the story of my best friend
today i'm going to tell you the story of my best friend. let's call her gwen, shall we?
gwen is beautiful. i've always thought so. she's tall and blonde. do you have a picture in your head? stop thinking swimsuit model. think ballerina. yes, now you're a bit closer. i met gwen a long time ago. i don't remember how we met. she was so very quiet. and i was so very loud. we probably made each other friendship bracelets. more like, she made me friendship bracelets. i suck at arts&crafts. i probably wrote her a poem. i used to write those a lot.
school is your life as a child. if you don't play sports (which i didn't) then your social life revolves around your school life. like moon and earth. unfortunately, she moved to jupiter, and though i'd see her in the hallways of the solar system, a different classroom = lightyears apart.
let's hope you believe in alternate universes because in this version of the universe, jupiter and earth collided many years later. it was middle school, probably one of the toughest times of our lives. i was going through something, like everyone was going through something, but it means we found each other again. once the stardust cleared up, we settled into something that worked. best friends. but i left next year. maybe in an alternate universe, i didn't.
once we started high school, life got bearable for me (okay, maybe a bit better than bearable) but things became absolutely shitty for her. it was hard to wrap my head around it, because i wasn't there. we would text every day. i don't remember who tried harder. i want to say it was me. but, i went (go) to a private school known for its academic rigor. it's the type of nerd school that says "fuck your social life!" i accepted that then. but for gwen, it sounded like she lost everything. her own social life. me. i hated the way i couldn't know every single detail of her day. like i used to. she forgot to tell me she started playing the clarinet until maybe a year later. i'm laughing at myself a little, the clarinet? i cared about a goddamn clarinet? no. i cared about the scars on her wrist. the sharpened edges of tape dispensers. the guys she was dating. the hearts that were breaking. her education. her ambition. she had a fire. i'm not sure when she lost it. like i said, i wasn't there.
she was diagnosed for depression and anxiety within the year. she started taking medication. by then, everyone was taking medication. it fucking sucked. i don't think those meds do a single thing. i don't think she does either. she started therapy. i was the happiest i could be for her. therapy sounds like professional help. anytime the word professional is involved, it makes you feel a little bit less responsible. a little safer. gwen like her therapist a lot. gwen loved going to therapy. at some point she told me about the cutting. i don't remember how i reacted. i think i cried the first time she told me. but the time after that and after that, i think i just sat there with a blank look on my face, staring at my phone screen, sighing out loud. trying to figure out the million dollar question: how do i respond? she hates her therapist these days. too judgmental, she doesn't tell her a thing.
she ended up following all my friends on Instagram, providing me moral support during exam time, and all the things to make me feel loved. she brought me ice cream once. all the while, she was crumbling on some weekdays. those days, i usually wasn't around. she got pretty good at that. falling apart behind the scenes. at when the curtain was closed to me. but i guess that would be pretty easy when our relationship was mostly a malleable digital connection. she mentions her dark nights in passing. casually. "i haven't told you about that lol but it was pretty bad" she tells me after she gets better. at least she tells me eventually. i just hope one day it's not too late.
her academic standards have fallen off a cliff. at one point, we dreamed of going to princeton together. i wonder if she remembers that dream. some nights i cry myself to sleep because i can't help her. but the next morning, i remember: i am trying my best. i love her so much and that won't change. a lot has happened to us, actually, wounds that run miles deep leaving scars that have long healed. but this is not a story about me. it is about her.
she had a worry stone once. it was purple and yellow, her and my favorite color. she lost it. we told each other we'd make worry stones together. it's been over a year. now she's maybe dating a nice stoner guy, after ending her side of an open relationship (with someone who is very toxic-- a story yet to be heard by me), she's in an intensive therapy program, her mother's sick, she's got a dog, and she is learning to drive.
it's a life, for sure. it's a story, definitely. a one much longer than these 865 words. i hope she's doing alright.
xoxo
-a
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