In the fall of 2024, I lost my best friend.
This story starts off with me as a young, naive freshman in college. I had never spoken to a man at college until March of my freshman year. I met this man with whom I instantly clicked. We hit it off immediately with each other. It was the kind of bond I had seen in movies that I did not believe existed for me in this life. I immediately grew to have a crush on him. I would always get so excited when I was able to see him next. We spent countless nights up until way too late in the morning talking about everything. I had never felt so understood by someone before in my life.
The issue with this relationship was that we were just friends, but were doing things that people in a relationship do. Which is where a massive disconnect happened between the two of us. I remember towards the end of the year, we had a conversation one night about what we were going to do over the summer. I distinctly remember crying in front of him for the first time during this conversation because of how sickening the thought of not getting to see each other every day was. We agreed to be friends and still talk over the summer and see what happens when we came back in the fall. After he left that night I cried myself to sleep. I didn’t want this dream that I was living to end.
Over the summer, all I thought about was him. In reality, although he was a boy whom I was interested in, he was also my best friend. He was the first thing I thought of when I woke up in the morning and the last thing before I went to bed. I would go on break at work, and the first thing I would do was text him back. All I could think about was how I hoped things would go back to normal at school. That we would be able to jump back in right where we left off. That was far from what happened, though.
Sophomore year move-in day came, and he started to act distant toward me. It was a change in his behavior that I could tell something had changed. He initially told me that he was no longer interested in me. I remember waking up the next morning after he told me this, sick to my stomach. It was true what they said about a broken heart; it really does make your chest hurt. The kind of pain that makes you never want to care for someone ever again. But then he would text me, and I thought that he changed his mind about me. That he was finally sure about me. It turned into this unhealthy situation where he was confused, and I was upset.
During this time, I started to go on walks on the trail. The first few, I had to stop at a lookout point to cry. I knew what I had to do was to cut him out of my life completely. But cutting out the person in your life who one day you imagined would be the right person for you, is one of the hardest things I ever had to do.
There was a three-week period where we did not speak to each other. One night, we ended up reconnecting, but it turned into a situationship. We continued this, but then one weekend, both of us realized that what we were doing was not good for either side. I could say out loud that it was casual between us, but deep down, I knew that there was nothing casual about the intimacy that we shared between the two of us. In the end, we still did not want the same thing, and we were just holding onto what was left for dear life. But finally it was time to say goodbye again.
I remember seeing him at a social gathering a month or two later. We talked in the kitchen for around 2 hours, and it felt like 15 minutes. Almost like no time had passed at all.
After this, I had gotten into a relationship concerningly fast. My biggest regret of this was not taking time after to process all of the emotions I was feeling. When I was in this relationship, I was over him, but I was not over what happened. This caused an immense amount of tension between my boyfriend at the time. We ended up breaking up around 5 months after this for other reasons.
Coming back to school, I knew that I would see this man again. We would exchange greetings with each other, but that was about it. I remember whenever I would see him, I would think, “How could someone I used to know on the most intimate level, essentially become a complete stranger to me?”
This was until a Saturday night in November.
We were at a social gathering again. But this time, instead of exchanging a few words, we had a lengthy conversation. That, if I had not left with my friends, could have gone on for hours. That was the thing about me and him and me, that if we saw each other and got to talking, that was it for the rest of the night. No matter who else was there, we were the only people in the room who mattered in that moment. Catching up with him had felt refreshing, and it felt like something had changed in not me but also him.
I had conversed with my best friend at school about wanting to have him back in my life as a friend. She agreed after watching us interact the other day that this could be good. My only issue is that I was too scared to reach out to him.
A few weeks later, the college we attended was playing our favorite college team in a basketball game. My dad and I had flown down to Florida to watch the game. I remember distinctly walking into the game and getting a notification on my phone. I looked down, and it was a text from him asking me about the game. I smiled because it felt like God had listened to me when I said I wanted him back in my life. That it was a sign. We ended up talking for the rest of the night.
We continued to talk every day after this. He ended up reaching out to me and saying that he needed to talk to me. I was extremely apprehensive about doing this. I was scared to put myself in a close position to the person who had put me through so much hurt. However, I agreed because I have this rule. The rule is that if someone I cared about deeply one day wants to have a conversation with me, I allow them to. During this talk, he ended up apologizing for everything that had happened between us. He had never apologized to me before, so this was big. It made me feel, in a way, that I was not wrong about him. That he truly was still the good guy that I met at 18 years old.
Since that moment, we have become close friends again. In a way, we are each other’s accomplices. We call and text each other when we are not busy. And we enjoy driving around together and going to get food. Our relationship is a unique one that not many people can understand. I am grateful, though, that I have the opportunity to call him my friend again. Deep down, I knew that we would speak again; it would just take time.