Having a friend disappear from your life is something no one should ever have to experience. I’m not talking about a casual parting of ways here. Sometimes, even when you think things between you and a friend are perfectly fine, they have a different view and don’t respond to any of your attempts to contact them. You keep waiting for an explanation, hoping everything will work out for the better. But it never happens, no matter how long you wait.
The last time I saw Madison was late May of 2015. It was a Friday night at the end of our senior year, and we had finally gotten a chance to hang out. Major events in our lives, from prom to breakups with boyfriends to family problems, plus the fact that we went to different schools, had prevented us from meeting face to face for quite a while. In hindsight, this happened a lot, but at the time I considered it a testimony as to the strength of our friendship that we could still be friends despite not seeing each other for a while. In a way, it was a sign, but not how I imagined it then.
We didn’t have any major plans; my Dad was going to order a pizza for me, Madison, and our mutual friend Mandy while we hung out in my basement, played games, and watched TV. Madison got there first, and we talked downstairs while waiting for Mandy to arrive. I knew she’d been going through a hard time, what with a breakup with her boyfriend a few weeks ago, school drama, and some complicated mental health issues. Yet I still couldn’t help but feel disappointed when our conversation took the route it typically did lately: Madison complaining about her many problems and leaving me with almost nothing to say. I felt bad for her, but there were times that I wished she could try to be a little more positive. Even though I was glad whenever she confided in me, her constant negativity could be kind of hard to deal with sometimes.
Eventually there was a lull in the conversation. “Are you okay?” Madison asked me, looking a little worried. It was a question she asked a lot. I told her yes, but I wasn’t sure I believed it. The truth was that I had been worrying about how we could make our friendship work once college started, what with her constant disappearances. But I didn’t know how to broach the topic without upsetting her- she could be pretty sensitive.
Once Mandy arrived, I managed to put my worries behind me for the next two hours or so. I’ve been friends with Mandy since seventh grade. She’s an extremely sweet, caring girl and a lot of fun to be around. When I first met Madison, and found out she was a friend of Mandy’s too, I was thrilled. I have a lot of good memories of us hanging out at her house, talking and laughing about anything and everything. With my two closest friends to hang out with, my senior year drawing to a close, and a wedding for one of my cousins tomorrow, I was feeling pretty great. That is, until about an hour before Madison was supposed to leave. This is where things get complicated.
One sausage pizza from Aurelio’s, one spilled soda, and a couple of board games later, we settled down to watch Ella Enchanted on TBS at around eight o’clock. Madison went to use our bathroom, and Mandy and I talked a little while she was gone. Now, in a text she sent me the next day, she told me she heard Mandy say to me, “I’m going to tell Madison I don’t want to be her friend anymore.” which I don’t remember at all. Mandy has a bit of a speech impediment that can make her words hard to understand sometimes. So if she did say it, I must have misunderstood.
Either way, several minutes went by and I noticed that Madison had yet to come out of the bathroom. And when she did, it was as though she’d shut down completely. Neither Mandy nor I had any idea what was going on, and she refused to give out any information that would let us help her. All she did was give cryptic comments like, “You guys would be my friends no matter what, right?” and “You look really guilty.” She also mentioned something about having flashbacks, which I later realized meant that she must have had a panic attack. Mandy tried to reassure her, but it only seemed to make things worse, and she went back into the bathroom almost immediately after coming out.
It was at this point that my mind began racing with a myriad of possibilities and explanations, almost none of them good. I recalled the past conversations I’d had with her about her once being suicidal and self-harming. I didn’t really believe she’d try anything like that in another person’s house, but a little voice in my head kept nagging at me with every agonizingly slow minute she stayed in there. I wanted to get up and check on her, but to be honest, I was terrified of what I’d find. I had no direct experience with stuff like that.
At long last, she came out. I exhaled to myself, thinking that everything was going to be all right. But then, when we were alone, Madison asked me if we could talk. The brief conversation we had is mostly a blur to me, outside of her asking, “Is everything okay?” and me affirming that yes, it was. I had no idea what was going on and where we stood, and still didn’t by the time my dad dropped her off at her house.
