I remember thinking there was something different going on when the new girl, Sadie, was your partner in gym class. It was only fourth grade, so I found a new buddy easily, but I was still confused about how you could leave me so easily. Then again, you were the type to include everyone, and get along with the world. You used to be so good with people, better than I ever was, and it showed. You always laughed; always had so much fun no matter who you were around. It bugged me a bit, sure, but I was your best friend, and Sadie wasn't. So I didn't say anything.

In seventh grade, we were in the same homeroom. Along with Sadie, who seemed to have a particular distain for you when she realized you were a tomboy. But that didn't matter. We would sit in class and make fun of her weird hair, or shoes, or preppy designer jacket that was totally impractical for soccer intramurals at lunch. It was great fun, aside from when we would get yelled at for talking when we should have been working. But when you turned thirteen (three months before me) and styled your hair straight and streaky like Sadie's, and bought a fake (And yes, everyone knew it was fake) designer jacket, it wasn't very funny. You liked it though, and I wasn't going to rain on your parade. All I did was smile and say nothing.

We had eaten lunch together for eight years; it was tradition now. Everyday, in the farthest back corner of the lunchroom we'd eat our homemade sandwiches and sip our juice boxes without a care. Then came the days where you wouldn't bring a lunch kit, it wasn't 'cool' anymore you told me. Or stopped bringing lunch all together. And then came the day in June of eighth grade when you, in your Ralph Lauren jacket and Gucci shoes, told me you were going to go sit with Sadie, and her friends. And wish as I might have, I never said anything.

Halloween in tenth grade (the big scary world of high school), you forgot about my birthday sleepover and made plans with Sadie instead. I was a big person though, so I let it slip. And I let you forgetting our Christmas gift exchange slip as well. I still don't know whether you liked that journal I left in your mailbox (the one you had pointed out months earlier at the mall as absolutely adoring), or if you ever got it. Maybe it was firewood for that party you had at your place in April after the snow melted. The one I found out about from your mother two weeks later. I let that slide too. After all, you still told me we were best friends. So I said nothing.

You scared me when you phoned drunk from Sadie's one night, about four months before graduation. It didn't sound like you. I didn't know it was you until someone in the background called your name. I hate though, how I snuck out at three am on a Sunday morning in February to pick you up in my Mom's car. And you puked in the backseat. I also hated how you would skip English, our only class together, to smoke it up in the sixth floor girls' bathroom with Sadie and Marc. That's another thing; I really hated your boyfriend. How you couldn't see that he treated you like dirt is beyond me. Maybe one too many joints, or two too many drinks. Or maybe, you just liked having someone be there for you. I was there for you, but I guess Marc was who you wanted more. And again, I bit my tongue and said nothing.

The day your parents kicked you out, was not a good day. But could you blame them? You were out of control. And no one could stop you anymore. Not even Sadie. I still tried though. Whether you were coherent enough to know I only wanted the best for you, who knows. I do know that when you slapped me, it hurt. And that when you told me I hadn’t been your best friend for years, and that I was too naive to realize it, that broke my heart. But I let you go, walk out of that door without another word, because that was what you wanted. And honestly, I couldn’t say anything.

It was always our dream to do all those important life things together, like graduate high school, and go to university, and become a part of the ‘real world’. But only I got to live that dream to the fullest. That didn’t mean you weren’t part of that ‘real world’. You just skipped all the other stages, and went directly to a very different world than I ended up in. I saw you all over town though; somehow we still managed to live within walking distance of each other. But it hurt to see you like you were, because you weren’t the person I remembered knowing. Your parents came around my apartment one day, asking if I knew where you were living. And I wanted to tell them Marc’s, because that would have been the right thing to do. But how could I? They didn’t know just how bad things had gotten, and I selfishly didn’t want to be the one to dash their hopes. (They always had such great hopes for you, you know that?) I know that all they wanted to do was help, but you didn’t want it. And I might not have been your best friend, but you were still mine. So I didn’t say a thing.

Yesterday you and I hung out for the first time in a long time. But time had changed things. It was weird; for once I did all the talking, instead of you. I’m still not good at it, but hopefully you didn’t mind. Maybe in those periods of silence, where I tried to rub away the cold around me, you read my mind like you used to. You have no idea how much that habit of yours drove me insane. Then you’d know the things I couldn’t say, wouldn’t say, or maybe just didn’t know I wanted to say. Who knows though, maybe we can hang out again sometimes soon, and talk some more. If I ever workup the nerve to go back into that cemetery. Because there are a lot of things I wish I’d said before.