Megan and I had been friends for twenty-two years. We met in sixth grade when we were assigned to the same science lab table. We went to the same college, were bridesmaids in each other’s weddings, and talked on the phone at least twice a week.
There was one thing I had never brought up. In junior year of high school, Megan told the guy I liked that I had a crush on him — as a joke, she said — right before homecoming. He laughed. He told his friends. I spent the dance in the bathroom. I never said anything because we were sixteen and it seemed small.
It was not small. I know that now. It lived in me for twenty-two years as a tiny, persistent wound.
Last spring, during a long phone call, I finally mentioned it. Gently. I said it still bothered me and I wanted to talk about it. I expected her to apologize. I expected her to say she had thought about it too. I expected something.
What she said was: “That was so long ago. I can’t believe you’re still holding onto that. That’s honestly kind of exhausting.”
I hung up.
She texted twice. I did not respond. She has not reached out again, and I have not reached out to her.
I am forty-two years old and I have discovered that some endings are clean. That sometimes a friendship outlasts itself not with a fight but with a single sentence that finally tells you who a person really is.
I am sadder than I expected. I am also more free than I expected.
Both of those things can be true at once.