You two fought like hell.
Door-slamming, name-calling, silence-for-days kind of fighting.
And everyone saw it—the chaos, the shouting, the way you couldn’t be in the same room without biting at each other.
They rolled their eyes. Said it was toxic.
Said you were better off apart.

But they didn’t know the whole story.

They didn’t see what came after.
The dumb inside jokes.
The shoulder checks that meant “I’m here.”
The late-night truce over gas station snacks.
The way only they knew exactly how to piss you off—and exactly when to stop.

They didn’t see the way you called each other names,
but still showed up when no one else did.

And now—

now you’d kill to hear them call you a dumbass just one more time.
You’d give anything to roll your eyes and say “Shut up, man”
while secretly being glad they’re still there.

But they’re not.

And now it’s just your voice in the room.
No one left to finish the story.

“You guys didn’t even get along,” they say.
As if grief only belongs to harmony.
As if love needs to be polite.

You want to scream at them—
“They were mine.”
You want to say,
“You didn’t see what I saw.”

But you don’t.
You just nod.
Because how do you explain a bond that was built on shared wounds and sarcastic jabs?
How do you explain that even war-torn love is still love?

You scroll through old texts—
arguments, memes, inside insults that only make sense to you two.
You listen to a voice message where they meant to sound mean,
but you can hear the laugh hiding in the back of their throat.

And it hits you:

Half of who you are was shaped by that rivalry.
By the one person who never let you forget your scars—
but never let you carry them alone, either.

They knew all the versions of you.
The ones you outgrew. The ones you buried.
They carried your story in their bones.

And now half of it’s gone.

Buried.
Gone.
Still yours.

They were the only one who could talk shit and still show up.
Now no one shows up quite right.