[johnny]

Dear...

You were my best friend for years. I never even met you, but I talked to you every day. I could share everything with you and I could laugh with you and you could share anything with me. I don't know what happened to make you suddenly stop talking to me, but I wish I did so I could fix it.

You're still on my buddy list. I promised myself I'd try to talk to you again, if you ever signed on. I'm not sure if I'll actually do it - obviously you don't want to talk to me, or else you would've tried to during the last year we haven't been speaking. Not that it's mattered so far, though; you haven't signed in for a week, now. Have you changed your screen name? It's the last connection I have to you. If you have changed it, you're lost to me forever now.

It's a bit ironic that, now that I actually want to try and rebuild the bridge that had... well, not exactly "burned" down, but fallen apart from disuse, perhaps... now that I want to do that, you seem to be gone for good. I wonder if I'm going to regret not reaching out again forever? Every time I talk to someone over the internet, I think, "Why can't I connect with this person like I did with [you]?" What was it in that little window of teenage life that allowed me to make a best friend over the Web, that I can't manage to hold a conversation for more than ten minutes with anyone else?

On January 9, 2011 I will turn 21. It will also be the eighth anniversary of the day I sent you an email, requesting to join your website. The eighth anniversary of when we "met". I wish I could celebrate it with you, as your friend again. I wish I could, once more, exchange silly "e-gifts" with you. I wish I had in-jokes again. I wish for a lot of things, but most of all I wish I knew what happened that stopped you from being my friend.

I'm sorry.