My best friend’s best friend

She’d been my best friend for as long as I can remember. Before I understood what friendship really meant, I just knew I loved her. She was my safe place. She knew how to make every bad day feel better.

She’d wipe away my tears before they even had chance to fall, tell me everything was going to be okay, and somehow, I’d believe her every single time.

Despite the age gap, we grew up together

Weekends weren’t about expensive days out. They were about packing a picnic and driving to the beach just because the sun was shining. We’d wander around garden centres, convinced we needed more flowers for the garden.

Summer meant gardening together, getting covered in mud and laughing about it. Rainy afternoons meant baking cupcakes, licking the spoon, plenty of icing and food colouring.

Or sitting at the dining table surrounded by glitter, paper and paint because we’d decided we were going to make something.

Most of the time, what we made didn’t matter. We were together, and that was enough.

Some of my happiest memories aren’t the big occasions. Singing in the car to Jackson 5, Simply Red and Motown Gold with the windows down. Last-minute trips with no destination.

Sitting talking for hours over the biggest cups of tea. She was the person I wanted to tell everything to. My biggest cheerleader, my loudest laugh, my home.

With a little (a lot of) help from me, at one point, she finally found the courage and got rid of her abusive partner. I thought that would have been all she needed, but as I got older, things slowly started to change.

At first it was subtle

I was almost too young and was convinced it was nothing, part of growing up/growing apart. She’d cancel plans every now and again. “Can’t do today.” “I’ll ring you after 11… but before 3.”

There was always a reason. I saw her less and less. Then those calls became less frequent. The messages became shorter. The effort slowly disappeared, the let-downs became deeper to me.

I started noticing someone else had taken my place. This new friend seemed exciting. She made everything feel easier. She promised fun, confidence, an escape from whatever life had thrown at her, and she’d struggled to navigate some aspects of her life.

At first, I almost understood why she’d want to spend time with her.

But then I started noticing the changes

Whenever she’d been with her, she wasn’t herself. She’d lie about where she’d been. She’d pretend she hadn’t seen her when I knew she had. She stopped attending work regularly, always saying she was poorly.

She stopped showing up for birthdays, family days, weekends we’d planned months before. She’d only come if this new friend was invited too, or if she wasn’t already seeing her new friend somewhere else.

The person I’d grown up with slowly disappeared

Her laugh changed. Her smile wasn’t real anymore. The sparkle I’d always known started fading. I watched someone I loved more than anything become someone I barely recognised.

This new friend wasn’t a friend at all. She was controlling. Manipulative. She isolated her from the people who loved her most while convincing her she was the only one who truly understood.

She promised comfort while quietly stealing everything that made her…her.

I fought for my best friend for years

I answered every phone call from her, desperate pleas from her family to check-in on her. Picked her up when she’d fallen, all her attempts to escape, I supported.

Covered for her.

Protected her.

Made excuses for her when I shouldn’t have. 

Pulled her out of darkness more times than I can count.

Each time hoping, praying, believing that this would be the time she’d come back to me. Instead, she’d push me away again. She’d blame me.

Sometimes she’d say things that cut deeper than anyone else’s words ever could. Sometimes she’d tell me she hated me. And every single time, I’d leave wondering what I’d done wrong, how could I be better for her.

Eventually, I realised I couldn’t save someone who didn’t think they needed saving. Walking away wasn’t because I stopped loving her. It was because I was losing myself trying to keep hold of someone who was already slipping away.

I built my own life

I found people who loved me in healthy ways. I created a family of my own and I protected them from my friend. I learned what peace looked like. But no matter how happy life became, there was always a part of me grieving someone who was still alive.

Then one day, she was gone

People will tell you it wasn’t her new best friend that killed her. Maybe, medically, that’s true. But I watched it happen for years. I watched her be convinced to choose that friend over birthdays, over family, over memories, over love, over herself, over me.

She believed that her friend would make everything better while she quietly took everything from her, piece by piece, until there was nothing left.

I’ve spent years being angry. Angry that someone could steal the person I loved. Jealous that someone so destructive became more important than the people who would’ve done anything for her.

I was fighting an abuser that never once fought fair. And in the end, I didn’t win. 

The hardest part is that, in the end, I lost far more than just my mum.

I lost her twice

The first time was years before she died. It was the day I accepted that alcohol had already taken the person I knew and loved.

She was still physically here, but the woman who baked cupcakes with me, took me on spontaneous adventures, packed picnics for the beach, laughed until we cried and made me feel safe, had already slipped away.

I spent years grieving someone who was still alive, hoping every phone call, every visit and every promise would be the one that brought her back. It never did.

The second time was through a text message telling me she had passed away. Nobody prepares you for grieving the same person twice.

What people often don’t understand is that by the time she died, I’d already spent years mourning her.

I’d already cried the tears, begged her to choose us, blamed myself, tried to rescue her, and finally accepted that I couldn’t save someone from an addiction they couldn’t see themselves escaping.

Walking away wasn’t because I stopped loving her. It was because I was disappearing alongside her.

The ripples of those decisions have spread far beyond losing my mum

One by one, I’ve lost relationships with my maternal family too. My sister. My aunties. People I always believed would understand one day, people who knew her story, but maybe not as deeply as I did.

Instead, like her, the many saw my boundaries as rejection, my distance as coldness, and my survival as abandonment.

They couldn’t understand how I could step away from my own mum, but they never truly saw what happened behind closed doors.

They didn’t carry the years of emotional manipulation, the broken promises, the constant disappointment, the guilt, the blame, or the mental exhaustion that comes from loving someone whose first love had become alcohol.

Addiction didn’t just take my mum

It fractured an entire family. It created different versions of the same story, and unfortunately, mine became the one that many couldn’t accept.

That loss is something I still carry. Knowing that an illness destroyed not only my relationship with my mum, but so many of the relationships on her side of the family too. Even now, I’m left with the silence that follows.

But I’m no longer trying to fill that silence by carrying guilt that was never mine. Instead, I continue to build the life I’ve fought so hard for. I continue to work on myself, on my own family, and on breaking the cycle.

Along the way, I’ve found people who chose to stand beside me without judgement. Friends who became family.

People who reminded me that love isn’t measured by how much hurt you’re willing to endure, but by the courage it takes to protect your own peace.

I still miss my best friend every single day.

I just wish alcohol had never become hers.

Abby

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