One Person

It’s hard to say how one is supposed to feel when losing a friend. There isn’t a handbook called, How to Cope with Losing Your Best Friend. Nor is there something programmed inside of a person saying what the proper course of action is. It’s especially difficult when you haven’t actually lost your best friend, and you just feel like you are.
My best friend, Kiri—short for Kirstin, which she hates—changed a lot since I met her in kindergarten. We went to school together for four years, spending our elementary school days telling everyone we were cousins, until I was redistricted to a new school. We both made new friends and became involved in our own things, but we still saw each other weekly at Girl Scouts and remained close. Even through middle school, with new friends and completely new lives, we managed to stay close—almost like sisters. But with time comes change, and for Kiri, there were a lot of changes. The little girl who had spent long summer days with me jumping through the sprinkler and playing dress-up had changed into someone I know longer knew as we began high school. In a Catholic high school, it is expected for a high-strung teenage girl to rebel, but Kiri had turned it into an art—everything from skipping class to experimenting with drugs to inflicting pain on herself. Her life was spiraling out of control and before anyone, including Kiri, could get control of it, she was in the hospital with no clear idea of when she’d be out.
While in the hospital, Kiri was diagnosed with Depression and bulimia. When my mother first told me the news of my best friend, I was very calm about it, unable to see and understand how serious it was. After three months of hospitalization, she was let out. We went to the movies and spent the day together just like we used to. I felt like I had gotten my best friend back. It was all too good to last though. Only a few days later Kiri’s mother sent her to Alldredge Academy in West Virginia, where she would live in the wilderness, learn to survive, and finish high school, while facing her drug addiction that to this day, only a few people know about. This time I went five months without a phone call, letter, or e-mail. In that time, I spent many long night nights crying myself to sleep, just thinking about her, staring at the entries in her Xanga—where it was all written plainly in black and white—wondering what I could have done to change things and blaming myself. It took someone I never would have expected to make me see that there wasn’t anything I could do.
Volleyball season rolled around in August, and my focus was on making the team and starting. I couldn’t spend all my time wallowing in my pity and hating myself. Kiri was getting better—that was all that mattered. But the morning of our first scrimmage I woke up and checked my computer to see if I had received any messages on my Instant Messenger account. Much to my surprise, Kiri had left a message in the night saying that she was home for the weekend. So many emotions flooded through my body at once—happiness that she was home, sadness that it was only for the weekend, and fear that I had missed my only chance to talk to her—but again there was no time to be upset. I had a scrimmage to concentrate on, a scrimmage that could decide whether I played or not. I held everything in until after the scrimmage, but after that, on the way back to school on the bus, it came out—one tear for one person to see. Jenny, our middle hitter, whom I had played with for four years but never really gotten to know, stared at me, giving me a look that made my blood run cold. I didn’t know it then, but she would be the one that I could talk about anything with, one of the best friends I could ask for. Jenny quietly asked if I was alright, and I nodded even though it wasn’t true. I was falling apart inside and she was the only one who could tell. I expected to come home and have a dozen messages from Jenny asking what was wrong, and I was half-right. I received one message from Jenny saying exactly what I needed to hear: “I hope you feel better. If you need to talk, I’m here.” It wasn’t a question, just an offer, the offer I needed.
I visited Kiri while she was home and gave her the support she needed, not telling her about how I was feeling. After all, I couldn’t be upset when I had my best friend back, could I? That’s what I kept telling myself until the weekend ended, and I was alone again. On Monday morning, while driving to practice, I realized that I needed to talk about it. And the only person that came to mind was Jenny. I told her everything, all about Kiri, my fears, crying on the bus, and trying to stay strong. She was my shoulder to lean on, and I could tell that she would be there for me no matter what.
After that day, I spent most of my afternoons, after volleyball practice, on the internet talking to Jenny. Whether it was about something stupid or something incredibly serious, like the Depression I feared I was developing, she was there for me, talking me through it and saying the comforting words she seemed to know that I needed to hear. In my head, I know exactly how much she has helped me, but on paper it seems impossible to say how much. I would keep her up online for half the night talking to her about my problems and not once would she abandon me.
Most recently, she helped me more than she will ever know. About a week ago, my mother informed me that Kiri would be graduating from Alldredge Academy. Excitement rushed through my veins but was quickly extinguished by the news to follow: she would be moving to Utah shortly after. Again, the feeling of losing my best friend came to haunt me. I wanted to cry so badly that it hurt, but I couldn’t. For some reason, I couldn’t let my mother know how much it was killing me on the inside. Perhaps it was a subconscious fear of not living up to the perfect image my parents saw in me. Whatever it was, I just couldn’t bring myself to let out my emotions. That night, I spoke with Jenny again, pouring out my soul, telling her that I couldn’t go through life without Kiri there—that I couldn’t say goodbye again. She was there simply to listen. I didn’t need any advice—there was no advice to be given—I just needed a friend. She was like my own personal psychiatrist. But I didn’t want to see it that way. Seeing a psychiatrist meant admitting to my parents—and myself—that I had a problem. I was slowly beginning to fall into the same Depression that Kiri had fallen into. Maybe not because of body image or drugs, but because of Kiri. It sounds terrible to say, but it’s true. Some might have just put an end to the friendship to save their own sanity, but I couldn’t. I had twelve years of history with her—almost my entire life. Unfortunately, our friendship is still causing this emotional battle, but one thing keeps me going—tells me everything will be alright.
Jenny is like my guardian angel. I know that she’s not going to abandon me. Even when she has her own problems to deal with, she’ll still have time to help me with mine. And while I always tell her that I’ll be there the way she’s always there for me, I don’t think she’ll ever understand how much I mean that. If it wasn’t for her, I would completely lose sense of who I am and who I could be. Without Jenny, I’m not even sure I would still be here. She makes me want to get up in the morning. She means so much to me, and she doesn’t even know the half of it. She’s the one person who changes my life everyday without even trying.