Losing a Best Friend

Everyone knows that most friends don't stick around forever. They come and go in our lives, like waves breaking upon the shore. Most of us don't have the same friends now as we did when we were in middle school or maybe even junior high. I've had a lot of friends that have just drifted away because I followed the south wind, and they went north. Those separations occur naturally, and they don't hurt. But then there's those friends that we expect to stay around forever. We expect they'll be with us through college, marriage, kids, and even old age. And some will be. Those friends are amazing and we cherish them.

But what happens when one of those forever friends decides your friendship is over?

What do you do with the huge hole they leave?

Where are you supposed to put all the tears?

How do you go on?

Recently, one of my best friends told me she needs to take a break from our friendship because she has some problems with it. She no longer wishes to speak to me over email or texting and when we see each other in person, we will just be "chill." After breaking a two day silence, her explanation contained many hurtful statements about my shortcomings as a friend that had finally boiled over into her needing to take a break.

I have been friends with her since I was about twelve which would make it six years of friendship this year. I share everything with her from my test scores to my secret fantasies. I  talk to her from early in the morning to late at night every day. She knows me almost better than I know myself. We have our inside jokes and we can talk without words. She is usually one of the first people to hear any big news I had and usually the friend that I vent my emotions to. Now every single of those facts is past tense.

There's a empty space in my life the size of the Milky Way that no one can ever fill the way she did. I feel alone sometimes. The tears have mostly been spent, but I know there will be many moments when something will happen or someone will say something and the crack in my heart will reopen and bleed. I am at a loss for how to feel. Am I supposed to feel like a terrible friend? A terrible person? Am I supposed to take all the blame for this? Or am I supposed to believe that the split was even?

Losing one of your best friends is a wound that will take time to heal, and I think it hurts even more knowing that if we ever reconcile, our friendship can never be the same because of this. The best advice that I have for myself, and for anyone else who has gone through or is going through this, is to take time. Reach out to your other friends and let them lift you up. Grieve properly for your loss without beating yourself up about it. Reflect on who you are without that friendship and strengthen that person. And if the time comes, be willing to slowly build the friendship back up again.

~Clarissa

You've Got Snippets!

Well, since you asked my dear friends, my other posts have been put off for a post full of snippets from my current WIP Shadows. This novel may seem dark at times, but I promise there's a bright light at the end of the tunnel (and I did stick a lighthearted one in there). I'm just going to throw you in here without any explanation other than the synopsis you had in my previous post, because this novel is supposed to be confusing both for the reader and the protagonist, Lila. The snippets are in chronological order, though sometimes the space between them in the plot is not very big and sometimes it is. But anyway, enjoy and let me know your thoughts about the snippets themselves but then also Lila and the other characters!

My father whips me around to face him and slaps my face hard. I taste blood on my lip and I think of the blood that is covering Jacob’s face. Fire courses through my veins, and it gives me courage.

“You’re a murderer!” I shout at my father. “You killed Jacob!”

“You don’t understand anything,” he spits out.

My stomach caves in from his punch, and I double over in pain. A tremendous blow to my head causes my vision to go blur and then everything goes black. 

“Lila,” someone whispers into the stillness. “Lila.”

For a moment, I shudder and believe that I am hearing the voice again. Then a warm hand settles on my shoulder and I know it is Jacob. He gently pulls me back around a corner, keeping silent. When we stop, I turn around and see his face in the moonlight. He smiles and draws me close. With my face hidden against his chest, I let relief flood my features. He is alive. He whispers my name into my ear and a different kind of shiver runs through me. But his next words erase the brief feeling of happiness I’d experienced just a moment ago. 

When I open my eyes again, there is only a small bit of light coming from somewhere a ways away. I immediately tense and my hands go out in front of me to test the darkness surrounding me.

            “You are failing and he is too,” the voice whispers.

            I shut my eyes tightly and battle the instinct to curl up on the ground with my hands over my head to shut out whatever new horror the voice has come to show me.

            “Go see what you are causing him to endure,” the voice prods.

            I slowly walk towards the light and I realize what I am about to see. It is the same room as before, where Jacob sits in a chair. His hands are in steel cuffs and so are his feet. A hooded man stands before a steel tray with various torture devices. Once again, I cannot reach him though a barrier that I assume is reinforced glass. 

Boo!” Alya shouts in my ear.

I let out a surprised scream and my heart jumps. “Don’t do that,” I protest. “Unless you want to give me a heart attack.”

Alya grabs her heart and acts like she’s being electrocuted. “Oh, oh, oh!” She falls on the floor.

I clap my hands. “You get the award for worst heart attack ever.”

Alya acts offended. “How rude.” 

“Ah, here we are. Osweil, Sarah,” the woman says, reaching up to take down a file. “Let’s go back to the desk and look at it.”

            She gets me a chair from somewhere –I have no idea where –and then flips open the file. Her brow furrows and she rifles through the sheets. Then she meets my eyes, looking concerned.

            “I don’t know what to tell you, dear. Her file is empty.”

            My heart stops. “What?”

            She holds it up for me to see. “Her file is full of blank papers.”

I twirl the necklace around my finger as a dozen different opening sentences run through my head.

            “I should have never given you that,” my father says.

            I look down and realize what I was doing. I seize the opportunity.

            “I can’t tell if you’re right or not because you never speak about my mother.”

            My father’s jaw tightens. “You don’t want to know about her.”

            “Her name was Sarah,” I say very, very quietly.

            “No!” my father yells and lunges towards me. He grabs my shoulders and shakes me. “No! Don’t say her name. You can’t say her name!” 

“Do you have pictures?” I ask eagerly. “What did I look like as a baby?”

            My aunt stares at me. “Lila, are you telling me that you haven’t seen any pictures of yourself from when your mother was alive?”

            I shake my head. “No, I don’t know what she looks like,” I say as my voice catches.

 

We all file back into the common room, where Kent dismisses us. I head out towards the door as fast as I can, but Kent still catches me.

            “Did I cut your wrist?” he asks.

            “No,” I say, turning away from him and moving to leave the room.

            “Miss Osweil,” he says quietly.

            I stop and suppress a sigh as I turn around.

            His eyebrows come together slightly. “I only wanted to see if you were what I thought you were.”

 

~Clarissa