Now:

“I don’t want to be friends anymore”

In movies, moments like this are set in thunderstorms, have sad music overlayed, montages of the best and worst moments, twist endings where the protagonists were just fighting because of tragic backstories and plotlines.

In real life, you get seven short words on a sunny day. 

Seven words - barely a sentence.

You don’t expect friendships to culminate in seven words, because they usually don’t.

I certainly didn’t think this one would.

This friendship saved me through a crumbling relationship with someone I’d known for 10 years, who became my best friend after I entered high school, who left me for people she felt she would enjoy being friends with more. 

It saved me through lockdown, one of the toughest periods of my life, when sometimes it felt like the only sanity I was going to get in a day was from the computer conversations, the inside jokes, the stupid gifs. 

It saved me again and again through the past year, and now I don’t even know how much of it was real, and how much was her sticking with me because she felt bad.

What is it with bombshells like that and people saying them in the last couple of weeks in the academic year?

Two years ago:

“I don’t want to be best friends with you anymore. We can still be friends though.”

I’m bewildered; of course I am! Why am I being told this on the last day of freaking term? Upset, confusion, anger, they war inside of me until it’s the end of the day and I’m too far away to say anything. 

Outrage and Dejection are all that is left by the time I see her at Holiday camp. No longer confusion - I know perfectly well why she doesn’t want to be friends with me.

But Outrage and Dejection are not good emotions to greet someone happily with, so when she says hi to me, I say hi back, and then proceed to ignore her for six entire weeks. 

Now:

I’m back to doing whatever I do when I don’t know how to solve a problem: Pretending it isn’t one! I’ve gone ‘hyper’, with excessive giggling and repeating sentences over, letting my mouth go so fast I’m not even sure what I’m saying.

I don't even know if she notices.

It must be about three days later when I realise what’s actually happening. Of course it isn’t a movie misunderstanding, the protagonist pushing away people she’s close with because she’s scared of them getting hurt.

This is Riya wanting to hang out with different people.

People who don’t start sobbing for no reason at break time.

People who don’t tune out at random times when listening to people speak.

People who aren’t endlessly negative.

People who don’t constantly get you down.

People who aren’t me. 

Two years ago: 

“Why did you ignore me for the entire summer holidays?” 

I mumble some nonsense about wanting to hang out with friends I don’t get to see at school, and move on.

She’s been rather forcibly left out by the people she wanted to be friends with when we broke up for summer holidays last year - they’re all in the same class. She’s not. 

She’s with me. 

I’ve learnt during the holidays that she didn’t put me down last year as someone she didn’t want to be in the same class as, meaning I was the only person who no-one wanted to be with. It’s not a nice feeling.

Stuck in the same class, I’ve rather forcibly attached myself back to her, following her around like a lost puppy nobody else wants. 

With on-one else better, she’s put up with it.

She’s started referring to us as best friends again, and I’ve taken to correcting her. “Best friends forever!”

“No we aren’t”.

She’s gotten annoyed enough with me that she’s asked if I can stop doing it and let us be best friends again - of course I agreed. I haven’t got anyone else. Maybe two others, three at a stretch, but all people who would choose someone else over me. 

Still, I can feel Arie drifting away, attracted like a planet with the sun to the other group of girls in our class - happy, nice, pretty people.

Almost the definition of popular, but not quite shallow or horrible enough.

Perfect.

Now:

It’s ‘Outdoor Learning’ day. 

Fun.

Except not really, because things are still really, really, awkward between me and Riya. It feels like a massive wall has gone up between us, but with no one else in the class to talk to we partner up anyway and pretend everything is fine.

Or maybe she isn’t pretending - I’m not sure.

I wonder if she can feel the barrier that’s gone up, and whether she’s happy it’s there. I don’t stop wondering all day.

Riya’s almost my only friend. 

There’s one other person - but she isn’t in my class this year, and anyway she isn’t as close as we are were. 

As we were. 

Two years ago:
Arie’s pretty much abandoned me at this point. Well, abandoned is harsh - It’s not her fault that she doesn’t want to be friends with me.

