Anonymouslysecret

Life of secrets
2023-04-30 15:49:27 (UTC)

68

In my early 20s I had this friend, I’ll call her A. We were quite literally joined at the hip. She was my ride or die. Our friendship was almost like a romantic relationship. She was more than a sister to me. We would spend every weekend together. If we turned up at a party separately, we’d both scan the room for each other and when we found each other it would be high pitched screaming and running, and embracing. Everyone knew us to be together. We were never apart. In fact, at one point we worked together. Our first jobs.

One day A had a bad night with her parents. They had always treated her like she was doing things wrong and she never was. I remember they accused her of doing drugs once and she’d never touched the stuff. She put up with it for a long time… her mum was neurotic and her dad was pretty much absent although he was there… and one night she got home late, and they locked her out. She slept in the porch and called me that next morning to tell me. She didn’t sound like herself and we had a party to go to that night. Or the next night, I forget. It was about 20 years ago, now.

But that was the last phone call we had. She didn’t turn up for the party. It was fancy dress. I ended up going with some guy who’s mental health was questionable at the time, but he was a friend of ours (turns out his mental health really was questionable as he totally lost it a few years later and is now homeless, living in a self storage unit and claims all sorts of crazy things). But anyway, I remember dressing him up as Noah at the time. I don’t remember what I was. I do remember people asking where A was at that party, since it was unknown for us to not be together. And I couldn’t really give an answer.

Shortly after, I found out she’d run off to a mutual guy friends house who lived quite far. She never went back home. She sort of never really spoke to me again. I’d totally lost her. She missed my baptism. I felt a piece of me was ripped out of me and I couldn’t get it back.

I did see her a few times over the years. She’d completely changed. She wasnt the girl I had been friends with, anymore. In fact she turned into everything her parents had previously accused her of. And that was it.

I never really got closure. I mean, she told me a couple times during the sporadic moments we tried to rekindle our friendship, that she still tells everyone about me. That she had a friend and we did everything together. And she’d tell them our crazy stories.

Eventually she met a guy and moved to Australia. Literally the furthest away she could possibly get from her parents and her old life. Even then, she would reach out on social media and let me know that she told her boyfriend (now husband) about me. But things had changed so much, it was impossible for us to be friends again. It just wasn’t the same. But I still miss her. Can you believe it? 20 years later and I miss her!

Last night I was looking at a video she’d uploaded on Instagram and I thought to myself, A…. what have we done? This is what we’ve become - I’d have never thought it would be like this. This being my life, and that being yours. The times when we’d sit watching tv together, holding hands, thinking and believing we’d be friends forever. Now we are both married and all grown up and we don’t even speak.

How I would turn back time. Just to have one day. One night. Of that old life.




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