Everyone has that one person that they think will stick beside them forever and will listen to every complaint with an open heart and will join you on your wildest adventures. Everyone knows what it's like to have a best friend, someone like family who knows your every secret, every passion, and every dream you've ever had. My junior year of high school, I lost my best friend. After I had stopped treating her better than I was treating myself, she packed up everything she had ever invested in me and moved on to greener pastures; she left me for dead.
I met Rachel as a seventh grader, I was the new shy girl, facing a new town, a new school, and new people. We both rode the same bus to and from school and we never really knew each other beyond the bus until eighth grade. In that year, Rachel came over to my house after school now and again and we were assigned to work on a health project together, things were going well, we weren't exactly best friends or even really good friends, we were more of acquaintances at that point.
Freshman year was a whole new story. Rachel and I began to go out on the weekends and we also spent everyday over at each others houses, not even needing to ask permission at that point, considering that we lived down the street from each other. I could just call my mom and asked her to pick me up on her way home, it worked out really well and I had found myself a new best friend; we were practically inseparable. Freshman year, however, was the same year that I spent time in the hospital, I wasn't really feeling myself. After a week of rehabilitation, I was back in school and feeling much better. I had a great welcome back and was received with open arms from everyone, especially Rachel. I remember the first morning I was back on the bus, she nearly lost it and scolded me for leaving her alone. She said she was so happy to have me back. Looking back to that moment now, I realize she was happy for her own sake, that she didn't have to ride the bus alone anymore and that she had someone to talk to again. After that day, she never asked me how I was feeling, if I was doing well. I know now that she just didn't care.
Sophomore year started well, like any other year. I was fragile and unsure of myself, the scare that I had at the end of Freshman year really put me on the fence, I wasn't sure if I really wanted to be at school anymore. At that point in time I was seeing a counselor on a weekly basis and that counselor helped me see the light on so many issues that I was facing at that time, including my group of friends. It was the middle of sophomore year when it dawned on me that something had started to change among my friends, they had started to isolate me. I wasn't invited to anything anymore, I never spent time at anyone else's home, and every conversation we had was shallow and meaningless. I learned from another friend, Melissa, that my group had started hanging out with each other individually, and were even saying things behind my back. I learned that Rachel had been ridiculing me for spending time in the hospital, I learned that my best friend had become someone else's best friend.
I took the end of sophomore year as the perfect breaking point; I began to slowly find new friends and to look beyond the boundaries I had previously set. Rachel began to notice my distance and she started trying to reel me back in. I realized then that the only reason she wanted me back was because she knew she could control me and that is exactly what she wanted. She wanted to be in charge and she wanted to own me as a friend, she wanted me to worship her and give everything I had to offer to her. I had been doing exactly that for the past two years. I thought that that was what friends did for each other, invested their entirety into one another. All of a sudden I learned that no one would ever love me the same way that I love them, and I learned that everything I had received from Rachel was a lie, she had never loved me as a friend, I was a piece of meat that she could batter and pound into oblivion. I took that realization and cut myself completely out of her life, I left her out to dry as she had left me to suffer. She noticed I no longer spoke to her, wouldn't make eye contact. She took this as an act of war and started telling others not to invite me out to do things or to anyone else's house. She spread rumors about me being in the hospital and eventually, was successful in isolating me from every friend I had; except for two, Melissa and Kate. I have never felt more appreciated or more loved than when these two people saved me from myself, stepped up to take the job, and became my two best friends.
Going into my senior year, Melissa and Kate remain my two best friends and stand by me through every crisis. After being in a one-sided, abusive relationship for so long, I swore to myself that I would no longer hold anyone to standards higher than what they deserved. After I had realized that, I started to let go of other people in my life, for example, the boy I thought I loved, three friends I had known since seventh grade, and family members that had never acted like family to me.
Being in this relationship with Rachel made me realize that I am worth so much more than I give myself credit for. She helped me realize how to choose friends and how to identify which ones are good and which ones aren't. She also helped me to stop pushing myself to conform, fit in, and try to get everyone to like me. I realize now, that the only way to make friends is to be 100% yourself. If they don't like you, who cares, someone out there will.
Rachel put me through hell and back, but I would have never discovered that there was more to myself and more to life without it. I discovered that I loved photography and writing. I also discovered that I love to fight back and stand up for what I believe in, I have never been a better "me" than the "me" I am today.
Rachel, thank you for your actions, because without them I would not have realized my own potential and would not have become the strong, confident woman that my real friends had always seen me to be. I couldn't have done it without you, literally.
*The names in this article have been changed to keep the identity of each character private.
