my first best friend

The Friendship Series
Installment 1: Lizzie


My first best friend
had brown boricua skin
and wide black eyes.
She taught me many things,
like how to do makeup
and tell lies.
She showed me how
to press heat to my wavy hair
and make it obey.
She touched me hungrily,
like she was begging me
to stay.

My first best friend
told me to join the soccer team
so I’d lose weight.
I did all that and more,
listening to her
call herself ugly and fat.
She was skinnier than I was,
prettier too,
and deeply defiant.
According to our moms,
I was supposed to be
"the good influence."

When she showed up at school
with cuts on her arms,
I didn't know what to do.
Later on that week,
I offered it up in prayer
in my small group.
The leader told my youth pastor,
who gave me a week to tell her mom,
or else he would.
I felt so trapped,
forced to break
my best friend's trust.

He told me
if something happened to her,
I'd always blame myself,
if I knew what she was doing
and never got her any help.
I don't know if it really helped
when her parents unhinged
her bedroom door.
But how could I know anything?
I wasn't even ten and four.

Later on,
when I started to self-harm,
I didn't dare tell anyone,
except for kids who also did,
and I knew more than one.
Six years later,
when I finally told my mom,
she said she knew,
then repeated the tired adage:
"if your friends jumped off a cliff,
would you?"

My first best friend
jumped off a cliff of sorts
our junior year.
She ran away from home,
and my parents didn't want me
to see her.
They said it might be dangerous-
she was doubtless doing drugs.
At home it was the cause
of many teary arguments.

I started off my senior year
without a friend in sight.
I cried alone in my room
or in the shower
a lot of nights.
We don't talk anymore,
but on Facebook I scroll
through pictures of her son.
She was a fiercely loyal friend,
and I know now
she's a good mom.