Odessa

Names omitted and changed to protect the innocent and guilty. The words were uttered the other day by someone who did not know the history: "Do you know her best friend Cindy?" Those words took me aback. I used to be her best friend. I have the proof - pictures of smiling faces - and I know where the figurative bodies are buried in a racy past. There was a time that we were practically inseparable. Those words cut.

Those words also come as no surprise. I've been replaced like some used up old nag. It started a couple years ago. Somewhere around the time her boyfriend got his own place and they didn't need a place to hang anymore. Sometime around the time I injured myself and needed a lot of help to deal with everyday life. Sometime around the time her father was in his final months and she spent a lot of time with him in the hospital before he died. I couldn't physically be there for her (which she seemingly didn't forgive since my absence was repeatedly brought up) and she understandably couldn't be there for me - not the best situation for best friends. For me it was a lost summer and the demise of our friendship of better than a decade and a half.

Time moves on. Wounds and injuries, physical or emotional, heal and sometimes leave scars. New relationships are forged, old relationships change and some really old relationships are renewed. However, sometimes a little bump opens up a wound and it can really sting.