“Frenemies”

A micro memoir by Audrey Castiglia (9).

Blankly staring at the blue words on the screen, I didn’t understand. It all happened so fast. I was so angry, but I only wanted to take back everything I had said. At first, I tried ignoring her furious messages, but all the angry words were filling my phone. They consumed me with regret. 

Earlier that day, Charlie had texted me asking me if I wanted to go for a bike ride. 

“What time?” I asked. She immediately texted back saying we could meet later. As the morning progressed I started to not feel well. I had a migraine, so I realized I didn’t want to go anymore, and texted Charlie to cancel our plans.

“Why do you always do this?” she texted, her anger emanating from the words. 

“Sorry. I just don’t feel good, it's not a big deal,” I responded. 

I was confused. She got mad at me a lot, but I had an unpleasant feeling about this particular fight. I thought to myself, What do I say next? What did I do?  Is she really mad about something else? Wondering all these things made me feel more sick than before. 

She and I had always had our differences, but we were inseparable otherwise. The fact that we were inseparable was likely the problem. We spent too much time together, and eventually we would get sick of each other. Then minor problems escalated into ugly fights, which is exactly how this whole situation began. 

I knew what was happening, but I couldn’t stop the old patterns from happening again.  I knew I was in a stupid fight she and I would regret later, but at the same time, I could feel myself giving in to anger, unwilling to compromise and be the bigger person.   

Watching the messages pile up on top of each other made my stomach drop, I hated fights. I felt betrayed by my best friend, the one I could always confide in, and let everything out to. The devastation I felt when she said those words erased any lingering guilt over what I may have done.

“Fine, let's just not be friends anymore then.” She said plainly.

“Fine,” I said, without even considering the consequences and only wanting my response to hurt her as much as possible. 

I had a distressing feeling that this could stick, and really last this time; it made me want to throw up. Despite my misgivings, I repeated to myself, ‘She didn’t mean it.’ To reassure myself,  I thought about friends who could successfully fill the roles she played, but understood that not one friend could fill them all. 

Now that I look back, I can see how this same issue of spending too much time together  had caused fights like this one. I feel empathy for her, and how she had to deal with me canceling plans left and right. I feel that the way we acted was not fair to either of us, and I would handle the situation in a much different way now. 

“Do you want to come over to make Christmas cookies?” I asked in fear she would still be resentful.  

“Sure sounds fun,” she responded. 

Alas, I felt a wave of relief, after not speaking for a year.