the best friend i ever had
i used to have a friend who i’d tell everything to. we would lie on the floor of my room at 1a.m. and whisper our souls to each other in the dark. she was picture-perfect with a broken heart, and i had jagged edges with a genuine smile. she used to tell me that she wanted to be an it girl. the girl that all the boys wanted to with and all the girls wanted to be. i asked her why. she said it was because it made her feel better about herself.
and so that’s what she went to do. she wanted to have the nicest legs and look sexy in a skin tight red dress and be the prettiest girl in the room. and she was. so while she came to school in low cut shirts and short shorts, I kept my chin up and studied chemistry in huge sweaters.
and at the time i didn’t think any of it mattered, because I had some depth, I cared more about where life was going to take me rather than the men life was going to introduce me to. and i thought i was so mature, because i had a taste for the more important things in life. because i was going to have a future and she was just having fun. and one day you think you’re better than her, and then the next she has your boyfriend at her house and she’s giving him what you could never bring yourself to give up. because you thought you were too mature.
she and i aren’t friends anymore. i found out and she was too scared to confront me, so she ran away and left everything behind. i don’t think anyone ever loved her. she spent most of her days locked in rooms with boys she didn’t know, filling her lungs with chemicals, and trying to fill the space in her chest with a feeling that she couldn’t quite place.
and i think it’s sad, the way children break each other’s hearts before any of them realize what love actually is. because i loved her, i really did. and i think she might’ve loved me too, but she just loved the attention more. and it’s people like her that teach you what life is. and what being mature really is.
she was my best friend. i think she always will be.
