High School, the best four years of your life. During this time you meet new people, try new things, and enjoy being a teenager. A lot of us know people change when you get to high school and you might lose some of your closest friends. Unfortunately, I experienced this first hand with one of my best friends.

Eighth grade graduation day. We were in the cafeteria minutes before we were going to go on stage to graduate middle school and become high schoolers. This new step in our life scared us, because we’ve heard stories of friends drifting apart and we had concerns that since I made the high school dance team and my best friend made it’s cheer team, we wouldn’t get to see each other or we might just float apart. Before walking out of those doors, we made a promise. We promised each other that no matter what happens in highschool we will always be like those two leaves, at the end of fall, that have stuck together even though everything else has changed and left.

Fast forward to sophomore year. My best friend and I slowly started breaking our promise. We went from being those friends that talked everyday and hung out multiple times a week to only hanging out a total of three times all year. She had replaced me with people from the wrong crowd. My best friend would not be talking to people who drank. My best friend would not hang out with people who did drugs. My best friend would not be surrounding herself with people that bring her down or give off negative tension, but yet my best friend was.

At first, I thought I was the only one noticing these changes in her, so I talked to our other good friend and she noticed it also, I soon came to realize everyone around her was noticing it also. As sophomore year went on I would have people ask me “what happened to her?” and to be honest, I couldn’t tell them what happened to my used to be sweet, innocent, bubbly best friend.

I didn’t know what to do. I decided the best thing to do would be to get advice from others that knew her also. My friends all were saying that I should talk to her about it while my mom told me that it’s a part of growing up, even though she is making the wrong decision it’s a learning process for her and knowing her, she will come back around soon enough, only if you give her the time she needs to realize it. I was stuck. I decided that the best thing was to give her a little space but still try to make an effort to try to still be close to her.
Much to my surprise, her mom called me one day in concern about her daughter. I will never forget the conversation I had with her.

“Hello Amanda, I’ve been noticing how recently, you are never around anymore and how your friend has been hanging out with some not too good kids. I know how much you care about her and I would love for you to meet with me for lunch so we can talk about what’s going on and maybe get her back to her normal self.”

I was ecstatic that her mom called me because I felt this was one step closer to getting her back, but we both knew that if she should found out we were doing this she wouldn’t be happy with either of us and probably lose her even more. With that in mind, I still went along with meeting her mom. We probably stayed at that restaurant for at least three hours just talking about what is going on and trying to decide what we should do. Her mom and I decided we were just going to keep talking to her and hopefully she will change her mind.

Even with meeting with her mom, unfortunately, that year I lost my best friend. I had just watched the past three years of my life being taken away from me and ripped to shreds. I feel the decisions I made were the right ones and never forgot what my mom said. She just needs time to figure herself out.

More recently, a couple weeks ago, she contacted me again and said how much she missed me. She told me how she realized her new friends put her down and she never should have left me as her best friend. We now are rekindling and making up for the year that we have lost and things couldn’t be better between us. I truly believe that things happen for a reason and the choices both of us made will and have turned out for the better. Even though people may change, if you make the right decisions everything can turn out for the better.