![]() And months later, that part of me ached to show her the tiny bundle of pink in my own arms, that in a few months would seem to look exactly like me.įive years have passed this way, since my friend-for-life gave me up and got on with her own life. When circumstance blew news of her life through the corridors of my awareness, that part of me lifted its head a bit to see the picture of her daughter on social media, looking exactly like her. ![]() So the part of me that had fought fiercely for that friendship for fifteen years layed down inside my heart. That is what I was forced to conclude from the empty space between each of my “how are you? miss you” texts. I understood that she couldn’t move past it, and now, with me living across the country, why should she bother? The late night brownies, the hours spent getting ready together, the secret-jokes and hysterical laughter – they just didn’t matter, didn’t stack up to how I had failed her. I held it up to the light, nearly a year after I’d last spoken to my friend, and understood that the friendship was over. The small, but significant piece of information that I had shared with someone else. The weeks and months that passed after texts and calls went unanswered left plenty of time for me to lie in bed at night sifting through memories, trying to find the key to what went wrong. That’s why, about a year later, when she stopped returning my calls, I knew I must have done something wrong. Even as careers, family, and distance made our connection more complicated and less frequent, we found a way to be there for one another. At that point, we’d officially grown up together, cemented our nearly lifelong bond of being there for one another, through anything. We stood up in each other’s weddings, and for months before each one, we showed up for each other: picking out accessories, planning hairstyles, researching venues, carefully writing out placecards.īest friends to bridesmaids. Through impossibly tricky teenage years, dating drama, parental tension, college, pregnancy, and marriage. Other times, for reasons only partially dictated by geography, she was surrounded with friends and activities in her life in town and I was alone a lot, excluded a lot, in my life in the country.īut year after year, our friendship persevered. I laughed, felt cheated for a microsecond, but suddenly found that he no longer interested me. I remember in 8th grade when I sort of went out with a boy that she liked and she wrote me a note asking me not to. I remember the day that she asked me, after Sunday school in the fifth grade, if I could spend the night at her house sometime.Īnd in seventh grade, getting ready for a football game at her house, our cheer outfits wrapped around our small, self-conscious bodies, eyes glittering with excitement and, well – it was the late 90’s, so – actual glitter. The one that got away was my best friend. I woke up out of a dead sleep, heartbroken. I woke up out of a dead sleep thinking of her. WINNER: “The One That Got Away” by Adrienne Garrison of Bloomington, Indiana
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