Saying goodbye to your high school friends is one of the most difficult parts of senior year. Other than combatting Senioritis.

Although the ‘goodbyes’ and last conversations are sincere, every graduate who is preparing to leave for college knows that even if they promise they’ll text and stay in touch with their friends, they won’t always. In fact, I was pretty confident that once I went away to school the majority of my friendships would end; I didn't think that they were strong enough to endure the distance. However, I never doubted my ability to maintain my friendship with my best friend. There was a part of me inside that knew how hard it would be, but she always assured me that we would be okay, no matter what.

But obviously, things aren’t the same. Not even close.

We first met in middle school, and we lost touch when she moved to a different school. But, we reconnected in high school. We always told each other that we didn’t know what we would have done if it weren’t for our eleventh grade English class that brought us together once again.

Our friendship was filled with happiness. We had the same values, ambitions, and interests. For those of you Grey’s Anatomy lovers, she was the Christina Yang to my Meredith Grey. She was my person. I thought she always would be.

But, things changed immediately after we left for college. We were talking less and less. She stopped texting me. She stopped FaceTiming me. She stopped reaching out to me altogether. I decided to reach out to her. Her answers were emotionless and short. I understood why we were talking less. I understood why she wasn’t answering with as many exclamation points and emojis as she had in the past. We were both so busy. We were both so stressed. We were both trying to figure out how to live a new life that we were abruptly thrown into. We simply didn’t have the time to talk to each other as often as we did in the past. I thought that this was normal.

I texted her every once in a while, with a casual message just checking to see how she was doing. My texts went unanswered for weeks. I tried to think of reasons as to why she wasn’t responding. Maybe my message didn’t go through. Maybe she read it and forgot to answer. Maybe she got a new phone. All the while I was giving her the benefit of the doubt, she was simply ignoring my texts, my FaceTime calls, and my phone calls.

Confused and hurt, I decided to reach out to her one final time. Earlier today, she finally answered. Her name popped up on the upper right-hand corner of my laptop screen, and I felt my face light up. I was so happy to finally hear from my best friend. But, when I clicked on the message, my feelings of happiness quickly changed. The text read, “I truly don’t wish any ill will toward you, but it’s just a lot to deal with and I’m going to put myself first in this situation. It would be best to end this. Best wishes.” That was it. In one text, she decided to end our friendship.

That was the first time I had heard from her in over a month. And that was what she decided to say.

Upon reading the message, my stomach turned, and I felt my eyes begin to water.

At first I felt sad. Then I was confused. Then I was sad again. Then I wanted to throw up. Then I was sad again. Then I was mad. Then I was sad again.

Her birthday was in a month, and I already started working on her gift. My dorm room has pictures of the two of us all around. I have her two birthday cards with heartfelt messages hanging up on my desk. I can picture her lengthy, emotional message in my yearbook. Everywhere I turn, I see things that remind me of her.

Logically, I know that I should just tear the pictures down and move on. I should drop her as fast as she dropped me. I should care about her as little as she cares about me.

But, emotionally, I can’t. It's hard to just forget about someone who you pictured at your wedding, who you pictured having play-dates with once you both had kids, who you pictured grabbing coffee with during your lunch break at work. Friendship means a lot to me. I’d do anything for my friends. No matter how busy I am, I would drop everything if my friend needed help. Clearly, she felt differently.

I'm incredibly lucky to have people here that can help. My friend tried to console me. She told me that I can’t force people to be a part of my life. She told me it was her loss if she wasn’t able to recognize my value as a friend. It was her fault if she wanted to push people away. It was her fault if she wanted to end things without giving me an explanation.

This makes sense. But, when there’s so much emotion involved, it’s hard for me to just move on and pretend our friendship never existed.

Having no closure or no explanation doesn’t make this any easier. Nothing happened since we last saw each other. Nothing happened since we last talked. I click my lock screen every other second hoping that a text from her comes up explaining what is going on in her head. But, with so many unanswered texts begging for answers and several phone calls that are sent right to voicemail, I know I shouldn't wait for an answer because I don't think I'm going to get one.

This is more painful than anything I've ever experienced. Ice cream doesn’t help. Listening to music doesn’t help. Being with friends doesn't help. The only person that could help make all of this better is no longer my friend. I can only hope that time will help because I can’t imagine having to deal with this pain forever.

I hope that one day I’ll be able to look back on this incredibly painful experience and thank God for the lesson he taught me. I’m not sure what that lesson is quite yet, but I’m hopeful that it will be a powerful one.

For now, I’m going to continue learning how to deal with the pain each day. And I'm going to continue praying that no one ever has to endure something like this.