"What Happened To My Best Friend? " by Melissa A

        Growing up in a two story house, a pool in the backyard, with both of my parents and my older brother. I am running around the house everyday, watching movies, playing with my toys, and drawing. I am a happy, worry free little girl who has no idea of what reality was; has no idea what is going on around me. All I know is that my family is happy, together, worry free and my dad is my best friend and we are inseparable. I run into his arms everyday when he gets home, I take a bunch of pictures with him, I miss him when he would be at work until later that day. I wait for him in the living room, staring at the door at the usual time he gets home. I draw pictures for him to put up at his work desk all of the time. I found my comfort with him, after all I was his ‘mini me’ so we were close and most like each other.

            Unfortunately, at a certain point in time, I started to barely be able to see my dad, because of how busy he was, and how far he worked, I would only see him a little bit every day and only would see him entirely on the weekends. He would come home late, I would hear the fights he and my mom had in the middle of the night, but I would ignore it and didn't pay much attention to it. He would wake up really early, and repeat the work cycle again and again. I did understand my dad had to work everyday to be able to give us what we needed and wanted, I just never understood why he had to come home so late. I would stay up for so long, waiting to hear him walk through the door and know he is safe. I hated being away from my best friend for so long. I hated not being able to know how far he was from getting home and if he was safe or not. I was always afraid of his safety, any little thing worried me.

I miss my best friend.

I am now seven years old. We moved into a new house, much different from our last one. The energy from my parents didn’t feel the same and it feels like ever since then, things started to change. My best friend is changing, little by little, but is still so noticeable— well for me. I brushed it off because he still calls me his princess, which makes me feel reassured that nothing is changing, we still have our bond and I am so sure nothing will ever break it. I felt this was a new chapter to make new memories in this house, yet with the same best friend. We watch movies together, I make him little treats out of play-doh and he takes them and plays along, I tell him all about my day at school, well the good things of course, never the bad things, and we mess around for hours until it is bedtime. I sleep with a t-shirt of his because I hate being away from him. I feel the most safe with him by my side. He tells me “goodnight” and that he will see me tomorrow. I would always fall asleep best imagining  what tomorrow would be like, maybe he would pick me up from school, or color with me or take me to the park– so many possibilities on what we could do. Then the next morning came, he had already left to work early that morning, so I went to school sad but also got excited as school was about to end. Excitement that my best friend was going to pick me up from school and he would take me to go eat. I walked out the gate, squinting my eyes from the brightness of the sun, looked around, no sign of him. My mom walked up to me with her hand out, I was let down. I don’t blame him, it wasn’t fully his fault, I was the one who thought maybe he would have been able to, but mom explained to me how difficult his job treats him and how hard it is for him to be able to pick me up or anything like that. I had to understand but I couldn’t help but feel hurt by the fact all these other little girls were getting picked up and taken to school by their dad but mine never was able to. Only on special occassions like award ceremonies, which I am grateful he got to go to come, but after a while he stopped going so much. I stopped seeing him in the crowd of parents, and it hurt me,

            I am now ten years old, things start getting rocky. My best friend and I are starting to have periods of time of being upset at each other and it drags on for days. Obviously at this age, kids go through change, especially girls with their moods and attitude, which I admit mine were constant and pretty bad which my parents would never let me be oblivious to, they would put me in check and would be upsetw with me. I understood and did correct my behavior because I hated the feeling of them being mad at me, especially my dad, I couldnt stand the feeling of him being upset at me or disappointed. However, there is no excuse for being pushed away by your best friend in the whole world, your protector. Now, this is more than just the attitudes, the moods, and talking back, there is something being held against and reflected toward me. I don't know what I could have done to cause this. I can't put my finger on it, but I felt it, something was different, something wasn't right. This isn't like my best friend. He isnt this kind of person.

            The second I blew out the candles on my thirteenth birthday, I started to have my eyes opened and this is when I started learning my lesson that was being shown to me all along. I was losing my best friend, not physically but emotionally and mentally. The change in my best friend showed me so much, it wrecked me. I fell apart. Argument after argument, budding heads all the time because we have the same stubbornness and each wants to make our argument, it turns into a screaming match that I feel I can never express myself because I am constantly belittled and silenced. A lot of the time, I feel a knot in my throat that won't ever let me spill out my words. That knot tightens as if it is being pinched. I cry from frustration as I can never bring myself to say what I have to say, I cannot say what I fully feel because I cannot hurt his feelings, I cannot make him feel that way, I can't. I always think to myself “just do it, you need to tell him how much this affects you”, but I never get to that point. I will never hurt someone's feelings because of my own hurt, I can't bring myself to do it. I hold back, wipe my tears and go on with my day.

            Nothing ever felt the same.

            I often would and still do ask myself “Where did I ever go wrong? Why are things this way? How could someone change so fast toward you, someone who was supposed to protect you from things, doing the opposite and hurting you? Why can't he see? Why won't he listen or even try for me?” I could never fathom the answers to these questions. All I knew was, if I never find out these answers, I will stress on this and let this affect me for years until I can find the courage to find the answers to these questions.

            Now here I am, seventeen years old, still missing my best friend, the best friend from when I was five years old. Why did he change? Was he always this way like everyone else says? But I just didn't see it? To be told, I am exactly like him by my family. It shows me that he isn't the bad guy, yet, everyone has different experiences with him, that each has connected to the same result. “You’re just like your dad”, “You guys are the same”, suddenly I feel a lump in my throat, my heart in my stomach, beating faster than a bolt of lightning, I shiver, only it's not cold. What is this feeling? Why must I feel this way whenever being talked to about my best friend? Why does it always hurt me to talk about him? That question is simply answered. It hurts me because I would never imagine or even be able to put someone, especially my own  family, to feel or be treated the way I have been treated and been feeling. We have our good days, we have our quiet days, and we have our bad days. Bad days consist of not talking to each other, feeling that awkwardness and tension when in the same room as each other, not saying “hi” to each other when we see each other after a long day. I went from running up to him when he came home, to sitting in my room staring at my door, hearing his footsteps coming up the stairs, waiting and waiting for him to walk in and say “hi” to me, asking me how I am. I still crave a hug from him somedays, when I have a bad day I just want a hug but I never get it, if I ever do, it never feels the same as it once did. All my accomplishments, the awards of principal's honor roll, honor roll, report cards of all A+’s, 90-100% on tests and quizzes, all go unacknowledged by him. I haven't heard an “I'm proud of you” in so long from him. It never goes unnoticed how late I stay up to do all this overloaded work, how much effort I put into tests, projects, and assignments, and how hard I work every day to make both of my parents proud. No. I am from now on only doing this for myself, to make myself proud because that is the most important thing. I cannot let myself dwell on the fact he doesn't acknowledge anymore, that he doesn't get involved, that he doesn't bother to ask or know what is going on, I simply have to accept that and move on. It has taken me years to admit this to myself but I have grown to learn and see things that show me the reality of things and the world that I was so delusional about.

            Throughout all this constant ups and downs, good times and bad times, all the conflict, I had to learn at a young age that people change, it can be the people you would least expect or least want to change, and it won't always be for the better. I've grown tired of the constant problems we have, the constant periods of not talking to each other, and he doesn't seem to even faze it nor does it affect him in any way, it is always my fault in his eyes. The one day not talking and the next day to be taken to normally like nothing happened, it's such a confusion and a bunch of different emotions, I can never control. People change, it hurts at times but life goes on, at the end of the day you only have yourself and you cannot force people to see things from your point of view if they don't want to see it. If they really wanted to change for the better and see where they may go wrong, they would.