I’ve written about my BFF before here, but definitely not at the length that she deserves.
We’ve been friends since grade school and are more like sisters than friends. But even “sisters” isn’t a good description. We met, we melted into each other, and we’ve been psychically connected since 1990.
When I was twelve and my parents divorced, she was there.
When I was thirteen and lived in poverty and none of our friends wanted to be seen near our apartment complex, she was there.
When I was fourteen and we didn’t have enough money to keep our phone connected, she’d make up random times to call a payphone near our house. I’d be boarding the school bus and she’d yell at me “7:23 PM!”
I’d walk down to the phone booth and, sure enough, right at 7:23PM the phone would ring.
She was there at 15, when there was nowhere except her house to be safe.
She was there at 16 when my mom decided we were moving to Boise. She cried, but thought I’d have a better life there and supported me.
At 17, she almost killed the guy who had me trapped in an abusive relationship. Visiting her was the worst thing he ever did, and she walked like a rooster around me, ready to peck the dude’s eyeballs out at the slightest provocation.
At 18, she rearranged her entire day and missed some finals so that she could be there for me when my grandpa got a very bad diagnosis, and at 19, she sat next me while I wailed on her family room floor about losing my grandpa.
At 20, when I had a nearly successful suicide attempt, she quit speaking to everyone who treated it as a juicy bit of gossip, and she has not spoken to them since.
At 21, 22, 23, all the way up to where we are now, she has been there, a fucking rock that I can’t live without.
And here we are, at 38, where she tells me that she found a lump in her breast so she made an appointment with her OB-GYN, and they felt the lump and immediately sent her to get an ultrasound and they immediately sent her to get a biopsy and oh, by the way, your blood cell count doesn’t look good.
So she texts me and asks if I have a minute, and I say of course!
And she tells me all of this and I can’t breathe.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, but I know that if the shoe was on the other foot, she would.
