Posted by Anonymous on 2013/03/06 under Uncategorized I guess I should start at the beginning.
My name is Holly. Last summer I was in a musical with my best friend Adrianne. That summer we did everything together. We were literally the best friends you have ever seen before. That summer, at that musical, I met Emily. For the duration of the musical, I didn’t talk to her. I thought she was kind of weird. She was really shy and quiet, but she looked nice enough. I also noticed that she had kind of a weird sense of style. That fall I started my 8th grade year, my last year of middle school. On the first day of school, when I was greeting all of my best friends from the previous year (Dwayne, Adrianne, Sara), I saw Emily standing alone. Adrianne and I went up to talk to her because we remembered her from the play. Throughout the year, Adrianne and I grew apart. Adrianne became friends with my old friend from my old neighborhood, Abby. Then, the best friend duo of Dwayne and me became a best friend trio of Dwayne, Emily, and me. We were practically inseparable. We all loved each other unconditionally. That year I noticed that Emily could sometimes be really mean or kind of violent if she got even the slightest bit upset. I decided to look past it because I didn’t want to lose her as a friend. Sure, throughout the year we got into little fights, but we always made up. Always. Then summer came, time for another musical. That summer we did Carousel. This time, it wasn’t the summer of Adrianne and Holly, it was the summer of Emily and Holly. Emily and I hung out all the time, pretty much every day. Any time when I wasn’t attending a dance class, Emily and I were together. We’d go to the beach, go rollerblading, or walk around the tourist part of our town that’s bustling with activity during the summer. Once again I had a best friend with whom I was inseparable. Of course we’d still get into little fights, but they didn’t occur as often in the summer, due to the fact that technology wasn’t our only means of communication. It’s easier to be mean to someone behind a computer screen. Hanging out all the time kept our friendship healthy and alive. I forgot to mention that I live in a border city. On the border of Canada and the U.S. Well, Emily’s father lives in Canada, and her mother lives in the U.S. Apparently Emily was going to live a year in the States and a year in Canada, alternating. Well, this of course made all of Emily’s American friends sad, me especially. I didn’t want to lose her. Alas, when fall came, Emily was gone. I only got to see her every other weekend. During the week I had to deal with only talking to her on Facebook, because she didn’t have a cell phone. For the first semester of my freshman year, everything was fine. At school I didn’t have to deal with Emily because she went to a Canadian school. Apparently Emily was miserable at her Canadian school, claiming her Canadian friends’ friends didn’t like her and were unkind to her. At the turn of the semester, she had convinced her parents to let her transfer to my school. I was thrilled to find out that we had exactly half of our classes together, and lunch period, which I shared with Dwayne and my friend Katie. Emily came to our school at the start of the new semester, missing a few days so she could make up some exams at her old school. Everything was great. She was really dependent on me, however, and that was kind of irritating, but I pushed through it because she needed me. Unfortunately, I noticed that Emily had become even more hostile since 8th grade. At first, I didn’t mind it that much. But eventually, I became more and more sick of her. Later on, it came to the point where I could not stand her. She was so cruel. I just didn’t want to be around her anymore. Of course I never expressed any of my discomfort because I didn’t want my friends to think of me as a bad person. So I suffered through her relentless bullying. We would get into fights and “break up” for a day or two, then she would come crawling back to me and everything would go back to normal. About a month ago, an old friend of mine named Jon asked me to be his girlfriend. I accepted. My friends were pleased at first. Jon’s friends and my friends are of two different groups, and heaven forbid they intermingle. I realized that I didn’t want to lose my friends because of Jon, and I didn’t want to lose Jon because of my friends. So, I compromised. I spent most of my time with my friends and the little time I could with Jon. At lunchtime, I ate with my friends at our table, then went to the other side of the cafeteria to be with Jon and his friends. As time went on, I realized that I was a lot happier with Jon and his friends because they were never mean to me. They always treated me with the respect and dignity that I deserved. I couldn’t say the same about my friends, especially Emily. About a week ago, I was texting Emily, when out of nowhere she accused me of only caring about myself and said that she was going to just leave me alone from now on. I recognized this as my chance to finally be myself without the oppression of such a dictator as a best friend. I can’t say I was very upset when we stopped being friends this time. We’ve done a pretty good job at ignoring each other, though it is hard sometimes because we now have 4/6 classes together, plus lunch. Since we stopped being friends, I noticed that Emily has been desperately trying to turn my friends against me, making me look like the bad guy, even though it was she who decided to call it off. Now I feel like I can’t be around my own friends. Not Dwayne, not Sara, not Katie. When I’m around any one of them, she’s around. I feel like I don’t have any of my friends to myself. Now I’ve accepted the fact that I will have to deal with her whenever I’m around my own friends. Yet, even though she’s succeeded in taking my friends, I can’t imagine they’ll want to stick around for long. I’ve noticed that even to them she’s cruel. I realize now that she’s not out to get me. She’s just a bully. She is battling her own low self-esteem and self-loathing by trying to bring those around her down to her level so she can feel good about something. But I refuse. This is the last time we will “break up”. There will not be another because I will not forgive her this time. I know she will come crawling back to me, but never again will I let her walk all over me like a doormat. I’m going to take the high road. Instead of focusing on how much I dislike her, I’m going to focus on the things in life that bring me joy, like my friends, my boyfriend, dancing, singing, and acting. I can’t wait ’til school gets out. I don’t know yet what this summer will hold, but I’m not going to let Emily ruin it for me. All I have to do is suffer through the next three months, then I can finally be me again.