And then guilt punched me in the face

I saw a particular man today.

A man I was friends with when I was 11-12.

He's one year younger than me, and he was bullied in his own class in elementary. They'd call him gay and ridicule him and I guess they could be pretty cruel to him. I can't remember how we became friends, but this was during the time I was slowly turning into the outcast of my own class and...

... outcasts stick together.

I remember how we used to swing together. We talked and talked and I knew how to make him laugh and I joked a lot to him.

We were children. We were friends.

Until... I don't know what went wrong in my head.

I started to show my uglier side to him. I don't know why. I became cold to him and then, I resented him.

And I left him to the bullies.

The strong ones crush the weak ones. I guess I was fed up att having my own friends shoveling disgust in my face and this was the start of my downfall I had about a year later with the knife incident, and I was just angry.

I left him to the bullies. I became a cold hearted bitch who likewise turned to homophobia to make this young boy - my friend - feel like shit.

I live with guilt to this day. Everytime I see him, or even hear of him (you see, he was interviewed for a news paper many years ago, and I felt so shit reading about him) guilt crushes me.

He was my friend! We were the outcasts, we were supposed to stick together, but I couldn't resist the darkness and I used horrible insults and I'm so sorry I'm so sorry.

I even had to check with FB to remember his name.

I had forgotten his name!

He seems to be happy. But what do I know. Facebook always lies.