My Best Friend Broke Up With Me When I Spilled a Secret About Her Boyfriend
My most vivid memory of senior year of high school isn’t dancing with my boyfriend under a canopy of white roses at the winter dance or listening to the roar of the audience during a standing ovation for the spring musical. It’s sitting on the curb outside a pizza place on a Friday night in January, clutching my cell phone to my ear as my best friend told me never to talk to her again. Ever. Then she hung up.
Liza* and I had been best friends since we met in seventh-grade math. I made an excuse to call her on the second night of class to ask her about an assignment. The call was quick but did what I hoped it would do: It put me on her radar and made us friends. We quickly moved from saying, “Hey, what’s up?” in the hallway to being the kind of friends who had giggly phone calls after our parents had gone to bed.
Liza and I joined the field hockey team together, and in between hours at practice, team dinners, and Saturday-morning bus trips to away games, she became something I’d never had before: a true best friend. We spent countless nights writing our inside jokes all over her bedroom walls. (Her parents were the coolest.) During the summers, I spent long weekends at her beach house, where we’d bake cookies, jump off rocks into the ocean, and stay up late lying in the grass.
But on that Friday night as I sat crying on the curb, it almost felt as if those things had never happened. The reason she never wanted to speak to me again was because I’d spilled a secret she told me about her boyfriend - something he’d told her in confidence. The person I’d told said something about the secret to Liza’s boyfriend. He was so upset and yelled at Liza. She knew I was the leak. I apologized for breaking her trust, but that wasn’t enough. Apparently she valued her relationship with her boyfriend more than the one she had with me.
I was so anxious the following Monday. It felt as if I had to change my whole routine just to avoid her - where I sat in math class, my route to the cafeteria, and what I did on Saturday nights. At parties, I’d move to another room when she walked in. I did have other friends - great ones who were there for me as I cried about the breakup. They reassured me I was still a good friend and said this would blow over. But having their support didn’t change how much I hurt. My bedroom was decorated wall-to-wall with pictures of my friends, and I began to take down the photos of Liza and me. There were dozens of holes. As the weeks passed, we’d awkwardly say hello as we walked by each other in the hall at school, but that was it. It stung a bit less to see her each time. Little by little, I filled the spots on my bedroom walls with pictures of other people.
Liza and I never did fully make up. To this day, no breakup I’ve ever had with a boyfriend has hurt as much or affected my life in the same way. In a romantic relationship, you know there’s a possibility - and often expect - that it could end. But a friendship? She was supposed to be my best friend forever, not my “best friend until halfway through senior year.”
She eventually wrote me a letter that included everything I’d always wanted to hear - an apology, a chance at reconciliation - but by that time, it was too late. Our relationship had changed. Looking back on the entire experience, maybe we could have gotten our friendship back on track if I’d pushed a makeup earlier. (I’d certainly learned the value of a secret.) Or maybe people are just meant to come in and out of your life. As hard as it was to see her go, I’d never trade the time we had together.
*Name has been changed.
This story was originally published in the December/January 2016 issue of Seventeen. For more, pick up the May issue of Seventeen, on newsstands now! You can also subscribe to the digital issue here.
