Yes, my heart has been broken.
Bet you think I’m going to tell you about the man who broke my heart. No, it was not a man who broke my heart. It was my best friend.
I thought she was my best friend for many years.
When we were younger she asked to come live with me. She lived in a small town and wanted to come to the big city and find a job.
I said, ‘Of course. Come.’
Soon I suspected she was pregnant. She acknowledged it and said her plan was to work until time for the birth; go to a home for unwed mothers; place the baby for adoption.
When I told an attorney friend about our predicament, he said, ‘No, there’s a better way.’
He knew of a couple wanting to adopt a baby. They would pay all expenses.
My best friend would have the best doctor and the best hospital in the city.
When it was time for the birth, she was admitted under an assumed name and would not be a patient on the maternity floor.
When the baby was born, there was a lung problem. The baby was treated, watched carefully, tested and pronounced 100% healthy.
The attorney felt obligated to tell the adoptive parents about the baby’s problem at birth. He also explained that the baby had since undergone tests that proved the baby was definitely well and healthy.
The adoptive parents decided not to adopt a possibly ‘defective’ baby and walked away.
The attorney found another couple who was wanting to adopt. They happily adopted the baby.
My best friend and I never, ever discussed this episode in her life.
My friends became her friends.
Friends referred to us as ‘The Besties’.
We went almost everywhere together.
After living with me for quite some time, she decided to buy a house nearby. Now we were neighbors.
We both enjoyed traveling.
Together we saw much of Europe and the USA.
Shopping and prowling flea markets took up a lot of our weekends.
Men friends (I have a hard time calling them boy friends) came and went for both of us. They never interfered with our friendship.
She had one man friend who she found was stealing money from her wallet. He had a key to her house so we arranged an emergency change of locks.
A ‘one night stand’ with a man who she knew from earlier years, left her pregnant.
I mean, really! What are the chances!
She decided on an abortion.
I supported her decision.
I always supported her decisions.
She always supported mine.
That’s what best friends do.
I admit, I never understood why she chose to spend Christmas with her stepmother.
Her father was no longer alive. The stepmother had never been a part of her childhood.
My best friend was grown and living with me at the time that her father married her stepmother. No close relationship with the stepmother was clear.
My best friend’s choice meant I spent Christmas alone.
Best Friend had a fiery disposition that I overlooked. I should have confronted her.
A group of us were traveling to Hot Springs, Arkansas, to go to the horse races.
I was driving the lead car with a friend ‘who knew the way there’.
When she suddenly said, ‘Take this exit!’, I quickly turned off the highway.
My best friend, driving the second car, didn’t make the exit. She continued down the highway, turned around and came back to where I had pulled off and parked.
My best friend pulled up beside me, rolled down the window and started screaming her displeasure at me. Screaming!!!
I didn’t react to the screaming.
What I should have done was get out of my car, walk to her window and quietly say, ‘If you ever scream at me again, I will beat the **** out of you.’
Her rudeness continued and I continued to overlook it because ‘she is my best friend’.
She said to me in a casual conversation that she did not see any difference between her friends; she saw us all as the same.
I couldn’t believe what I heard.
When she made the statement a second time, I asked, ‘You really don’t see any difference between me and your other friends?’
She said, ‘No, I don’t.’
I told her how that made me feel.
She started screaming at me.
That was when my heart broke.