I’d like to think I’m a pretty good friend.
After all, when I was ten years old and transferring to a new school I made sure to buy matching necklaces for my best friend and me. You know the kind — the ones that say BE FRI FOR on the first and ST ENDS EVER on the other. When you click them together, voilà! The fate of your friendship is sealed and the code is decrypted: BEST FRIENDS FOREVER. (In my head I added, and ever and ever and ever and ever. What can I say? I’ve always had a bent toward the dramatic side.) I bought the star-shaped kind because she was never much into hearts and I felt like being particularly thoughtful.
I hope you’re not here for a feel-good story because the friendship fell apart, and so did the necklace. It got exceptionally rusty because I refused to take it off for a year. Turns out chlorine isn’t great for cheap jewelry.
I was devastated when we stopped being friends. It wasn’t a Formal Break Up or anything — we didn’t even have a fight. “A changing of seasons,” was how my mom put it. She sat me down and told me we have seasons in life, seasons where certain people are in our lives, and seasons when they’re not.