Last Line
No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow. -Alice Walker
Happy for you
I always looked up to her. Lindsay was 2 years older than me and my role model. She always did things to impress me. She was soccer captain, was a great swimmer, and was getting looked at by colleges for lacrosse. Most importantly she had a lot of friends and was invited to all the “popular” parties of her grade. She was the social butterfly I wanted to be and she was in all honors classes. Lindsay was gorgeous and could get any guy she wanted. I was happy for her. She had her life set and I was so lucky I was there by her side. In fourth grade I had even done my role model project about her, while all the other kids did their parents. Although in the beginning we were forced to be best friends because our mom’s were best friends, we had become best friends too. As time went on, we became so close we were basically sisters.
It quickly became that I didn’t go over her house just when my mom went over, but on the weekends to hang out. We texted 24/7 and we told each other everything. It was nice that she acted like my friend and not someone her mom forced her to hang out with. We went shopping all the time together, hung out at her dad’s work together, went to the beach together, and told each other our darkest secrets. She used to have so much time for me, but that ended sooner than I had hoped.
It seemed like every weekend couldn’t hang out. I didn’t ask why, but later that night I would see an Instagram post of her and her friends partying. 542 likes and counting. I had spent so much time with her on the weekends and talking to her, that I didn’t have other friends. My mom told me that Lindsay was growing up and I would have to start to make some new friends. I cried after she told me that. I was losing my best friend.
Reality hit me about a week later and my mom was right. I needed to make friends and fast. So I did. I broke out of my shell and made a bunch of friends through sports and school. While I was trying to get myself together, Lindsay was falling apart. She started going down the wrong path and got involved with drugs and alcohol. We didn’t talk for a while, but our moms continued to talk. Lindsay’s mom was losing control of her and often asked my mom for advice. I waited for things to get better and they never did. Her freshman-junior year we didn’t talk. However, my seventh and eighth grade year were some of the best years of my life. I found my friend group, kept good grades, was captain for field hockey, and figured out who I was.
She texted me one day saying we needed to catch up and I agreed. I went over her house, expecting things to awkward, but it wasn’t. It was like how it used to be. The only different thing was she didn’t want to talk about what she had gone through and I understood that, so she asked about me. I never used to have anything to say, but this time I had a lot. I told her about, field hockey, school, my friends, and the parties I started going to. She sat on her phone not listening. I couldn’t believe it. I had listened to her endless stories for years and when something good finally happened in my life, she didn’t care.
I was expecting her to ask questions and be engaged in the conversation like I always was with her, but she wasn’t. I cared so much about her accomplishments and now she didn’t care about mine. She didn’t like that I was happy and she didn’t like that I was doing fine without her. No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.
