My Ex-Best Friend

I was 17 when I lost my best friend after almost 4 strong years of friendship. I had met her the summer going into our freshmen year through a mutual friend. She had been through it all with me. Every up and down we had through out the treacherous years of high school we spent together. We cried together, and we laughed together. To this day she is still the only friend I've ever clicked that way with. We were the same person and we understood each other better than anyone ever could. And thats why it broke my heart when I lost her.

They tell you break ups are one of the worst heart breaks you will ever experience; but they forget to tell you that friends can break your heart too.

In order to fully explain to you how I lost my best friend, you need to know a little back story information. For this story I will refer to every person mentioned by their first Initial. My best friend will be E. You see, I knew this boy, who I had met in the 7th grade and developed a small crush on. (Which grosses me out to even think about now.) We'll call him K. We became pretty good friends, or so I thought, and despite my crush I was happy just being his friend. He was funny, and smart, and we got along so well. I soon considered him one of my best friends.

Flash forward to the same summer I met E which was the summer of 2012. I was at another close friend of mine's house, we'll call her M. I had a boyfriend at this point and we had been together for about 3 months so it wasn't too serious yet but I did like him a lot. I was considering breaking up with him for K though, because he began to show signs of having a crush on me too. However, I was scared to mess up anything with my current boyfriend, and afraid to ruin my friendship with K. I told M about this and she took my phone and started texting K off of it. Before I knew it the two of them were hitting it off... it was a little discouraging and kind of weird but I quickly let it go because I had a boyfriend anyways who I ended up focusing on and falling in love with. After a few weeks of M and K talking, she confessed to me that she had a crush on him. I told her to go for it, thinking that they would both be happy together and that over all would make me happy. I just wanted my friends to be happy.

This is where the story gets crazy. K and M began to date and shortly after, he began to tell M that I was obsessed with him... which was a complete lie. As I mentioned I was in love with my boyfriend because we got very serious after M told me she liked K I cut all my feelings off and focused on JUST my boyfriend. I reassured M that I had no feelings for him but she did not believe me because of the shit he was putting in her head. He told her I would go to his house and at the time I seriously didn't even know where he lived. I was pissed and hurt. Why would he lie like this to her? Weren't we all friends? He eventually convinced M to cut off all of her friends, including me. I then grew even closer to E, who was my shoulder to cry on for all of this. That part is important. Remember that because the story's about to get even more messed up.

A year passes and I was now heading into my sophomore year. I was hanging out with E when K texted her. She ignored it for the most part, but told me that he was saying sorry to her for what happened. She wasn't taking it, if there's anyone he should apologize to it was me.

And he did. A few weeks before my sweet 16 party he texted me saying he was sorry and he never meant to hurt me and that he didn't know why he did all those things. I was so confused. I did not want to forgive him. To this day, I regret it.

He came to my party and instantly started flirting with E. I ignored it, I didn't think my best friend would fall for him after what he did. Over time, I believed he had changed, because he was able to have a platonic relationship with E but managed to keep our newly formed friend group together. They were my 2 best friends, once again K had managed to gain my trust. And then his true colors came out again.

We were heading into our senior year. E and I were so excited for what was ahead, especially senior corn roast and graduation. She was starting to get a lot more romantically closer with K, and despite the past, I encouraged it because I just wanted her to be happy. They started dating and then he started to get controlling. He would get mad at her for hanging out with me instead of him, he would start fights with her and tell her the only way to make him happy was to send him nude photos, he told her what to wear and what to say, and to top it all off, he had sex with her in my driveway for 2 hours after they had spent the whole day together and she was supposed to be hanging with me. (I think that's a little weird.) At this point I had enough. I mentioned to E how I was seeing those same abusive signals I saw when he was with M. She said to me that she has a backbone and assured me that the same thing would not happen. I could see that it was already happening but I bit my tongue because I didn't want her to feel stupid.

I ended up just deleting K off of social media, mainly because every time I had plans with E and he made her blow me off he would send me a pic of them after they had just had sex or whatever. It was annoying and I began to realize he wasn't going to change. He quickly noticed I removed him and that's when he attacked back. The senior corn roast was coming this weekend and he told E she had to choose between me or him to hangout with. And on top of that, he made tweets about me calling me names and saying everyone hates me and to go kill myself. I was upset but I had faith my best friend would come through and not let someone treat me like that...

The senior corn roast came and she chose him. I was more hurt than I was angry. I didn't even want her to have to choose. He just wasn't a good person. She knew what he was doing but she didn't even try to stop it. She only came over to hang with me for about 5 mins, because K literally told her she had 5 mins to hang with me and then she had to come back to him. She walked around the field with me, I told her how fucked up all of this was, she agreed, then went back to K. The rest of the corn roast is a blur because of how angry I was. I remember she came over again to ask if I wanted to take pictures in front of the bonfire... I thought "what's the point you aren't even allowed to hangout with your best friend because of your stupid boyfriend" but I took pics with her anyways. She begged me not to be mad at her, but I couldn't help it. I had been patient for too long, and if she couldn't see what he was doing after she saw this all happen before with M, then I had every right to be mad at her.

The next months after that my friends and I grew closer to this girl. She became a rock for me when all this K and E drama went down, and K convinced E that I was trying to replace her. I told her so many times I didn't want to lose her and no one could replace her. I guess that wasn't enough.

As senior year passed, E and I grew further and further apart. She spent every moment of free time she had with K and only him. We tried inviting her out with us but she always said "K doesn't want me to, sorry." I mean when your excuse for something is your boyfriend won't let you, YOU ARE IN AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP. I continued to support her REGARDLESS because thats what best friends do right? I would ask "how are you and K?" Or just try to make conversation about how her day was going. The damage was done though, I could tell she wasn't really my friend anymore. Eventually she blocked me on social media and switched out of our lunch and I never heard from her again. I would see her around school but kept my head down. When we made eye contact at graduation I just felt sick. It was like losing a sister. I was heart broken for months, I didn't understand how the same guy managed to fuck up my friendships twice, but this time really hurt. He came for my best friend in the entire world and I never hated someone so much.

It's been 2 years since graduation, which was the last time I saw her, and they are still together. What I know is what friends have told me even though I didn't ask them. They go to the same college I guess and are still only spending their free time together. They even worked at the same job. I used to wish for her happiness, and I still do. I cant imagine she's genuinely happy, just trapped. I really do hope she made the right choice in losing all her friends for this abusive person because I can't imagine she is happy and that hurts me every time I think of her. I miss her being in my life. People say I should hate her too, but I could never hate her.

To the reader of this story, if you have been through something like this with a friend, you are not alone. It's okay to cry, to miss your best friend, to not hate them and to want them back in your life. However, you can grow without them, you will make better friends, and time heals all wounds. I am an even better person because of this crazy feud I was involved in. It's strange to remember but I'm thankful to be rid of toxic people like K.

If you are like E, I can only speak for the friends you left behind. I cannot ever understand what was going through her head. People make mistakes, but maybe she doesn't see her life that way. She actively destroyed all of her friendships including ours, and we all never understood what really happened. It didn't seem like our friend would be so blind. I hope you are smart enough to recognize the signs of an abusive relationship, and that you can do so much better. She doesn't deserve to be treated poorly and neither do you!

Your friends will be there for you as long as you need them to be, your significant other may not. You should never have to choose between the two of them, and the right person will not make you choose. You will need friends to fall back on sometimes. Don't ever put someone you have feelings for over your real friends. They have your back, and it will destroy all of them.