She eyes the half-empty Smirnoff Green Apple Vodka bottle and licks her lips, gripping the tile counter.
My other friends are in the kitchen corner, concocting purple Jell-O shots. In the anticipation of getting wasted, they don’t notice the solemnity on her face.
After dropping out of college and living in perpetual intoxication from a mix of booze, pot and meth, the party finally died down in my best friend. But her life was about to be shaken up again.
“I’m pregnant,” she says to me, eyes still intent on the vodka bottle. My best friend since seventh grade is going to be a mom at the age of 22. I was speechless.
My three best friends and I have been the “ferocious foursome” since we were all 12. Since two years after graduating high school, our tight-knit quartet is slowly breaking up. Fresh-eyed and angst-ridden, we graduated from high school with our arms linked, marching onto to a greater world of independence and adulthood. That link that once bonded us has now mysteriously dissipated.
The days are gone when we would wander downtown aimlessly talking in fake accents, when we would sleepover at each other’s house and stuff ourselves with whipped cream and cookie dough until 2 a.m. How did our lives change so much in two years? In high school, we were inseparable. Now, we see each other only at the occasional birthday party.
But our lost sisterhood is not solely due to the wild partying or the embarrassments that happen after too many drinks.
The end of our dear friendship is due, in part, to me. I wrapped myself in school and my classes, in my work and my boyfriend. I tossed them aside and never answered their calls to join them in taking shots and smoking joints. Maybe it wasn’t for me, but that choice alienated me from my sisters. Now, I hardly know who they are and they hardly know who I am.
Who am I and what have I become?
We all chose a different direction after high school. I just chose the college path which none of my friends wanted to trek down. Because of that, we are out of touch.
In different stages of life, we sadly outgrow our friends like a pair of favorite jeans. They just don’t fit our lives anymore.
Whether it’s keg parties or career goals that divides you, it’s the unavoidable and tragic constant in life: You eventually leave behind the ones you love.
Faithful friendships have become a rare thing in a world where our relationships are just as disposable as candy wrappers.
Friends are barely forever, marriages hardly last “until death to us part,” and loyalty in sports teams is more common than being true to our friends.
I guess that’s what happened to the ferocious foursome.
We’ve grown up and grown out of each other.
