We met between sixth and seventh grade. She was older by a year. Just enough to be worldly yet approachable. We were essentially trapped, our mothers taking us to a resort that functioned like a gated community: everyone knew you and where you were. The only way out: to swim far enough into the ocean, which didn’t appeal to me—I wasn’t a rebel then, just lonely.

We met the first day. “Jane” in the pool with her mother and sister, my mom and I being escorted to our room. We locked eyes, the connection immediate. We knew one another like we’d grown up together. An instantaneous knowing; an experience entirely new to me.

I don’t remember what swimsuit I wore or what the food was like. I can’t tell you how hot it was or what my mother did for the week we were on vacation together but apart. All I know is, for the first time in my life, I had a curfew of 10pm, beads as currency, and someone to run around with.

When the vacation ended, the promise to stay in touch exchanged, we returned to our separate lives. I wrote a letter immediately, sent it off, hoped for the best.

The letters came. We wrote furiously, and occasionally found ways to visit one another. Our friendship triumphed over school, friends, love, and life.

In a blink, I was living with a person who was essentially my life-partner...only it wasn’t going so great. I got up the courage to walk away after nearly a decade, starting over completely at a time when all my friends were beginning to settle into adult lives; backwards.

I moved back with my parents to save money, buy a house - that super adult thing you’re supposed to do to prove your worthiness.

I’m about to turn thirty, feeling like I’ve screwed up my entire life, when the phone rings. The voice on the other end tells me she’s pregnant. Not only is Jane pregnant, but the father isn’t in the picture. She’s terrified but thrilled.

I’m jealous.

Of course I’m happy for her (in the back of my mind somewhere), and say the encouraging things: how she’ll be amazing and doesn’t need that guy. How we’d been raised by single moms, she could do this. How I’ll check in and come to the baby shower. Through it all, I’m jealous. So jealous. She’s doing the one thing I haven’t figured out how to do: have a baby alone.

That’s the moment our connection became a bit tenuous. The fray in the cord visible. We spoke less and less, letters slipping from once a week to once a month to not at all. There was email now and while Jane was responsible for getting me to join MySpace and later Facebook, the connection was never what it had been.

I bought a house, moved again, sold the house, met a man, had a baby. And then Jane called. She’d be in town for one night on a stop-over to Cuba. Her family was going to Cuba but would stop and stay with us for one night.

It was a whirlwind; we caught up on so much in such a short time, but it didn’t feel right. Still, I invited them to our wedding when we decided to marry, and they came. The connection felt a little stronger, even as I could feel the connection between Jane and her husband weakening.

And then everything was locking down, the house we’d been living in for free we were told to fix up, sell, vacate without telling anyone what we were doing until the house was on the market. I had a new baby that was only a few months old.

Jane called. I could only hear every other word, partly because she was crying, partly because she was whispering so her kids wouldn’t hear her, partly because phones are the worst and I couldn’t see her expressions. I gathered she was having a hard time. I gathered she needed someone. I gathered she wanted me to come to her, to be there for her.

And I said...no.

I wasn’t at liberty to explain all the reasons why, although two of the reasons were apparent: COVID and a breastfeeding baby. Even with those, I could have forced my way to her if I wanted to.

But I didn’t.

I wrote letters and emails. I never heard back.

I can’t blame her, of course. She was the ultimate in bravery, asking me to be there, and I was the ultimate in douchery, saying no. What friendship could recover from that? And yes, the friendship had been fraying before that anyhow, the “betrayal,” for I don’t know what else to call it, merely the final weight the cord couldn’t bear.

Still, it bothers me. Our friendship survived decades of intense emotional and physical differences and distances. How had this moment of impossibility broken it? And if the cord of friendship was already dissolving, what am I mourning the loss of? If Jane waltzed into my life today, in this hour, how would my life be different? What am I clinging to?

Perhaps it’s youth. Perhaps it’s the idea a person can know a person at first sight. Perhaps it’s having a friend in your pocket that will always be your friend. There’s an awareness about this just outside my vision, shimmering on the periphery, but every time I glance, it disappears.

The answer has nothing to do with Jane. The answer is how disgusted I am with myself.

I love the idea of myself as the friend who drops everything when needed, who swoops in and saves the day, or at the very least is the shoulder to cry on. I love the idea of myself as dependable and available. I mourn less the loss of “Jane” and more the loss of the idea that I am a good friend. And that stings.