It was freshman year, some day in April. A few weeks earlier, my best friend, other half, and basically sister, Arista, told me that she was going to be moving 2000 miles away from me, to Texas.

At first, it didn’t really affect me. Maybe I was just trying to convince myself that it wouldn’t happen, that she would stay. How could my best friend of 11 years just disappear one day? It seemed unreal. That day, during lunch in the middle of the commons, when she handed me a thick note, it hit me like a ton of bricks. She handed it to me, looked me in the eyes and said, “I love you, Katie. I’ll miss you.” I didn’t know what to say. I felt like I was losing a piece of myself. I took the note, and started reading it at the lunch table after she walked away. I was instantly swept into a time capsule of the past 11 years of my life.

The note was filled with inside jokes, memories, and promises that we will always be friends through this. You see, Arista was pretty much my only true best friend at the time. She was the person I could depend on for anything. We spent every possible day together for the past 11 years be it weekends, holiday breaks, summers; she was a second family to me. It was so hard to accept reality.

As I finished reading, I looked up and tried looking through the blur of my tears. I was looking for her, but she wasn’t there, so I decided just to go to class. I walked in the room, teary eyed and red faced, to find my friend Dannah instantly rushing to me hugging me, telling the teacher we were going to the bathroom. We walked through the halls, everything was so quiet and still. We were completely alone, which allowed me to not worry about holding back on my emotions. We got to the bathroom, and I instantly buried my face in Dannahs hair, and started sobbing uncontrollably. She understood what was wrong. I felt like a child throwing a tantrum when they don’t get their way. I’m not sure I’ve ever cried harder in my life.

The next day, the final day before Arista was leaving; I went to see her at her grandparents. We looked at old pictures and notes in her empty room. It was sad, weird, and made me feel uneasy seeing her room empty. We fell silent after a while. It was a shared silence, we were both thinking the same thing; I had to leave eventually. It was time to go now, to leave my other half behind. I remember standing on her porch, hugging her, trying not to cry. I couldn’t help it. The tears came down in a steady stream like a waterfall. We reluctantly said our goodbyes, and I got in the car and drove away. We watched each other the whole way down her driveway. Then I turned the corner, and my best friend for the past 11 years of my life was gone. I felt so alone, so lost, like a grain of sand on a beach, looking for another certain grain of sand, to no avail.

I haven’t really been the same since I lost a huge piece of me. I will always feel like I had gotten a little piece of my, at that point, already rotting heart pecked out by a crow. But, life goes on, and I know that even though unfortunately we lose touch sometimes, we will always be in each others hearts.