In kindergarten, you came home one day and couldn’t stop talking about her. Your mother asked you who you were blabbering on about; “My best friend,” you replied. It was as if it had always been that way.
First grade came, and you were in the same class, what joy! You still have the progress report that reads, “Clare is brilliant, but we must get her talking under control.” You’re proud of that. You sat next to her and you never were quiet.
Looking back, when you remember elementary school, you’ll remember second grade. It couldn’t have been better. The first-grade teacher “looped” with the class — she moved up to second grade with all the same students. You’ll never forget her, really. And your best friend? The two of you became inseparable. You were sisters. You spent more time at her house than your own. She got you to join Girl Scouts, and the two of you were happy.
Third grade separated the two of you by only one room — she was right across the hallway. She loved her teacher, and you hated yours. One day you came to school in identical outfits, and then had a sleepover that night. She was the artsy one, full of talent and promise. You were the sidekick, but that was okay with you. She was three months and twenty days older, anyways. She made sure you didn’t forget that.
During fourth grade, she made a few good friends besides you, but so did you. You were still best friends. Forever. Inseparable. Every teacher in the school knew it, practically. The two of you were the dynamic duo.
Fifth grade was hard. A new school opened nearby, and she moved there. She always talked about those new friends, spent more time with them. Her parents seemed to like you less and less, and so it was less and less often that you would be invited over. It was okay, you always told yourself. Next year, in middle school, things would be different.
Sixth grade — what a year. You had adjacent lockers. You cajoled her into joining band with you. The new friends from last year became your friends, too. In fact, you’re still very close with one of them. You had your first real catfight with her (your fault, not hers), but it was quickly resolved. You couldn’t wait to grow up.
In seventh grade, you both wore mascara for the first time. You were in the upper band class, and she in the lower, but you still got to go on the Six Flags trip and ride all the rides at the end of the year together. The two of you fell back into the rhythm of your earlier friendship, except now it was getting rides to the outdoor mall, not to her house or yours. The freedom was exhilarating.
Eighth grade — you were almost done. The two of you were so excited to go to high school together. Your circle of friends had grown significantly, and you were finally feeling good about yourselves. You were to be roommates on the end-of-year trip to Savannah, and she was just as thrilled as you were. You got your first boyfriend, but he didn’t go on the trip, so you spent too much time texting him and too little time talking to her. No matter, she spent most of her time with this other girl who you weren’t crazy about, but you didn’t give it much thought. Years later, she still wouldn’t let you live it down.
Freshman year brought change like no other. You both joined the marching band — she on the clarinet, you on the flute. Your tenth anniversary of being friends came. She made you a cake. She hated your boyfriend, and for good reasons. She helped you through the breakup, like a good friend, and the two of you vowed to never let relationships get in the way. That was the year that she came out, too. You learned what pansexual meant very quickly, and she told you that she cried when you told her that you loved her no matter what. You hated her girlfriend though — she was a senior, and a little too manipulative for your tastes. They broke up before the band trip to Washington DC, and you helped her through it the way she had helped you. You didn’t understand her all the time, but you loved her.
Sophomore year — you had Latin class together, and she spent much of the year copying your homework. She dated again, a boy this time, but not for too long. You talked every day. You tried out to be section leaders in the band together, and both got the positions you wanted. You got a new boyfriend too, and this one she approved of. The marching band took a cruise to the Bahamas, and you were roommates yet again. You never had so much fun.
Junior year is when it started to go wrong. She quit marching band unexpectedly to focus on her grades. By now, you had been the high-achieving one for years, but you never saw this coming. She dropped Latin as well, but you still saw each other all the time, watching Quentin Tarantino movies and going to the mall. She always wrote you these great notes about life and boys and school, and they made you laugh the way she used to when you were young. She told you that she thought you were moving in two different directions, and that she didn’t want it to be that way. She said you were drifting apart — or maybe you were being pushed. You couldn’t be sure. But she didn’t laugh at your jokes anymore. More and more things started to happen without you. She was making choices that you weren’t so sure about. She was downright mean sometimes. You knew she had a lot going on in her life, but it didn’t explain why she was treating you this way. Like she didn’t care anymore. Like you weren’t important. She started to treat you like you could never understand her complicated life. She would tell everyone but you what was happening in her life, and you would find out months later. She cancelled far too many plans. A week before prom, she said she wasn’t going. She was sick. Somehow, miraculously, she was able to go, but she never told you exactly what was wrong. But you hung on. You loved her, no matter what. It’s just a phase, you told yourself.
So now, it’s your senior year. Graduation is just nine months away. And you are not really friends anymore. This past summer, things dissolved. You saw her once — went to the movies with a mutual friend. A summer romantic blockbuster. She laughed at you for crying. She texted you a couple times — just small talk, really. She was excited for you when you got into the summer writing program of your dreams. She didn’t write while you were away at camp, though. She hasn’t sent you a text in 56 days: for two Februarys, you haven’t really spoken. She played a mean prank on you. You forgave her, eventually, even though she never apologized. Sometimes, you sit and wonder where things went wrong. Maybe you’ll never know. All your other friends tell you that this is the right thing to do, to ignore her, because she’s not treating them well either. She told you once that she didn’t want to lose you, but you know now that that was just a formality. You’ve exchanged a few words. She ignores you when you pass her in the hall. She comes by the band room occasionally to talk to her boyfriend, and avoids eye contact. You are dying inside, even though you know this friendship has become beyond toxic. She was supposed to be your maid of honor. The godmother to your children. She cried just as hard as you did when your great-grandmother died. She knew everything about you, even when she stopped letting you in. She was your lifelong best friend, you thought. The two of you were never supposed to stop loving each other. You still love her, but you’re increasingly afraid that the feeling no longer goes both ways. People were supposed to ask you in twenty years if you were really still best friends, and you were supposed to be able to say yes. And it all disappeared in one awful summer. What senior year will bring, you don’t know. You’re scared of it. You’re scared to admit that you miss her, that you want that brilliant girl that you met thirteen years ago back. You look at the old pictures of the two of you and wonder why. It sounds like a self-help book: How to Lose a Friend in Thirteen Easy Years. But all you want to know is how to win her back.
