Movies one night, ice cream the next. Relaxing together at home, riding our bikes. Being able to have a whole conversation without saying a word at all. Keri and I were so close people always commented about how they never say one without the other. Best friends till the end, she would always tell me. I was naive enough to believe her.
Everything changed when she met Ryan, her first serious boyfriend. He was my cousin's boyfriend at the time. My cousin and I were really close, so when Ryan cheated on her with with Keri, I was caught between a rock and a dard place. Here was my best friend with my cousin's boyfriend. What's the real kicker is that Keri assured my cousin that there was nothing going on, that she would never date Ryan for she didn't want to do that to my cousin. Lies. Keri lied.
Ryan 'broke up' with my cousin to date Keri, but it turns out Ryan was secretly seeing my cousin and everyother girl in the school behind my friend's back. He even got an STD from one of them and almost gave it to Keri. I knew he was bad news and tried to talk her out of seeing him again, but she said she was in love and wouldn't listen to a word I said, casting me aside like a forgotten pair of jeans.
She became obsessed with him, staulking him to see what he was doing, and when he wouldn't answer his phone, she would call other people to see if he was with them. She didn't trust him, though she would never admit it aloud. She also became more and more obsessed with wanting to have the 411 on everyone else, becoming more and more nosy. She flaunted her boyfriend in front of my face. She walked all over, pushing me around, telling me what to do.
We used to be so close that I even got a job at the same dinner she did. I used to be so shy with no self esteem because of what she did. Everyone there told me what she was doing was hurting me and that I needed to break away, but we had been friends for so long that I couldn't just walk away from her.
After 2 years of Keri and Ryan dating, of Keri only hanging out with me when no one else would, of trying to make new friends when I was a Junior in high school, Ryan broke it off with Keri.
Who does she come crawling to, bawling? Me. I was there for her while she told me she wanted to kill herself to get Ryan to notice her, while she told me she wanted to get pregnant to trap Ryan. I was so flabergasted at whom my friend had become. She was no longer a person I could stand to be around. All those years of my parents pushing me to get away and branch out.
But here she was, alone and depressed, and I was her only friend that would still listen. For a month I thought things were going great and we were going to be like we used to, but I found that there was a bridge between us no one was going to be able to fix.
Soon after, they got back together. When I asked Ryan why, he said, "You know how when a kid doesn't get what he wants at the store? Well, that's Keri only a hundred times worse." What a horrible thing to say about her.
It turns out Keri completely forgot about me this summer, hasn't even called once. She quit her job so she could stay with Ryan, and I haven't seen her once. She is following Ryan to college and I wish them the best of luck.
I don't mind not being her friend anymore. Now that I have taken a step back, I see who she really has become and I am glad that she hasn't influence me to follow in her shallow ways. I'm me for me and that's fine. I've also made a new best friend with someone Keri had hated, but who I get along with great. I've even stated dating this amazing guy.
Happy endings do exist.
