“We’ve never done anything together that I’ve actually cared about.” My friend, Sean, said. As soon as I heard this, my neck snapped in his direction, while he gave me an expression void of any emotion. Time felt like it had frozen. Everything around me seemed to have slowed down. My heart started pounding. My mind started going a thousand miles per hour, wondering if Sean truly said what I thought I heard.

Prior to this, Sean and I were walking to our fourth-period class as we’ve been doing for the past 8 months. It’s late April right now, meaning the end of our senior year together is quickly approaching. We had been friends since kindergarten, and we’ve gone through countless ups and downs together. We’ve spent numerous nights at each other’s houses, gotten in trouble together, experienced the first days of middle and high school together, and even gone to each other’s family reunions. So when those words hit, I felt as if my gut filled with dread as my heart fell to the floor.

I stopped in my tracks as Sean continued on as if nothing had ever happened. It took Sean a couple of steps until he finally realized that I wasn’t walking with him anymore. He turned around and asked what was wrong, as if he hadn’t said that the last 13 years we spent together were worthless.

I immediately stepped up to him and yelled, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN?”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN OVER THE PAST 13 YEARS WE’VE DONE NOTHING YOU’VE ACTUALLY CARED ABOUT!”

He just calmly responded, “Yeah, there’s nothing we’ve done I’ve ever really cared about.” He just shrugged it off and headed to class without me.

The three-minute warning bell brought me back to reality. Despite my mind being stuck on what Sean told me, I still had to go to class. Walking into the classroom, I saw that Sean had moved from his usual seat next to me to across the room. I couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad thing. Either way, the day went on. After that day, Sean and I didn’t talk to each other. At first, it was weird; the person I was with constantly was now just out of my life. Over the next month, as graduation came closer and closer, I started to replace Sean with other friends.

On the day before graduation, I was relaxing in my room watching some tv. Until my parents softly came through the door. They had a plastered-on smile, like the ones they put on to tell me my pet hamster died. When they came in, they both sat at the end of my bed. For a moment, there was an awkward silence, akin to the silence before chaos. “Sean died in a car crash,” my mom said, holding back tears. This hit me harder than the fight that Sean and I had. This meant that no matter how much I wanted to fix our relationship or even try to talk to him, I would never get the chance. Sean died with me hating him…