• My dear friend, my "sister" she was both fun and annoying to be around. We had known each other since at least third grade. She was a genius, the kind of intelligence that leads to Stanford or Harvard. In our freshman year of high school I noticed her becoming wilder. Wild in the sense that she took on wearing all black instead of the bright blues and yellows she usually favored. She spoke and acted more outgoing, but there seemed to be a certain level of insecurity in her behavior. She was also hanging out with a group that loved to put down most if not all other groups. I'm not talking about preps, these were drama people. I thought her behavior was strange, but everyone told me it was just a phase. The next year we both transferred to a private Catholic school. From there I watched her grades drop and her obsessions grown. Anything she liked, she LOVED to point that she would become unbearable if you insulted or offended what she liked. She would have me go buy her food at lunch because she did not want to get it herself and if I did not go she would not eat at all. I got frustrated, later in the year when she told me she wanted to cheat on her boyfriend to make him mad I told him so he could try to stop her from making a foolish decision, she found out I told him. In the second semester she told be she had gotten pregnant from a boy I had never met. It was scary, but I wanted to be there for her. The next day she told me it was a lie; she was testing me to see if I would tell anyone. I stopped talking to her, I stopped looking at her, I stopped acknowledging her existence. Not long after, she hung herself, she was 15 years old. I miss her so much. I didn't sleep much after that, just kind of went through the motions, other times I was angry because no one seemed to be able to understand my feelings. During my junior year I took a multimedia class that was taught by the theater director, one day he asked me to be the stage manager for the next musical, I agreed. At first it just seemed like something to occupy my time, but the more I participated the more I began to feel again. The musical was Man of La Mancha; it could not have a better play for encouraging me to keep going despite the pain that had consumed me. By the end, I felt like I could smile and laugh again with my whole heart and through the production I had gained an incredible amount of confidence and friends. One of these friends became my best friend which she remains to this day. Although the sadness of losing my friend still stays with me years after she passed away, I find I can move on and enjoy my life while still holding onto her memory.