Someone is going to leave today. She is a very important person to me and she is the best thing that has ever happened to me. This girl was once my best friend. We laughed, we cried, all the time we spent together made me feel most alive. We aren't best friends anymore, most of the people around us wonder why.
"Is it because of her new friends that you don't like?"
"Is it because of your new friends that she doesn't like?"
"Is it because either one of you ratted out the other?"
They would wonder.
Pal, if that's all you can come up with, then you should shut your mouth, open your eyes and see the bigger picture. Friendship isn't always about having fun together and sharing secrets, or going through ups and downs together. Friendship is about growing up together, coming to realize the best and the worst in one another, learning what you look for in life and that you and your friends might not always be on the same path, then teaching yourself to grow a better self out of it, so that when you are on to a new phase of life, you look back to your past friendship and tell yourself,
"Thank god we both let go. Thank god we've both become what we are today."
The first few months of junior high was a mess. None of us knew what we were doing. I could be compared to a new born baby, just had my eyes opened. We were all completely new and unfamiliar to this school life. I was the odd-one-out, never good at making new friends. She was from another class, and she was friends with my sister. I didn't have any friends when I first came to my class, so I had to stick with my sister during lunch breaks to be less lonely. And that was how me and my former-best friend met. We got along quite well because we had common interests. We had similar taste in music and quite a lot of inside jokes that we knew of. We became very close, we were like each others' shadows. I knew everything about her - well, mostly everything - she knew everything about me. We never left each other and it was what we promised.
We stayed friends for almost four years, but we slowly drifted apart. When we were in senior, we had a change in classes, we had new friends of our own, then. We talked less. I felt it, I knew she felt it too. I always convinced myself that it was just because we were too busy with our new lives, but the lie could never get to my head. I knew it wasn't because we were busy, I knew it was because we were starting to grow up, and we grew to see things differently. We had completely different perspectives and talking to each other started to get more difficult. I don't mean the method of communicating, it was the knowledge and mutual understanding that kept us apart.
Half a year later, we weren't friends anymore. We never talked, we never waved hello even when we walked past each other. I didn't know why. We started to hate each other, with no reason at all. She was a total cunt to me (hey if you're reading this, I'm sorry, but you were really so mean!) and I couldn't get myself to forgive her. We started all the high school drama to pick on each other. Both of our friends joined, of course. It was a huge fight, I don't know when exactly it began, I don't know if it has stopped. Anyhow, it just further damaged the bond between us.
It's not the reason why we're not best friends anymore though. A year later, after the massive high school drama and shit, we started to talk again. We agreed on being friends again, like how we used to be. Deep inside, though, we both knew we couldn't make it. It just wouldn't happen. Not that I hated her, no, not at all. I just found myself avoiding her all the time. It was mostly because I got used to the life without her, and it felt kind of weird to have her back. Besides, I lived pretty fine that way.
Some time ago, something happened to my former-best friend. It was somewhat a tragedy. I was one of those to be the first to know. I still remember how it feels when the news first got to me. I was shaking, my lips trembled. I fought hard trying not to let my tears fall, I didn't want to admit that I cared.
"She doesn't matter to me at all. Not anymore." I told myself.
I couldn't hold back, however. It broke my heart to know she was in the hospital. Every single picture of what had happened that day still tortures my thoughts from time to time. I remember crystal clear how it cut me like a blade. I cried and cried and cried like a baby, it wouldn't stop. It was a drastic moment. I would never forget. It still triggers my tears when I think about it every time. I knew, right at that moment, she was my most precious. I couldn't lose her. It had always been her who made me become myself. She was my then-best friend, and she was the best and the worst I learned from for all these years.
We talked about random things again, after that day and that incident. But I still couldn't get that happiness I once had when I was around her. There's a wall between us, I figured. Somehow, we've grown up, innocence was no more, recklessness was no more. We had been so happy, because we were wild at heart, we were invincible. Now, we've come to realize that as the years go by, burden climbs its way up to our shoulders, only each time, it gets heavier. We live now, behind the veil that hides who we really are, for to protect ourselves, to protect the ones around us, but mostly, to prevent our innocence from slipping away. Ironic, isn't it? The harder we try to hold on to our childlike hearts - to be innocent and pure, the faster and easier we lose it.
Children's friendship is friendship. Grown-ups' friendship is benefit, greed, selfishness, pretense, lies. As time goes by, friendship isn't friendship anymore. There's no such thing as happiness, there're no such things as promises, there's no such thing as trust, needless to say, innocence.
Now, we barely talk. She's leaving today, going to a place for a brand new life, because here in this place, there are only hideous ones, they judge, they hate, they lie. I'm not lucky enough to leave this place yet, but I wish her all the best to be able to leave this living hell. I'm beyond delightful to see her start a new life, but as much as gladness, it breaks my heart, too. For I know that the best thing I can do for her now, is to stay where I am, let her go and pursue her dream, then slowly forget all the undertow that has once nearly dragged her to a place worse than hell.
We're not best friends anymore. I hope we aren't. I hope she has moved on to a new phase, I hope she has found a new life. I hope she takes a step closer to her destination.
I am so happy to have spent my youth with this girl. It startles me, still, to know that she was who I once shared the world with. She is the best thing that has ever happened to me.
The world was once ours, I'll never forget.
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