During our conversation over text the next day, she clarified what had happened the night before. I was shocked and a little confused, but did my best to try and explain that I had no ill intentions. Even then, it didn’t seem to be effective. She rebuffed my suggestion that she talk things out with Mandy, and questioned my trust for a second time. I didn’t know what else to say at this point, so I just told her not to let her previous bad experiences and friendships hurt her in the present. This seemed to convince her and I figured we would be fine. “Seemed”, of course, was the key word there.
When Madison didn’t reply after I sent her a text inviting her to my graduation party, I basically shrugged it off. I figured she was probably on vacation (whether she was or not, I’ll probably never know). The summer went by, with me getting caught up with working at our church’s Vacation Bible School program, orientation, and general college prep. When I sent my next message to her a few weeks later, and it received no reply again, I began to worry. Upon seeing Mandy again that summer and learning she hadn’t heard from Madison either, my fears were only slightly assuaged.
Facebook wasn’t much help in this regard. Every day that I was on, Madison never was. From what I saw, she hadn’t been in quite some time. I didn’t know what to do. She wouldn’t answer my calls or texts, and Facebook messages would likely go unseen. I thought about having my mom call her mom to see if everything was okay, but that felt like such an “elementary school” idea that I never pursued it.
Fast forward to late July. I was on Facebook, and was surprised to see that Madison had been on that day. Glad that she was back, and eager to tell her about everything I’d experienced recently, I sent her a message a few days later. Just a simple “Hi”- that’s it. Three days later? No answer. Now I was hurt, and slightly suspicious. Unless she somehow didn’t have the Messenger app, there was no way Madison couldn’t have seen my message. Was I being…ignored? Purposely ignored? As a quiet girl by nature, I was used to having people not notice I was there. But to outright ignore me? Let’s just say that was new territory.
I think I went through all of the classic stages of grief when it came to my fading relationship with Madison. Denial that she was really ignoring me, anger that she would do to me what so many people had done to her before, sadness at the idea of a lost friendship and, finally, acceptance. In an indirect way, college orientation was a big help with this. In the beginning, it wasn’t something I was incredibly excited about. Being so shy and self-conscious, having to spend time alone with an enormous crowd of other kids that I did not know well at all didn’t appeal to me. And then, that night, I met Elijah. My opposite in every way, he somehow managed to bring me out of my shell, at least for those two nights of orientation. Still, I didn’t think much of it, unsure if we would ever even see each other again once the year started. And then, a few weeks later, when Madison still had yet to contact me or respond to my messages, he texted me and we ended up talking.
That’s when it hit me: here was Elijah, a guy who I’d spent only two nights getting to know, and he’d befriended quiet, shy me with no questions asked. And then there was Madison, someone I’d known for two years, someone who’d confided in me, cried with me, shared things with me that no one had ever shared before. And apparently in her mind, our friendship was so weak and insignificant that I wasn’t even worth a simple explanation as to why she wasn’t speaking to me. That’s what hurt the most: the sheer iciness with which she’d dropped me as a friend. The hypocrisy stung, too. She’d told me before that she’d had friends go behind her back, betray her, and gossip about her, and how badly it had hurt her feelings. And yet…wasn’t she kind of doing the same to me? She could have at least told me she didn’t want to be friends anymore. I still would have been hurt, but I would have understood. But no, she turned her back on me just like countless others did to her.
By August, right before I left for college, my feelings of anger, bitterness, and betrayal had turned to a sort of calm resignation. It’s never a good feeling to know that something you cared for is gone, especially a friendship. But what I’ve come to realize is that while the friends who make up your life may change, you’ll still be surrounded by love wherever you go. And you won’t do yourself any favors by dwelling on one friend you lost. I cringe just thinking about how much time I lost this past summer fretting about what was going on with Madison. Now I feel more confident, ready for whatever friendships are waiting for me in my future. Maybe a couple of years down the line, I’ll be ready to contact Madison again or she’ll contact me. But that’s in the future, and after a summer spent lingering in the past, I prefer to be in the present for the time being.
Autobiography
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