The image of that day is still perfectly engraved in my memories like the historical Ten Commandments. With a big grin that stretched out for miles and a sparkle in my eyes that gleamed like a single diamond, I hopped in a mucky brown puddle splashing my mom with the freezing cold water staining her spotless yellow dress. The eye brow raised, red faced expression that appeared on my mom’s face could not compare to the warm butterfly feeling swirling throughout my body. With each step I took the squeak of my brightly fresh red boots distracted me from my surroundings but the large dark brown building that appeared in front of me that I imagined as a beautiful princess’s castle caused my jaw to drop and would take 10 people to lift my mouth back up. The letters “SEASONS HEIGHTS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL” brought chills down my spine. Images flowed throughout my head, a small single girl slowly and carefully taking one step at a time in this dark and intimidating new world having no one by her side. I clutched onto my mom’s already stained dress camouflaging myself. With one deep breath I enter the classroom one foot placed over the other gradually moving. The shrieking and giggling resonance rang through my ears. I poked my head out from behind my mom’s dress and the sight of a single girl in a multi-colored floral dress with eyes red as the summer’s day and droplets of tears rushing down her puffy face like a water fall is all I distinguished. I squinted my eyes making out the letters on a
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wrinkled piece of name tag stuck on to her chest. After minutes of analyzing the name Taylor on her name tag, I cautiously stepped toward her invading her space and in a small whisper I murmured “don’t weep.” In seconds, a beaming smile appeared across her face as she leaped to grasp my body to grip me firmly.
Years passed and glimpsing at each other occasionally quickly sprouted into rushing towards each other with the largest grins on our faces even when almost colliding with one another. We acted as each other’s shadows, wearing the same clothes and imitating each other’s every move. With one sentence I started, her one strident voice swiftly followed mine finishing my final thoughts. With a single expression on her face, I automatically distinguished her inner contemplation. Our favorite songs were hardly interpreted with our shrill screams singing along. Our laughter roared for miles and our eyes shimmered like the very first star in the dusky night sky when we were together.

Skipping across the playground wearing little pink tutus linking arms with Taylor quickly turned into strutting down the crowded fussy hall way presenting our latest trends making our way through 7th and 8th graders who emerged like giants. I often glimpsed at her way quickly noticing her flirting with boys and giggling about the most recent school drama. I finally caught her attention as she peeked over with the back corner of her scowling eyes snickering away with other girls. Question marks popped around my head and my face scrunched up tighter and tighter. Every day my thumbs rapidly shuffled across my phones keyboard pressing send but the zero messages in my inbox continuously taunted me. I spotted her throughout the swarming hall way and uttered her name but the echo of
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other people’s conversation merging together suggested as the only sounds she heard. On one chilling after noon, my friend Catherine paced to class over hearing Taylor murmuring away about her hatred of me. I finally made my way over to Taylor confronting her but in a single hushed response with her pink glossy lips, all that made her way out of her mouth was “I’m tired of you so either you have to change yourself or I won’t like you,” and she decisively pranced away.
My whole body dropped and my heart sank like the titanic. My eyes hollow and stiff as a board, thousands of new feelings and old memories bolted across my mind. The little girl that I met back in kindergarten gave me the impression of a friend I truthfully thought I knew and felt a deep affiliation with but that girl now buried in the depth of egotism and popularity may perhaps no longer attempt to dig herself out. The thought of us as a single unit with selfish, popular, image snobs somehow did not come to my attention even if it meant spending more time with my “best friend” that I believed of knowing.

Middle school year flashed before our eyes and every second, my smile grew even bigger than before with the people that stood next to me and did not disappear from the light of our friendship. The comfort I felt with them existed like a security blanket huddled over me. Even with that warmth, I had never forgotten Taylor, who I thought broke my trust I felt between friends but truly just made my bond among friends even stronger. Taylor’s choice of turning on me made me deeply reflect more carefully about the ones I choose to let in to my life.
With my head tilted up high and this time without hiding behind my mom, I looked back into my memories and sceneries of my very first day of school surged through my mind. I snatched onto the school door handle and promptly yanked it open. I marched in through the door with my blue sneakers
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thudding towards the ground. I suddenly take in a large group of girls chuckling, all wearing Ugg boots and North Face jackets acting like one another’s duplicates. Seeing my once best friend in that large group of girls, a flashback of arriving into my very first classroom where once that diminutive girl sitting in the far back corner alone sat arose into my mind. Taylor seemed like the only friend I perceived at the time but now her silhouette admitted to fade away by the spotlight of her other friends. Taylor gradually walked away from my life but with my true friends, I did not feel the need to extend myself out towards them seeing that they were always near me.
With my skin tightening up from the climates progressively changing throughout the year from high to low and watching leaves scattering across the ground, snow gently sprinkling throughout, then the sun beaming on my face, my heartbreaking memories that developed in my mind with that old friend gradually dissolved with the new memories I created with my new best friends.