The Ex-Sister

Sometimes people shoot me with a funny look when I talk about it — her and I — I mean. There is something to be said about the way I laugh when I say her name, even when the story is nothing to laugh about, because really, what is there to laugh about when it comes to her?

I think everyone has that person, yet many don't talk about them the way I do. "That person," I say, vaguely because you know who I’m talking about. The first love whose name you can’t speak, the college roommate you only ever see on your Facebook timeline now, the parent whose grave you can’t seem to visit.

The childhood best friend you thought you’d grow old with.

I think that’s part of the reason why she’s important—she was a childhood friend; she came before everything. She was there before it got rough, before the world started to eat us all up, before I had things I couldn’t speak about. Something about that is so sacred. This is a person that knew me before I turned into something else, something polished by the hurts that, back then, I had yet to attain. This is a girl who knew me when I was just a girl who knew her.

There is a lot of talk about what it means to be a girl. The identity of girlhood is a trending topic in these times of infamous cinema, including Anne With An E and Barbie and Wonder Woman. There are many universal experiences we speak about for those of us growing up as a woman: the cat-calling we experience before we’re old enough to be called more than a child, the smiling through the underestimation you’ll inherently receive because of what you have or don’t have between your legs, the discomfort of walking home alone.

Here I present another facet of girlhood: The Ex-Best Friend.

There are many men with ex-best friends, so this is not to say that their experience is any less than that of a woman’s. This is to say that within the lived experience that is girlhood, the ex-best friend is something constant within all of us, and something more distinct than what just losing a best friend is. It is the loss of someone who grew with you into the role all of us women begin to carry once we are old enough. It is the loss of the hand that holds yours through the journey that introduces you to the burdens of womanhood.

There’s something about growing up a girl, with another girl, and learning about what the world will do to you together that makes these lost relationships hurt differently. Somewhere along the line we were standing side by side, holding hands and watching as we grew from kids into girls, because there is a distinct difference between being a child and being a girl.

Let me paint a picture for you:

You grow up together, squirting water bottles at each other in class and learning how to do makeup. You watch as boys catch crushes on her, and you wonder why no one crushes on you. She tells you you’re pretty, and you know you’re not as pretty as her. You go to lunch together, and she eats a hot dog as you eat a full rice meal. Tomorrow, you eat a hot dog too. She goes from your sister, to your rival, to your sister again, right before your eyes, every few moments.

You get your test scores at the same time. She asks for yours but you do not ask for hers. She shrugs when you catch sight of the red 90 on the corner of her paper, making a soft remark about how she didn’t even study. You didn’t study either, but got a similar yet lower grade, and you wonder if she’s lying. You hate yourself for wondering. She whispers to you that she might not come back next school year and you cry with her. She tells you about how another guy has a crush on her. You laugh with her about it.

She moves to another school. Silence fills the air between you and your other best friend at lunch. You meet another girl and become friends. You text her about it. She texts you in the dark of night about how she might like a girl, and you tell her it’s alright. You try not to remember that years ago, you told her you liked girls and she ignored it and pushed you to like a guy. 

You two fight and don’t talk for two weeks. She texts you and apologizes over and over again, and you finally text back, forgiving her. You forget about it, she doesn’t. You transfer to another school and call her crying about your inability to make friends. She gets you to laugh. You forget she did this before you, and she never called you crying like you did her. You go to senior high school, and she goes back to the school where you both met. You envy her for going to a social sciences course, for being able to go back. You always wanted to do that but you’re the eldest girl in your family and you have responsibilities to uphold. You forget that her mother, who died before you even met her, told her to take that course. You always forget the parts you can’t envy her for.

One night, you hear that she’s experienced something almost every woman experiences. You cry for her, and wish you were there so you could’ve been there for her. She tells you it’s okay, that she’s alright. She just wishes the rumors would stop. She doesn’t tell you that it was at his house, that he used to be a friend.

You and your friend group start applying for colleges, pursuing the courses your parents chose for you. You don’t hear from her for months; she’s busy at her elite school, you are too. You continue texting, and sometimes she texts back. She starts talking to you guys again. She tells you that the guy from high school apologized. You tell her to be careful, you miss the way she bristles at the concern, mistaking it for over protectiveness. You forget this is exactly how her dad talks to her and that she hates him. 

She talks about how his ex-girlfriend was the one spreading rumors about what he did, and you express your anger questioning how the ex could do that to her, forgetting the ex was most likely a victim as well. You miss her disdain towards the ex, mistaking it for betrayal. She keeps hanging out with him and you can’t figure out why; you just know it’s bad. You tell her so, and that’s where it all ends, on a phone call at three am. You lose your best friend of over a decade over the phone.

You experience your first heartbreak a month later and you wish for nothing more than to call her crying the way you used to, but that’s gone now. The day of her birthday, you drink so much you’re drinking for two. You wonder who bought her cake if not you. You have a high school reunion and everyone knows not to mention her name. 

One day, you’re in the grocery store, and you begin to say, “Let’s go look for—” and stop, making eye contact with your two other best friends, who knew what you were going to say. You burst into uncomfortable, unhinged, hysterical laughter. You wonder what she’s up to, sometimes, when you’ve been drinking and you can’t help but think of her.

You text her a picture of a letter she wrote you once, with the words “I want to grow old with you and have our children be friends too,” with her signature at the bottom. You’re saying, "see what you ruined?" and "see what we were?" and also "come back". She never responds to your moment of weakness. 

You start opening up to others, college friends. There are still some things you can’t say, experiences you can’t name, and you think of the fact that the words you’re unable to give them are somewhere in her mind, floating around; that there is someone who knew you so well you can’t talk to anymore. There are some things you can’t say to people unless they were there when it happened, and like it or not, she’d been there since you were nine. She’s one of only six people in your life who have been there the whole time. You write an essay about her. You wonder if she’ll ever read this. Probably not.

You ask your friend about her, and she laughs a little and says she’s fine. You remember that no one ever really knows when she isn’t. You two have this in common. She was the type of bird where when you looked at her, you never saw the cage. You chew your lip at this information and let it go. You don’t know each other anymore, you could be wrong.

In that moment, you bury your sister in your head, and all the anger you had towards her fades.

Sometimes, she comes back when you’re doing your makeup, murmurs a guideline on how to blend out the concealer, and vanishes again. You talk about her occasionally, and others look at you funny. You ask them about her, not specifically her, but her nonetheless. You ask them about their version of the ex-best friend, if they have someone that was to them what she was to you. You find that in knowing about that person, you tend to get to know someone a lot more. You watch as other people talk about their own version of her, and you wonder if there’s anything quite so profound as the ex-best friend, anything quite as sacred to have in common with the other girls around you. Now, you and your new best friend lay in your bed, in your studio apartment, side-by-side and talk about her as you think: this is girlhood.