Every trio is destined to fail and I think I was the only one ready to stand out from the crowd

 I passed her in the halls for the first time in years when it all came back to me. It was weird not instantly jumping at her side, not even saying hi. The ridiculous fight we continued night after night and each of my apologies. In second grade I moved into Caitlynn’s neighborhood and I never knew I could be attached at the hip quite like we were. My recess break went from playing war to swinging every day with her. We played outside everytime the weather was nice and she teased me for coming even when the weather would not permit.

Mollie joined us a year later, we were inseparable. It’s been two weeks now since I sent her a text. Her mom was the best, she’d pick me up from school and take me home for a snack and to play outside all of the time. If we weren’t outside I was calling Caitlynn from my home phone to make up scenarios about our future high school boyfriends and we’d be living our best life, together. Caitlynn has been dating the same boyfriend for over a year now and I’ve still never met him, I don’t even know his name. 

I moved neighborhoods first, Caitlynn and I still talked on our silly little home phones every single day when we came home from school but I never really got to hang out with her anymore, her parents thought I was “an issue” so they never brought her over, she even only made it to two birthday parties out of our six years of friendship. Mollie however, was a frequent flier in my house, especially after her dad moved in only four blocks down so every other week we made the trip on her electric scooter between houses. Everybody fights, I don’t believe anyone is a real friend if you’ve never gotten in a stupid argument over the pronunciation of 

“Pajamas.” But after a while I started to think that Caitlynn’s parents had planted some sort of poisonous seed in her mind about me.  

Caitlynn moved to Lansing’s middle school immediately after the sixth grade ended and our friendship persevered! At least for a year. Mollie moved in November of seventh grade and suddenly each third of our trio was left alone. What's one third of a trio good for anyway? We all kept in contact, usually separately. I started to struggle a lot after that. I had made a small handful of friends once middle school had started but rarely would the three of us actively choose to socialize outside of each other, I mean, what was the point? Friends forever! Right? I still talk to Mollie and genuinely enjoy being her friend but as I am writing this essay I’m starting to understand how, in high school at the very least, only talking to someone you consider your best friend every three or four weeks doesn’t make the ‘best’ part of that friendship stand out well. I hope she texts me soon. 

The year Caitlynn transferred schools (They have a better swim team! And their own pools so she just had to go! Right? She didn’t leave because of me, right?) I was the only person who she invited to her birthday and that night we were at the movie theater and I found a fidget cube that I still pull out before every single math test with its broken knob, and every single time I have accidentally nudged over that choppy knob a small memory will always slip through of her no matter how much I try to bury them. That was the same night I realized how much it made my best friend uncomfortable that I wasn’t straight. The look of disgust on her face when I told her how pretty I thought this girl was is still seared into my brain and I quickly attempted to assure her of the diverseness of my sexuality hoping she knew how much I wanted to live out the fantasies of our highschool boyfriends we created on our home phones in elementary school. Slowly our phone calls turned into text messages and her parents refused to drive her if we ever wanted to hangout and Caitlynn began to voice her antipathy for the friends which I had made in the absence of our trio. 

I didn’t understand what had gone wrong, what had disrupted our trio. We were the best of friends who knew the ins and outs of each other’s brains, nobody had ever quite understood my mind the way these two did in our formative years. Mollie became the mitigator of our fights and our issues grew. Suddenly Caitlynn and I’s daily phone calls changed to text messages and then they weren’t daily, sometimes not even once a week. My brain was too underdeveloped as a little eighth grader to understand our friendships should’ve officially been over forever before this had occurred but Caitlynn and I finally had our big fight. The Fight. Friendship ending level arguments that last for hours which my attempt at an apology even a year later couldn’t subdue. It started over absolutely nothing, a new friend of mine whom Caitlynn never shied away from voicing her distaste in remembered a random fact about me which she did not- my favorite television show, which at the time was The Good Doctor. I can’t recall every nasty word which was said- there were too many to count. It was years of built up mild-outrages with each other and it was so, so, incredibly ugly. 

Mollie and I never had The Fight. There was nothing to have it over, people who are still friends never have The Fight tucked away in their back pockets. We’re definitely still friends, we just slowly but surely stopped hearing about each other's days, and dates, and what jobs we are working. The last time I saw Mollie in person was well over a year and a half ago when I invited her to the homecoming dance. I invited her to my birthday parties, Christmas parties, new years eve parties, halloween bonfires, and other general get-togethers with “the old group,” but even then she never was able to make it. I never asked so I couldn’t say truthfully but I do believe she joined another trio without me. I hope she misses me nearly as bad as I miss her every day. 

A few months before I began writing this essay, Caitlynn requested to follow my instagram account and my stomach dropped because of how much fear I still had and how much I still cared what she thought. She’s never liked one of my posts but everytime she views my story my heart does a little jump and I feel the occasional ounce of spite because of the way she abruptly left me and refused my apologies for months on end. Despite every angry moment I’ve held for her in my heart since this day I truly believe Caitlynn and I have a bond that can never be severed and it wouldn’t take much from her if she needed my aid because I still care so deeply for her. I prayed she didn’t recognize me when we passed in her hallways after the most embarrassing game I’ve ever played. Regardless of all of this, when I saw her leading the dance team on the basketball court of my rival school I felt an unsanctioned smile slip onto my face while I saw my once incredibly shy best friend stand there commanding the attention of everyone in that gym.