I will never forget the three emotions I had felt on that sinister day: infuriation, disconcertion, and bemusement. I will never forget the increase of my heart rate with every message I sent and received. Most importantly, I will never forget the pain I felt in my already caving chest and how I knew from that moment on I would never be the same girl everyone thought they knew.

I remember the day like the treacherous moment happened yesterday. The day started out perfect as I watched my best friend, Madison, being baptized in front of the mass of people in church along with twenty-two other anxious followers of The Lord. I remember the tears of joy filling my eyes as I watched my friend become part of God’s family and cheered her on when she emerged from the pool from which she was baptized in. I greeted her when the sermon was over and embraced her while congratulating her for the eventful morning she had and she returned my hug and thanked me for going to support her. As we walked side by side out of the church doors, I suddenly felt discomfort. The thought of my crumbling relationship with my best friend and boyfriend crept back to its number one spot in my head and heart. Trying to be even more supportive of Madison, I shook the thought from my head and smiled at her with the most pitiful smile I have ever given to someone.

She knew what I was thinking about, though. She knew what was going on between me and Chandler and what had been going on for the two months before December. She knew I had been crying the night before and all of the other nights before as well. She mainly knew because I told her anything and everything, but she also knew so much about the problem because Chandler was her cousin. I know, dating your best friend’s relative of any kind is never good but the two of us had just grown on each other and decided we would see where things went. The problem in doing that though was that we lived one thousand miles apart from each other; he lived in Phoenix, Arizona.

For the first year we dated, the distance was not a problem whatsoever. We had texted, called, skyped, Facetimed, “OOvOOed,” and anything else we could think of just to see or talk to each other at least once a day. Then summer came and we spent every single day and night together from the moment he came in town to the second he walked away from me. From that point on, everything had changed. We slowly became distant and that had crushed me more than anything. In order to save the only relationship I ever wanted with somebody, I tried everything humanly possible to keep us together. When all of those tactics failed, I just started to sob every night. And every night when I sobbed I called or skyped with Madison to try and receive some kind of insight on what to do about the situation. It just so happened to be on that particular Sunday in December I had finally cracked.

Throughout the day, I had hinted to Madison that I was going to do something that would probably make me clinically depressed. She knew exactly what I was talking about and shook her head in disbelief. I was going to end my year and a half long distance relationship with someone who I thought I would never be able to make me feel so empty and hurt. So, I can recollect that precisely at 2:01 in Esplanade Mall, while shopping with Madison and her older cousin Alex, I typed out the words Break up with me. I said those words because after thinking about it for ten minutes, I failed to bring myself to say the words I’m breaking up with you. I remember my heart stopping and my eyes beginning to water the second I sent the message, but I could not cry in the middle of the mall because that would have been embarrassing beyond all belief. I asked Alex to bring me home without asking any questions and she did just that, even though both Alex and Madison knew what was going to happen.

Everything from that moment on has been a blur to me. I do not remember the ride home, walking from the car to my house and from the front door to my bed. The next thing I knew, Chandler was finally texting me after about two weeks of not speaking to each other telling me that I was crazy for thinking the distance was affecting us and that he would not break up with me. I remember the confusion I felt, begging myself to believe what he was saying to me was true even though I knew it was not. I remember feeling enraged because of the pain I was putting myself through. I remember arguing back and forth for exactly an hour and seven minutes before he had finally said the words that put me into what seemed like a coma.

Fine Chloe, I am breaking up with you, but know I am still here. After reading those fourteen words, I literally felt the crevices in my heart become deeper. I felt as if my heart had been ripped out of my chest and all that was left was a black hole that was slowly going to eat me alive. Right then and there is when a sob burst through my throat and out of my mouth and I fell apart. My eyes could not stay open; my muscles could not withstand my body weight as I collapsed into the folds of my bed, and just cried. I cried and I cried. What I thought was special with someone I loved was no more. The emotions running through my head were too complex to comprehend at the time and nothing in the world mattered to me. The relationship that I had built with him meant more to me than anything else in the world and now it was gone. As I lay in my bed sobbing my eyes out, I realized that I lost not only a boyfriend, but a best friend that I relied on for everything. I had been forced to become Miss Independent.