It was a day like any other, I remember. Pushed around by my designated bully at the tender age, life was, to be frank, a little underwhelming, and most certainly miserable at an age that you just shouldn’t have been miserable. I was just seven years old, a nipper by anyones standards, and my bully made my school days into days that i dreaded each and every morning I woke up, and each and every night before I slept. No kid should go through being bullied.

Anyway, after many days of crying, pulling sickies to my mother so I could take absence from school, or just altogether avoiding most forms of social contact, I found myself in the cloak room of my school. I remember I’d only gone to the bathroom, but for more reason than you might think. You see I was pretty incapable of being social at this age, and my confidence was none existent, so I found myself taking bathrooms breaks for, quite literally, a break from people and the pressure it made me feel to be around others all the time. I digress. Let me start the scene now I’ve set it.

I came out of the bathroom ready to return to the lesson and there he was. (Let’s just call him Chase) Chase making that stupid laugh of his and grinning at me. He groaned, “Tyyyyyyleeeerrrr,” at me, in a voice that I recall was so much like a sheep with a marble in it’s throat, that for my age was actually pretty terrifying. I froze, and he seized me by the collar of my shirt and pushed me up against the wall. It hurt. Took the wind out of me. Yet I froze, unable to really do anything.

It was at that moment my soul buddy appeared. I don’t remember much of Chase’s words, but I recall Jay’s. “You gotta go through me if you wanna get to him.” The silence came as they both stared off against one another. I thought they’d fight, but they didn’t. After moments, Chase told me I should watch my back and left the cloak room. That was a bond for life.

Or…at least I thought it was.

Later in life…well…life happened. I went on some travels which he encouraged, and he embarked on a serious relationship. I’d had my share of relationships by the time we both reached our thirties, but he had only had one or two. Either way, I’d felt the change in him gradually ever since the start of it. I stayed the same, I think, but it seemed he didn’t. He was less interested in doing much with me or our other friends, and instead started to do things with the new girlfriends friends.

Eventually he said several things to me that I took great offence to, and I created distance and pulled away. No matter really, because he didn’t try to bridge that distance. Instead he married the girl and went towards parenthood, and by the time he got around to telling me, all i got was a text message (yes a text message) saying “I just thought I’d let you know, _________ is with child.”

Yes…I’m without my other half. I thought it was a yin and yang thing and unbreakable friendship. But the truth is, he replaced things he did with me with my brother, and I took that personally and made the decision to walk away.

Do I see a mark indicating who my best friend is? I guess not. But maybe I know deep down who it is, and its not him.

If you asked me how I felt at the time the things were said and distance happened, you might have thought I was involved in a break up. In a way, I guess I was…losing strong bonds is somewhat traumatic, yet it happens all the time throughout life. We have to live with it. I think that, been though the wound heals, the scar remains. How are they? What are they doing? It’s really the same thing as a romance in that sense.

It does teach you something though: many people in life make friendships when its convenient, but as soon as its not convenient, they will drop you for the next thing. Look out for yourself and accept that friends come and go, precious few hold on.