I never thought I’d be the one to say goodbye to a friend I used to love so much. I had only met her about 3 months before but our connection had become really tight. We can blame it on drama for breaking us up. Don’t get me wrong, I had so many laughs and smiles with her. But it wasn’t enough to save what was already coming undone. After leaving a friend I cared a lot about, it made me stronger yet still came with a big amount of pain.


The first time I came in contact with this girl was on the first day of 7th grade. No one was near her and I could see the loneliness calling out from her eyes. The teacher announced that partners were needed and since she caught my eyes, a flicker of hope flashed across her face. She came over to me and we talked for a while and noticed there was a lot on common between us. We even had a couple of other classes together. From that day on she and I would chat, grin at each other, and rolled out plans for sleepovers. Not even a month later from our greeting, we had already had so many inside jokes and things to kid each other about. Some of my different friends joined in on my happy times with her. Although, one of them may have gotten too close.


We seemed like the 3 inseparable girls. Each of us could name the other's favorites from just about any subject, all of their secrets no one but us knew, and even explain in detail stories we had told 2 weeks before. The sound of laughter and uncountable smiles fills my mind. Apparently a few harsh text messages had been sent between my ‘best friends’ a bit later. The reason why escapes me but things just started to blow up from then on. Since I was right in the middle of these daily fights, both sides of the argument had been given to me. I learned they could say some really nasty things that would get me in trouble for even thinking. I didn’t want to get involved because my only intention was to make peace between them. I should have known what was coming, based on everything that I tried to stop.



She got me into the fun charade of fighting. Without enough satisfaction, she created drama between my other friend and me. It didn’t last long, making her even madder. I decided it was the right time to call it quits because it was tearing me more apart then a shredder could slice paper. There for, she came up with a plan to get me back after my temporary goodbye. A text threatening that she would tell everyone who I like was sent to my phone. The only way to stop this was to be friends with her again. She told me that for her to “Even think about not telling” I had to say I loved her, promise we would be best friends forever, and send an in-depth apology for how much pain I had seemingly caused. For secrecy reasons, I absentmindedly accepted. Just because I agreed to do these things I would regret doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.



I thought all of this would have gotten better. The conflicts had simmered down with my other friend and her because she had followed in my footsteps - A decision to leave her had risen. Although, when they were near each other you could see the fire burning in their eyes. Turns out that the drama was about to restart over. I could tell by the way this ignorant friend kept going back on her words and began talking badly about people close to me. Witnessing this, it brought me back to all those nights that I spent feeling hot beads roll down my cheeks and the salty taste of tears in my mouth. Those times were so hard that I knew I could never go through them or anything like it again. I made my move before anyone caught on.



I settled on talking to my cousin before the sting of this got to me. Her first idea to a situation she thought was very stupid would be to call the safety hotline. It was free, anonymous, and seemed to be something even we couldn’t screw up. The teller on the other end of the line said we should talk to the principal or a teacher we trusted. It wasn’t exactly what we’d hoped for, but it was a thought to experiment with. A wholesome, dependable class educator brought us the idea of getting advice from the school councilor. So we tried to set up a time when I could share my story with her. The councilor may have heard me wrong because it was supposed to be just me and her. It most definitely wasn’t.



My best friend who I went through it with was involved enough that she came too. I was fine with that since she had suffered as much as I did. The part that went wrong was the councilor had also called down the girl behind it all. We had to sit down in a little room where the air was filled with so much anxiety that it was hard to even breathe, just to talk about the problems going on. No one would make eye contact. During the whole visit to this ‘helpful’ staff member, the pain causing girl talked. She went on and on while we barely got to share our side. I though letting her in on the event of being blackmailed
would ensure something to be done. Actually no, this got so turned around that a compass couldn’t even tell which way was up or down. The councilor had taken the other girls side and blamed everything on me. By the end of our time together that day, my friend and I were so mad that it was a good thing we had been advised not to text this girl anymore.



We reconnected a while later, after being sure there was no way to get to a finale of fighting. Strangely enough, I had gotten secretly very annoyed with her one night. I had the biggest feeling that this was the end. Only I knew it was coming. It was just a normal school day when we said our soon to be last words. She had given me a compliment and a smile. My return was a thank you, accompanied by a fake grin. When she sent me a message that evening, I never wrote back. The next few days had so many looks of confusion and silent treatments go back and fourth between us that anyone could have thought we were professionals at it. She finally caught on to my avoidance of her and learned to not try to communicate in any way to me or my friends again.



I do feel a lot of relief about leaving a girl I used to call best friend. I did suffer though loads of pain, too. One from being turned into a liar because of all the moments I had said sorry. She was the reason behind tons of different things - enjoyable and terrible. But after having bad experiences over take the good so many times makes me want to think twice about telling a friend I love them.