I heard familiar voices chattering away behind me, but I didn’t think anything of it. I certainly wasn’t expecting to hear my name come up in the conversation. I stayed frozen where I was, and listened to the words that came out of my best friend’s mouth. I couldn’t believe what I had heard. She had crossed the line by talking about me in such a way.

Time and time again, we have all held out our pinky finger and interlocked it with someone else’s, only to let them down in the long run. One may think that it was just one promise broken, but where there is one, there are others. Once you let someone down, you think that it may be acceptable to treat them like that. You are sadly mistaken in your logic. Loyalty is of extreme value to me, because without loyalty to our beliefs and goals, we would be nothing.

Loyalty is not something that can be forged. In order to be considered loyal, you must be willing to commit to the job. I can remember many a time when I questioned my loyalty to a friend, and sometimes, even to myself. It is easy to lose yourself among others, and valuable qualities attained throughout your life could be lost as well.

This moment in particular I realized for myself, just how important loyalty was to me. It was autumn, and with the falling of the leaves came the beginning of the school year. It was my last year at the school I attended, and I had kept most of the same friends since I had first begun school. As far as I could remember, they had always been there for me, one friend in particular.

She was my best friend, and she had held that title since kindergarten. We were inseparable, and nothing or no one could tear us apart, or so I thought. The morning of September 25, I walked down the hallway to put my books in my locker, and I tried to finish up some homework I had forgotten to do the previous night. At that moment, my homework was the only thing I worried about.

Hearing my best friend talk about me the way she did crushed me. At first I didn’t believe it, but as the words sank in, I realized that what I had heard was no misunderstanding. She had actually talked about me like that. I trusted her, only for her to go behind my back and make a fool out of me. That was not, in any way, how I had treated her.

I was hurt for a while, of course, but I was also very thankful for the lesson that my best friend had taught me that day. She taught me that loyalty is the base of friendship, because after the incident, our relationship completely fell apart. We no longer had a trust between us, and from that day forward, we grew farther and farther away from each other.

Now I know that I will always be loyal to those that I love. I would never wish for someone to feel the way that I did the morning that I lost my best friend. I promise to never cross someone that expects something from me, and I will always be loyal to myself as well. I will stay true to my beliefs, and never pretend to be something I’m not.