I constantly embarrassed her, did silly things, acted before I thought, zoned out, never knew where I was going or what I was doing or where my phone and house keys were.

She never said anything but I could tell.  

She sits with her new friends now, and I sit with the other dregs who don’t quite fit in. It’s not that any of them don’t have friends - they all have lots (Unlike me) - just not in this class. 

Well, maybe that's not true - there’s one girl - Riya I think her name is - who I’ve never seen sit with anyone at lunch. She has perfect grades (Perfect everything really) but I think she eats in the library, she’s always reading - just like me!

Anyway, everyone’s talking about the only thing that’s ever on the news lately - a new disease called Covid-19.
It won’t be serious, everyone says. It won’t affect England. Schools are going to stay open as usual and it will all be fine. 

It’s not so long after that that the entire world turns to sh*t. 

Now:

Last club gathering! Arie’s there, she always is. Somehow the conversation turns to relationships and she says she has a girlfriend. 

I try not to react, but when someone shouts out for a game of wink murder, I offer to be detective and half run out of the door before anyone can contradict me. The moment I’m out of sight I start crying.

I’ve never had a crush on her - I’m allowed to be bi and not crush on every girl I know well - but for some reason I can’t stop tears rolling down my face. 

I know exactly the emotions, as well. An intense jealousy, both directed at Arie for being beautiful enough (Inside and Out) to have a girlfriend and her girlfriend for being close to Arie, and a terrible wave of loneliness.

I didn’t realise quite how much I missed her until that precise moment, when I realised how little I actually know her now - knew her ever.

She’s gay.

She has a girlfriend. 

I’m no longer a part of her life - she truly has moved on. Some horrible parts of me want her to miss something as well, think something is missing without me, notice that I’m gone rather than think of me as just a not very nice bit of past. 

But that’s all I am now. 

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I just had friends - Riha doesn’t count anymore.

I need to find others.

Two years ago:

Just before the world really goes to sh*t and we all go home, I make friends with her properly, Riya. She keeps me sane during Covid, when I fall behind on schoolwork and can barely catch up, as I struggle through mental health and near depression. 

She doesn’t stop any of it happening, of course, but without her it would have been a hell of a lot worse. 

Now: 

Almost the end of term, and I’m floundering now. It’s become a swimming race, trying desperately to stay above water and find someone - anyone to be friends with before time runs out. I have one person, who I like a lot and I hope to be in their class next year, but I need other people - I can’t make this mistake again. I really can’t believe I’ve been stupid enough to do it twice - to attach myself to one person and nearly break into pieces when they get fed up and leave. 

I’m certainly never doing it again.

But who else? 

That lunchtime I hang out with the boys in my class, them and another girl, and I realise how nice these people are, how much I enjoy listening to them talk.

I’ve been in a class with them for an entire year, and two days before we get split up in different classes forever I realise that I want to be friends with them.

Of course I should have gotten to know them the moment I got assigned a form with them, but I didn’t think I would ever need anybody else. Just me and Riya, best friends forever, and everything would be alright. 

It sounds stupid now - of course I need more people than just one, and she does too.

One year ago:

It’s the start of a new year! I may have been abandoned by Arie, one of my best friends for almost ten years, but I have a new friend, and it’s all going to be fine. I’m not going to screw it up this time, not going to be that weird sad loser I was last year.

I have a new friend, and she won’t leave me. 

Now:

Second to last day of term. I’ve got her in my new class, which is awkward as all hell, especially when I know how much she doesn’t want to be with me, wants to be with literally anybody but me. 

But the girl I wanted to be in the same class as is! And I know other people to be friends with next year. 

If someone else ends up not wanting to be friends with me, there are other people I can go to, sit with at lunch time, ask for advice. 

I will always miss Arie, I think, and now I will have to get used to missing Riha as well - two gaping holes in my friendship circles that I’m not sure I can ever really cover over, however much I try, but if I work hard enough than maybe one day I’ll be able to look back without missing what we had.

But whatever happens, I do, and will always have friends of some sort.

And for the first time in a while, I sincerely let myself believe it will be okay.