Have you ever lost someone close to you? The thought of losing someone I care about terrifies me, and it probably has a similar effect on you as well. For me personally, I never thought that I would lose someone so important to me, albeit the warning signs. This person and I were best friends, and once they were gone, it hurt. We had been best friends for quite some time at that point, and to this day I don’t understand what happened.

We met in 7th grade, mainly because the only person in my first period I recognized was one of the girls sitting next to them. When I had sat down, I’d felt very shy and out of place in the warmly lit room, because I didn’t truly remember anybody.

“Hi,” said the girl I recognized, “I’m Merinda, this is Savanna, and that’s Araya,” she continued.

“I’m Alexis,” I had said quietly, more nervous than I realized.

The girl, Merinda, had very tanned, yellow toned skin with long black-brown hair, while Savanna was much paler with just as long blond hair. The person next to me, Araya, was more interesting, with very short dyed hair, and yellow-green hazel eyes. This was the person who soon became my best friend. We spent most of the class awkwardly talking, and I soon remembered that Merinda and I had met in band. By the time class was over, I had felt slightly more comfortable with them, and been pleased that I  knew more people than I had at first.

Later in the school year, Araya and I started talking more. They had sprained their leg, and I ended up helping them a lot. It was very fun, because they were a sweet goofball who was slightly outgoing and we had similar tastes in things such as music and games. After some time, we ended up becoming close friends, and often worked together during 1st & 2nd period. Since we almost always worked together, one of our projects in that class changed the way we viewed ourselves and brought us closer. While we had other friends, we were more often than not hanging out, and at this point, they had started going by a different name, Ayan. As the months passed, our lives got ever more intertwined. Then finally, 7th grade ended, and we agreed to meet up during summer. For the first couple weeks or so, we talked over phone often, but didn’t see each other. Then, finally, we convinced our moms to meet up at the park. That day ended up being a pleasant day, although soured for reasons.

The day we were to meet up, June 25th, 2017, we messaged all throughout the day until it was time to meet up. When my mom got to the park, I was thrilled to see that Ayan, Mac, and their mom were already there. I had immediately ran over and hugged my best friend, who I hadn’t seen since school ended. They hugged me back, both of us excited after so long. After letting go, we walked over to their mom.

“Hi,” I had said a little nervously, uncertain of where I stood with their family.

“Hello Alex,” Saria, their mom had replied, “it’s nice to see you again,”

Later, Ayan and I ended up going on the green spinnable thing.  Because it was such a beautiful day outside, we spun ourselves dizzy, delighting in the feeling of friendship on a warm summer day. By the time it started to get dark, we were still not ready to go our separate ways, but ended up doing so anyways. That day, while we had hung out, we had had some mishaps that I now regret, but it’s all done now. I had paid more attention to my boyfriend, who had come to the park while we were there, and it had been hurtful to them. Looking back, I feel like that was the start of our friendships death.

Throughout 8th grade year, they had started getting more and more distant. They changed their name to Blair, and started hanging out with our mutual friend Sage more as well. By the halfway point of the year, I hadn’t realized it, but they had pulled away from me and I was just the extra acquaintance who was always there. Soon, Blair started asking for us to be less friends, to hang out less. One day on the way back from choir, they started talking to me.

“Can we stop hanging out as much?” they had asked. I hadn’t understood, so I responded.

“That’s fine,” I said, then continued talking to them until we got to school.

As we got closer to the end of the year, they said that they didn’t want to be friends anymore. The moment that stands out to me most from that time that hurts the worst is still clear in my mind even now. We had been in Mr. Chases class, one of the last 2 days of the school, and our class was going to fire rockets we had made in class. I had gone over to talk to Blair while we were waiting to get the stuff for our rockets to make them go.

“Hey,” I said, “how do you think you’ll do?”

In response, Blair had moved backwards , and Courinna, a friend of Blairs, had stepped in front of them and had practically spat into my face.

“Can’t you see that they don’t want to talk to you?!?” she had said peevishly. Immediately, I had turned away, hurt and enraged by the way she had spoken to me. I had spent the rest of the day focusing on other things, and hoped that things would not stay the same. Unfortunately, I was very wrong, and didn’t realize what was happening till that summer.

Flashback to 7th grade, we had started creating a book on the app/website Wattpad, that we had called “BlueBird and DandyLion.” This book was originally about us, me being BlueBird while they were DandyLion.  During the summer, I had rediscovered the draft for it, and had decided to still write it with a different theme, how we had split apart. I spent hours writing the first chapter, and then afterwards decided to send the draft to Blair. When I sent it to Blair, they had freaked out and sent a message asking me to “never contact them [me] again” and that they were “very disappointed to come home and find out that I [you] had [have] used their [my] art without their [my] permission.” After they sent that, I had tried to respond, but found that they had blocked me. Then, when I checked everything else we had been connected on, I found that they had blocked me on it all. I could no longer talk or connect to my used to be best friend.

When summer finally ended, I saw them at school, found out that we had two classes together, but we never talked. For the first semester of the year, we didn’t talk or make eye contact or anything. At first it hurt a lot, but it got easier as things went on. Then one of our two mutual teachers, Mrs. Reistad, sat us next to each other, and I tried to talk to them. At first, nothing changed, then one day they turned to me and asked what I had wanted to talk about. From there, I had explained, and we talked some. It’s been a while since then.

Now, after that day, we talk more, but they’re still gone. They say that they’ve already explained to me, but I don’t remember them ever explaining. As things are now, my best friend is still long gone, and I don’t think I’ll ever get them back the same way, if at all. Since the time we first met, we’ve changed a lot, and I hope that they have a good life, because they’re an amazing person, even if they aren’t my best friend anymore.