Eternal Ephemerals

Toxic hold

The laughter and clinking glasses of the high school reunion filled the hall, but she stood slightly apart, watching the crowd with a quiet detachment. The noise hummed in the background, but her thoughts drifted back to a time that felt like another life. She had once been at the center of it all—a constant presence in the swirl of high school life. And at the heart of that life had been him. Her best friend.

They had been inseparable once. Two halves of a whole, everyone had said. It was the kind of friendship that felt unbreakable, especially in those early years, before life became complicated. They shared a love for science and the thrill of discovering new things, filling their days with plans, experiments, and endless conversations. People used to tease them—whispering, Are you two a couple?—but she could attest it was never like that. It had been something deeper, or so she had thought at the time. An understanding that transcended the superficialities of teenage romance.

No, she never liked him that way. The idea had always felt absurd, even when people insisted on creating their own narratives. He was like a brother, a confidante, someone who understood her in ways no one else did. That's why it hurt so much when it all fell apart. You don't expect to lose someone who knows your mind, your heart, better than you sometimes know it yourself. You think friendships like that are too solid to crumble.

But life has a way of unraveling even the things you thought were woven too tight to tear.

Her gaze wandered across the room, landing on him. He stood in the middle of a group of old classmates, laughing like nothing had changed. His laugh was the same, his smile barely altered by the passage of time. Yet something about him seemed distant, like he was a stranger wearing the face of someone she used to know. Or maybe it wasn't him at all. Maybe it was her. She was the one who had changed.

Did he ever think about her? Did he remember what they had once meant to each other? She doubted it. He seemed too caught up in his own world now. Still, the memories surfaced, uninvited and persistent, pulling her back to when their friendship first began to fray.

They had been in middle school when she had tried to set him up with one of her friends. He'd had a shy, barely-acknowledged crush on the girl—just enough for her to notice and decide to help him. It had seemed like an innocent gesture, something any best friend would do. But that's not how middle school worked. Her good intentions had gone unnoticed, drowned out by whispers and teasing: Does she like him? The fact that she was trying to set him up with someone else didn't matter. The teasing had a life of its own.

In middle school, nuance didn't stand a chance. They teased him for not noticing her feelings—which didn't exist. They teased her for being jealous—of something she wasn't. It didn't matter what was true. It mattered that the teasing was relentless, and neither of them could ignore the way it changed things. The closeness they had shared began to slip away, replaced by something quieter, more strained.

But it wasn't just the rumors that built the wall between them. It was what followed. All the small compromises she made, the times she let things slide, the moments she looked the other way because their friendship had seemed too important to risk.

She thought about the teacher's event lucky draw. Their friends had decided to rig it for fun, and she had protested—it felt wrong, like cheating. It went against everything she believed in. But when he asked her to go along with it, his voice quiet and persuasive, she had given in. For him, she had compromised her values. And that betrayal of herself stayed with her long after the friendship had fallen apart.

That was what saddened her most when she thought about him. Not that she had lost the friendship, but that she had lost pieces of herself trying to keep it.

Now, watching him laugh, so free and unaffected, she realized something she hadn't seen back then: losing him was the best thing that could have happened. But it had taken her years to understand it. Years of feeling confused and angry. Years of letting his shadow loom over her decisions, even after they had drifted apart.

Her thoughts shifted back to the room around her. She didn't really miss anyone from school—not him, not anyone. It wasn't about missing people. She had always loved talking, loved getting to know others, loved being surrounded by conversation and laughter. She couldn't let something as small and insignificant as a broken friendship stop her from that. It was who she was. It had always been who she was.

Why had she let him matter so much for so long? Why had she allowed herself to be diminished by someone who no longer deserved a place in her life?

She set her drink down, feeling lighter. There had been a time when his presence—whether in person or in memory—had dimmed her spirit, made her retreat into herself. But standing here, in the warm hum of the reunion, surrounded by the life she had built without him, she understood something she hadn't before: his absence had been a gift. His departure had freed her, though she hadn't known it at the time.

People who have a toxic effect on you, even if it's unintentional, have no place in your life. His leaving had been a necessary release. And now, she was free to be herself again.

With that thought, she smiled to herself—not a sad smile this time, but a small, knowing one. She turned away from him, leaving him in the past where he belonged, and stepped back into the crowd. The sound of laughter and conversation filled the air, wrapping around her like a familiar coat.

This time, she didn't hesitate. She let the noise, the energy, pull her back in.

It was time to stop standing on the sidelines. Time to be the person she had always been—talkative, curious, full of life—before his presence had muted her, before the complications of growing up had convinced her she needed to be smaller, quieter, for someone else's sake.

She walked toward the center of the room, ready to rejoin the world. Ready to speak, to laugh, to live out loud once again.