Every few weeks, usually while washing dishes or folding laundry or driving home from the supermarket, my mother would ask the same question.
It was meant casual, but somehow i felt like my heart could explode, not in the good way. I always gave the same answer.
Because technically, it was true. Or at least I thought it was. But then my mother would ask the second question.
And that was when things became complicated. At first I would answer confidently.
Nathan had been my friend for 2 years.
Or maybe he still was. I wasn’t sure anymore. The last time we had seen each other was about three weeks ago. No, maybe longer. Time had become difficult to measure because every plan we made seemed to disappear before it happened.
“We should hang out next Saturday.”
“Definitely. I can’t wait!!!!”
Then Saturday arrived. Something came up. The next week we tried again. Something came up. The week after that, the same thing happened.
Three cancellations in a row.
I always told myself that the reasons were probably real. People got busy. Families had problems. School was stressful. Life happened.
I understood that. I really did.
Yet each cancellation felt like watching a train leave the station while standing on the platform holding a ticket. The destination still existed. The friendship still existed.
But somehow I never arrived.
She was another name I could place on the list. Another friend. Another proof that I wasn’t all alone. Except that I hadn’t seen her in over a month. Maybe longer. The strange thing about friendships fading isn’t that they suddenly disappear. They evaporate.
One missed meeting becomes two. One unanswered message becomes another. Weeks become months.
The friendship remains on paper, but when you reach for it, your hand closes around nothing.
My mother would nod as I listed the names.
But then I would continue thinking. When was the last time I actually spent time with them? The answer was never recent enough.
Then I would remember Emma.
Emma had been there since childhood.
When people asked about old friends, her name immediately came to mind. A week ago we had finally met after a long time apart.
Three hours. Three whole hours in a café. If someone had looked through the window, they would have seen two friends sharing a table. It would have looked perfect.
But appearances can be deceptive.
Emma kept checking her phone.
Sometimes her eyes drifted toward the screen before I had even finished speaking. It felt as though she was sitting across from me while simultaneously existing somewhere else, looking everywhere but me. I felt like a desperate puppy. How pathetic…
Afterward we walked to the bus stop. For a moment I felt hopeful. Maybe now we would finally talk properly. Maybe now we would reconnect.
Then three of her classmates appeared. Emma’s face immediately brightened.
I stayed where I was. The bus stop suddenly felt larger than before, yet i felt like i couldn’t even breathe. I watched them talking. Laughing. Sharing stories that i did not understand.
I wasn’t angry. That was the strange part. I was simply invisible. Minutes passed. Emma remained with them.
She only returned when the bus finally arrived. As though remembering I was there. As though I had been a forgotten bag left on a bench. We got on together. But something inside me stayed behind at that bus stop.
My mother would listen patiently.
“What about Nora and Laura?”
The names hurt. Not because I hated them. Not because i finally blocked them a month ago. Because I missed them.
There had been a time when they were important parts of my life. Then my eating disorder entered, ruined years of work.
People think illnesses only affect the person who has them. Sometimes they affect entire friendships. Entire relationships.
One day things were normal.
The next, conversations became awkward.
Their parents told them not to spend time with me. Maybe they were worried. Maybe they didn’t understand. Maybe they thought they were protecting their daughters. Whatever the reason, the result was the same.
Now they passed me in school hallways without saying hello. Without smiling. Without meeting my eyes.
Sometimes I wondered whether pretending not to know me was easier than remembering they once did.
The worst part wasn’t losing them.
It was watching them avoid me. Watching people become strangers while still remembering exactly who they used to be.
Then there were the hospital friends.
The friends from the clinic. The friends who understood. The friends who knew what it felt like to cry while looking at the scale. The friends who knew the language of fear and hope and survival.
For a while, they were my entire world. We promised to stay in touch. Everyone always promises. But eventually they returned to their own lives. Their schools. Their families. Their cities. Their futures.
People move forward. That is what people are supposed to do. The problem was that when they moved forward, I felt left standing still. By ninth grade, it seemed everyone had found their place.
If friendship could be measured in conversations, ours existed almost entirely inside German class.
I was usually the one who started speaking. I asked questions. I made jokes. I carried the dialogue like someone pulling a heavy cart uphill.
Barni wasn’t unkind. He simply seemed distant. His replies were short.
Every month or two he would ask how I was doing. I appreciated it. Yet it never grew into anything more.
A friendship shouldn’t feel like trying to keep a kite in the air during a windless day. Especially when not so long ago, we were inseperatable.
Carolina was friendly. Sometimes. Mostly when her best friend wasn’t around. Or when the stars aligned in a certain way (she is kind of spiritual ). Or when she happened to be in a good mood.
On those days she talked to me. Laughed with me. Included me. On other days I might as well have been wallpaper.
And so my list continued. A collection of names. A museum of friendships.
One evening my mother asked her question again.
I opened my mouth. Then closed it. Because suddenly the answer felt impossible. I thought about childhood. Back then everything seemed easier.
I had friends. Lots of them.
The kind of friendships that felt permanent. The kind children believe will last forever. We spent entire afternoons together. Entire summers. Entire worlds existed inside our stupid inside jokes. But somehow those friendships always ended the same way.
Someone stopped inviting me.
Someone chose someone else.
Like a story repeating itself.
One memory returned often. The teacher standing at the front of the classroom.
Immediately chairs scraped across the floor. Students turned toward each other. Names were called. Pairs formed within seconds. The room transformed into a puzzle rapidly assembling itself.
And every time, I waited. Because everyone else seemed to belong somewhere first. I became the extra piece. The leftover chair. The final student looking around the room while everyone else had already been chosen.
Purely because everyone could see how alone i was.
As I grew older, I made a promise to myself. I would never let someone else feel that way. If there was a new student, I included them. If someone sat alone, I talked to them. If someone was left out, I noticed. I became the person who tried to hold groups together.
The extra chair nobody would have to sit in.
But despite all of that, I was still the one left behind. Still the one waiting. Still the one wondering why everyone seemed easier to choose than me.
And till nowdays, i still defend these people with my core. Like, telling one bad thing about them physically hurts me. Why do i always want to portray people in a better light? I feel like, if i say one bad thing about them, i’m greedy and selfish.
But friendship was supposed to be more than names. More than old photographs. More than occasional messages.
I wonder, whether somewhere in the world there was a person who would notice if I didn’t show up. A person who would save me a seat without being asked.A person who would look around a crowded room and think:
“There you are. I’ve been waiting for you.”
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