She was there with me before I even knew what the word meant. I met her when I was barely two and a half years old. We grew up together, went to the same school for ten years, attended the same skating classes, and collected memories that I thought would stay with us forever. Among every friend I have ever had, she was the one I trusted the most. Not casually. Not halfway. I trusted her with my whole heart. Fourteen years is a long time to know someone. Long enough to believe you know them by heart. Long enough to think that no matter what happens, you will always find your way back to each other. I genuinely believed that. Until one ordinary night changed the way I looked at our entire friendship. We were talking as usual. Late-night gossip, random conversations, and plans about how we would spend our holidays after our tenth board exams. Nothing seemed wrong. We were just two best friends talking about the future, completely unaware that our friendship was about to become a part of the past. The next day, I was blocked. WhatsApp. Instagram. Snapchat. Even my phone number. Everywhere. I remember wondering what had happened. What had I said? What had I done? How could someone who had known me for fourteen years suddenly decide that I didn’t deserve even a single explanation? I tried everything I could think of to reach her. I contacted mutual friends. I asked them to talk to her for me. Sometimes she blocked them, too, or refused to reply simply because they asked her to unblock me. I even reached out to her boyfriend, hoping he might tell me what was going on. All I got was a cold, empty And I was left with questions that had nowhere to go. At first, I told myself it would only last a few days. Maybe she was angry. Maybe she needed space. Maybe she would calm down and come back. Days became weeks. Weeks became months. And the silence continued. My 10th Boards Holidays went very bad because of it. For three months, I waited. I tried to understand. I kept looking for a way to fix something without even knowing what had broken. Eventually, a thought crossed my mind. Deep down, I had a feeling she would come back someday. But I also knew something else. If I had spent three months trying to reach someone who kept choosing not to hear me, perhaps I shouldn’t be waiting in the same place when they finally decided to return. Because this wasn’t the first time. Whenever something went wrong between us, I was usually the one who reached out first. Even when she was the one who had hurt me, I would eventually return, hoping we could go back to normal. I don’t remember her being the one to apologise first. And somewhere along the way, I started accepting things I shouldn’t have had to keep accepting. Her mood swings. Her sudden distance. The way I was expected to understand her feelings while mine seemed to come second. She had apparently told people that she had for blocking me. Many reasons. And I couldn’t help wondering whether any of those reasons had ever mattered enough for her to sit down and talk to me instead. Was I really so difficult to talk to? Was my friendship worth so little that a conversation was too much to ask for? I had already spent so much time feeling small in front of her. There was a girl I had always felt insecure about, and my best friend would compare me with her and then laugh, as if it were nothing. Perhaps it was nothing to her. But it wasn’t nothing to me. I would carry those moments long after she had forgotten them. I would question myself, wonder whether I was somehow less than the people she compared me with, and feel hurt by the one person I thought would understand me best. I kept asking myself why I had to be the one who understood everything. Why did I have to make room for her feelings when she didn’t seem to make the same room for mine? Everyone around me started telling me the same thing. “You deserve a better friend.” Even people close to both of us told me I should walk away. But I didn’t listen. I had convinced myself that friendships that survived more than a decade were supposed to last forever. I thought our history meant something neither of us could simply throw away. I thought that knowing someone since childhood meant they would always treat your heart with a little more care. I was wrong about that. Because sometimes, the people who have known us the longest are still capable of hurting us in ways we never expected. And then, after three months, an Instagram request from her appeared. I wasn’t surprised. Somewhere deep down, I had always believed she would come back. By then, I had changed schools. She was still at our old school, surrounded by new people, new faces, and new friendships. She had a fight with the people there, and, from where I stood, it seemed she had nobody to turn to. So she came back to me. And what did I do? I spoke to her as if nothing had happened. I welcomed her back into conversations as though I hadn’t spent three months wondering why I had suddenly become someone she could live without. I acted normal while something inside me was still trying to understand what had happened. Maybe I thought that if we could talk again, I could somehow get back the friendship we used to have. Maybe I was simply relieved to have her back. Or maybe, after fourteen years, I still didn’t know how to be anything other than the friend who was always there for her. But things weren’t the same. Our conversations became ordinary. Mostly gossip, the usual things we used to talk about. She sounded the same. I was the one who had changed. My prespective of that friendship has changed. Because now, every time we talked, a question quietly followed me. I hated that thought. I hated that a friendship which had once felt so familiar could now make me so uncertain. I hated that I couldn’t simply enjoy talking to her without wondering whether the conversation might be one of our last. And the worst part?