

Selected by Brianna

"Give 'Em Hell, Kid"

My Chemical Romance

Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, 2004

It feels kind of weird talking about this moment in this space. The moment being my "worst thing ever done" that's been rattling in my brain like an echo for over a decade. The space being the most public imaginable: the internet. My only respite is the honesty and openness shared thus far by the YSC and PoYB community. If y'all can do it, I suppose I can too.

I'm gonna keep specific names and places out of this thing, but the story really all begins with a grade school friend. This person was probably one of the realest friends I ever had in the sense that I knew I could be around them exactly as my truest self and never feel, even for a second, a sense of judgment. In middle school, we had a lot of fun sharing musical interests and growing into our emo selves together. All of the Emo Hours I've written about here were deeply influenced by the presence of this old friend. In fact, I don't know what paths I would've gone down in terms of music and style at this time if not for them.

High school ended up changing a lot of things, as it does. Me and this old friend (OF let's call them) ended up going to different schools, but did stay in touch to some capacity. By this age, though, I was feeling pressure to begin teenage things like drinking in the woods, while OF kinda kept doing the same old thing we always had. The distancing began then, but only accelerated itself when I began to make friends with girls at OF's new school, friends that I daresay I became closer to than OF themself. 

I would often hang out with these new girls and hear about how they viewed OF. It was unsettling, and really ramped up my own insecurities, because for a long time previous to high school, a lot of these things they saw in OF I had seen in myself. But, being high school and all, I tried to bend and shape myself to be different from who we were in the past. 

That's not to say I dropped OF completely. We actually stayed in contact a ton in those first couple of years of high school. I would go hang out at her place, we'd walk around the neighborhood and listen to music, talk about our very different high school experiences like it was all perfectly fine and okay. OF was aware I had formed these new friendships and would occasionally drop a hint or two that these girls were not exactly in their social circle. There was also hinting at something else, something bigger and hugely personal: revelations about their sexuality and some very early and vague suggestions about a different gender identity. 

In 2011-2012, this was a brand new world for me. I had never known anyone to have these feelings nor feel confident enough to share them with me. It was clearly a huge deal, but what to do with this information felt confusing to me. I kept it to myself for a while, during which I think I subconsciously decided to distance myself even more. I wasn't "phobic" of these parts of my friend, but also wasn't mature enough to understand what being an ally could look like. 

One weekend, I was out drinking with one of my new friends. We got talking about school, and OF was mentioned. My stupid, fearful, conforming, immature brain blurted out that I had heard something about them, that they liked girls (nothing about the trans part, even then I had enough sense to keep that to myself). I didn't mean it to be this big revelation, just a vague rumor I "thought I heard through friends of friends, etc." Regret washed over me immediately, I knew that this was not my story or secret to tell, but the desire to be liked, to be distant from the black sheepish in OF had overpowered me long enough to do the worst thing I've ever done. 

I dragged my friend, one of the best people I've ever known, out of the closet before sophomore year was even over.

In the aftermath of my awful deed, my new "friend" shared this secret with many others at their school. It got around fast among their circle, not to everyone in the building but enough related folks that OF figured out it was known and who it had to have come from. There was a confrontation, via text of course, in which I pleaded for forgiveness and tried my best to articulate why I was such an enormous piece of shit. Even now I feel like no words could excuse it, and my attempts back then were even poorer. 

Believe it or not, OF stuck by me. I wish I could say the same. Maybe it was guilt, more likely it was further descent into teenage bullshit, but the distance grew to the point that by junior year, we almost didn't talk at all. The rest of high school went by like a blur, and while I couldn't pinpoint exactly when we officially stopped trying to maintain the friendship, I do know that this worst thing was where the end really began. 

In the decade plus that has followed, I've thought extensively about apologizing. Typing out a long list of ways I was an awful friend and sending it into the social media abyss. We follow each other still to this day on almost all platforms. We like each other's life events (theirs including an official transition into male-dom even!), and I cheer him on from afar. But to actually apologize? I haven't been able to do that.

Not out of lack of desire, that's for sure. I regret NOTHING more in my life than this awful thing. But because it feels kind of selfish to me. What good would come from it? I would love to think that he would be able to find some healing in their coming-out story through it, but isn't the person who would really be helped, me? Out of my guilt, being able to move on? What if by apologizing, I'm reopening old wounds for him? What does he want from me at this point, if anything?

God, I don't know. Now I feel like I'm listing a million excuses not to just do it, and somehow that feels even more selfish. I'm not asking anyone here for the answers, but I will say it feels a little better to finally say these things "out loud" for once.