It has been said that a friendship breakup hurts worse than romantic ones—and it’s true. Nothing cuts deeper than a knife like having thought you found your people—you know, the ones who’ve seen who you are and not only stayed, anyway, but stayed because of it. Every flaw, stupid joke, surprisingly dark humor—they saw it all and decided, “Yeah, that’s my person.”

Nothing cut deeper than having thought that—and having been wrong.

We’re taught how to process romantic breakups—ice cream on the couch while you cry over everything that once was, your best friend coming over for a shoulder to lean on, maybe even a rebound at a bar—but no one really teaches us how to grieve a friendship.

The beginning of us

I was in 8th grade when what I once thought was my core friend group was formed: It was me, my best friend Penny, Dexter, and John.*

It started the way all friend groups do: a seemingly random gathering of people, and then those people begin realizing just how perfectly they fit together, like pieces of a puzzle previously thought to be lost, but it turns out they were just under the table all along. A bit dusty but still a perfect fit.

We went to the same high school, we all lived in the same area, and we did everything together. The three would follow me home from school, and after echoes of “Hi, auntie!” and “Hi, uncle!” we’d pile into my small bedroom, chatting in our uniforms until it was dark out.

We hit the board game cafes and escape rooms on John’s birthday, having the most seemingly drunken conversations and laughs on the drive home, but we were never drunk—we were minors, after all—we were just drunk on and delirious from happiness.

There was a place at the table for the three of them at the celebratory dinner after my senior high school graduation. Dexter couldn’t make it, but we were a group of four, so of course we left a space for him in the photos.

When Penny and her family moved away, away from us, we showed up unannounced at the new house laden with a “Sta. Mesa sucks!” cake for her birthday. We stayed so late that Penny’s parents had to drive us home.

Naturally, it only made sense that my first out-of-town trip would be with them. Nothing big, just an overnight in Tagaytay. We made a beeline for Sky Ranch, but only Dexter and I dared to ride the thrill rides, while Penny and John happily stood by the sidelines, taking pictures of our screaming and nauseous and happy faces.

And yet, after the excitement of the day, those ridiculous questions we asked in the dead of the night, when we switched off all the lights and lay in bed beside one another, somehow unseeing yet seeing at the same time—that’s what I remember most, because under the mask of those questions, we bared our souls. The most insecure parts of me, the darkest secrets I kept—I bared them all, and they listened and stayed.

Until they didn’t.

The end of us

John always dreamed of getting out of the country, and one day he found a way to achieve it: he was to transfer from Mapúa University to a college in Canada. We were all so happy for him, but it felt bittersweet. I never believed in long-distance relationships, but John told us he’d be back every summer, and that sparked hope in my stupid, stupid heart.

But in the end, it wasn’t the distance that broke us—it was me.

For our last hurrah before John’s big, life-changing flight, we were to do one last escape room and see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem together in the cinema. On the drive over (courtesy of John’s parents, as usual), John rambled excitedly about his plans in Canada, including how he was considering med school.

My friendship with John was built on mean jokes, teases, and incessant insults we know we don’t mean. And because I never think before I speak, I said, “I don’t think you’ll make it.”

John grew quiet. I knew the moment he started ignoring me that I had messed up—I needed to apologize the moment we got to the mall. So when John’s parents dropped us off, I pulled him aside and told him I didn’t mean it and that I was sorry.

And he shrugged me off.

Penny knew something was wrong, but she stayed by John’s side, with no sense of best-friend loyalty to me whatsoever, and Dexter was silent, so much so that I wasn’t sure whether he knew what was going on. That I had broken something in us.

I lingered behind them as we walked through the mall, as they talked to the worker behind the counter at the escape room, as she apologetically told us they were fully booked. I’d never been more thankful not to be locked up with them for an hour, with nothing but tension filling the air.

We saw the movie. We went to Starbucks after. And all the while, I just wanted to go home. But I couldn’t leave, not when I thought maybe the friendship could be salvaged.

John’s parents were our ride home, and I was always the last to be dropped off; you don’t know awkward until you’ve sat in a car with a guy who’s wholly ignoring you and his entire family for five minutes, waiting for them to essentially do you a favor and drop you home.

It was the worst day of my life. And no one was there for me.

The day of John’s flight, Penny, as though nothing life-altering had happened, texted the group chat saying we should tag along to the airport—but how could I possibly go when the person we’re wishing a safe journey… is no longer my friend? How was I expected to show up, wave and smile, as though I hadn’t just lost the people whose pictures I thought I would point to one day and tell my kids, “They’re God’s greatest gift to me”?

I muted the chat, leaving the messages unread, but I know Penny and Dexter went, like the true friends they were, and bid John farewell—all while I was attending the funeral of our friendship.

The aftermath of us

In the years to follow, Penny and Dexter didn’t know how to act around me. They walked on eggshells and tiptoed around John. They were collateral damage and were forced to take sides; they tried to stay neutral, and somehow that only added to the world of pain I was already in.

What do you mean this person who dubbed me her best friend isn’t choosing me? What do you mean these people I call my friends would rather feign deafness than hear my indignant roars, my cries of loneliness?

I didn’t know how to function with the broken pieces of my friend group, either, John becoming a looming presence I now call He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, his real name a trigger word.

Because losing John meant losing the core group I called home, the group I could unabashedly be myself in. Losing John meant not just losing a person but the inside jokes, the mutual friends, the version of myself I was around him.

Not unlike a romantic breakup, losing John left me wondering, “Did everything we went through together mean nothing?” It was wanting him to fail in Canada, wishing for his downfall.

It’s archiving old posts whose only crime was having his face in them. It’s being unable to look at old pictures, every once-golden memory tainted. It’s blocking him on social media, not wanting to see how he’s doing in case he’s living his best life.

It’s wondering how he’s doing, all these years later, and wondering if he ever thinks about me.

I had to actively force myself not to think about what happened, had to force everything into a box and shove it into a corner of my mind labelled “Do not touch.” Time heals all wounds, but it took years before the idea of him didn’t hurt so much, didn’t twist the knife in my back with such sheer power. It took years before I began to be okay again.

And truth be told, all these years later, I’m still not okay (as evidenced by the length of this article), and it still hurts. It feels stupid that something that happened so many years ago could still hurt so much, but, even though I have so much life ahead of me, part of me knows it always will.

The conclusion of us

It still fills me with anger, even all these years later, that he threw away years of friendship over something as small as a joke. But maybe I just never mattered as much to him as he did to me.

It feels odd to grieve someone who’s still alive, who’s still moving within your circles and sees your friends every summer. It’s weird to hear his name mentioned offhandedly by mutual friends; they laugh and joke about having met up with John this summer, not knowing they’re driving a stake into my heart.

But the truth is, as much as I miss those days when we were young and stupid and carefree, running amok in the world just happy to be together, as hard as it was for me to write all this down, memorializing it into an article they might read someday—I’m not really sure if I want to patch things up with John.

We’re all so different now, growing into people our past selves wouldn’t recognize. So much has happened for me in the lifetime between when we were friends and when we weren’t, and I’m sure the same rings true for him.

All those wounds are still healing, but they don’t cut as deep anymore.

Maybe it’s because I realized that someone could have been incredibly important to you, could have played a main role in your life, and still no longer have a place in your future.

*The names of the individuals featured in this article have been changed to protect their privacy.

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