When You Were Everything

by Ashley Woodfolk

The thing I didn’t realize about having a best friend while I still had one is just how wrapped up she is in everything I do. Every outfit I wear or song I listen to. Every place I go. Losing someone can leave you haunted.

And that was what I’d been afraid of—Layla spreading her wings and leaving me grounded. I was happy for her, I really was. But I felt a little like I was disappearing.

how much I now hated her and how much I miss what we used to have.

“Are you really that dumb?” she said. She smirked and looked evil as hell. “You know what? You must be. Can’t even lock a fucking door. Dumbass bitch.”

I would hate to be in Cleos situation. If she told Layla what she just said she wouldnt believe her. But i wouldn't want my bff being friends with someone like that. Especially if she couldn’t even have the decency to be nice.

I’d been looking forward to lunch, knowing I’d see Layla there despite our differing schedules, but when I walked into the cafeteria, our table was empty. I looked around, thinking maybe she got held up after class. Or thinking (somehow for the first time) that maybe she was home sick today. But then I saw her. She was sitting with Sloane and Melody, Cadence and Sage and Valeria.

Omg i feel like crying

“Did you hear about what Sloane said to me this morning?” Layla closed her locker and turned to face me. She acted cool, like she hadn’t been ignoring me all morning. “I wanted to t-t-talk to you about that later.” I scoffed. “Layla, are you kidding? You told her I was the person at the door? The way she was freaking out, it’s like she thinks I did it on purpose or something.” Layla threw her bag over her shoulder. She crossed her arms. “I d-didn’t think she’d flip out on you, ok-k-kay?

So Layla knew what she said but is still friends with her?? Wtfff

I felt the tiny betrayals filling me up like poison, and I needed Layla to reassure me. To act like the best friend she was supposed to be. But she didn’t. And the longer we stood there, the clearer it became that Layla wasn’t coming to my rescue this time.

What happened with me and Layla is really different from what happened with Sydney and Willa, but we both know the pain of feeling like we don’t matter to the person we love most—to these people who were supposed to be our everything.

I no longer expected Layla to be waiting for me near my locker, and that day, like most days, she wasn’t. But when I walked into homeroom, for the very first time, Layla was sitting at the back of the class with Sloane.

I wanted to send her a text and ask why she decided to sit at the back of the class all of a sudden, but I was starting to wonder, if I never texted Layla first, would she text me at all?

Sloane had the reaction I should have had. She was saying all the things I should have said. But fear for Layla’s almost certain humiliation was a wretched virus in my stomach, making me feel sick. And all the little betrayals were there too, ruining me from the inside out.

“Wh-wh-what about all the times when I t-told you I wanted to be on B-B-Broadway and you said I totally could? What about all the times you told me I had a great voice? Was that all a lie? D-did you never believe in me at all?” “Layla,” I started. But she stopped me again with a hand held dangerously close to my face. “So. What you’re t-t-telling me is that you’ve never t-taken me seriously?” I blinked slowly and took a deep breath as I pushed her hand gently away from me. I said what I said next slowly and seriously, looking right at her. “I don’t think it hurts to dream.”

Ok Cleo’s definitely in the wrong here

My faith in friendship has been shaken, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever get it back.

“Sometimes feelings just change, Cleo. Sometimes people…outgrow each other.” Defiantly, I shook my head. “No, that’s not a thing. If you love someone you’re supposed to love them forever.” Mom said, “Sadly, honey, love isn’t always enough.” In his Librarian Voice, Daddy said, “One day you’ll understand, honey. You’re still so young.”

“Best of luck with the musical,” I said. And she looked pleased. Happy with herself or maybe even with her so-called best friend. But there was a crack in the hull of me, and I was sinking. She didn’t yet know, but I wasn’t going down alone. “I hope you sing your fucking heart out,” I spat, stepping closer to her. I took a deep breath and hissed through my teeth, “And I hope you stutter through every line.”

Oh gurllll noo

That’s the thing about words: they can leave you both unscathed and completely gutted. Girls wage endless wars with their voices, tearing you apart without touching you at all.

But Sloane would never want to be seen as weak, and I knew she thought these experiences made her look like she was. She’d ruined my whole world, even after she knew what it was like to be hurt in this exact way, so I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t care.

Pop pulls Miss Dolly from the break room and dances with her in the narrow space between the barstools and the back windows, and for a second I’m sad my phone is playing the music, because if it weren’t I’d be taking photos of them.

I secretly hope that the three of us will sit together in the cafeteria tomorrow, but I try not to set myself up for disappointment if we don’t.

“What are you going to do?” Sydney asks. And I make a mental note that she said “you” instead of “we.” Layla would have said “we,” and something about having to endure this alone is too much to take.

“Don’t freak,” she says, slipping her thumbs behind the yellow straps of her backpack. “But I’m pretty sure my cousin started the rumor about your dad.”

Yeah no shit

And I was sick of Layla too. I wanted her to fail. She’d stood by for days while her new “friends” made my life hell and didn’t even have the decency to ask them to stop until I blackmailed her into it.

“You’re right,” she said softly. “And you were right about me. You said this w-would happen and you were right. I knew it could happen t-t-t-too, you know. I’m not an idiot. But I was trying to b-be b-b-brave.” She shrugged. And I could tell that she’d given up on this conversation, on me, from the way her arms flopped at her sides. “Maybe we c-c-could have forgiven each other if you’d apologized b-before it all c-c-came true and if I’d stopped Sloane when she t-told me they were going to g-give you a taste of your own medicine. But I wanted them to hurt you, b-because you hurt me. And now that this has happened, I d-d-don’t know how to t-talk to you, C-C-Cleo. Do you get that? I don’t even w-want to.”

I don't think Cleo should've apologised first. It was Layla who started distancing berself first and ignoring Cleo.

If Sloane isn’t lying, Layla knows something, and that makes me more upset than maybe anything else. That she kept something this big and painful from me but told Sloane. And while I’d love to say I’m surprised, I’m not. At all.

She is a force to be reckoned with, made of beauty and power and smarts. And that’s why I feel like a near-constant disappointment to her. I came from a storm of a woman, but I’m just a drizzle of a girl.

You don’t have to erase the bad things to be happy. Besides, the dark shit is important to remember too.”

“She hurt you bad. Let yourself feel it, and everything that comes with

Somehow I am a girl who makes all the wrong choices, but I am also a girl who aches in every way to be wanted despite my mistakes.

Things you can’t control happen all the time.” He shifts, moving closer to me, just as we hear his front door open and Pop call out to us from the entryway. Dom’s voice is soft and urgent when he speaks again. “But you can control what you do next.”

But I don’t think I’ll ever forget that Layla told Sloane desperate details about my family that I didn’t even know. That she willfully handed over something that could wound me so deeply, knowing that it would be used to do just that.

We are all important to each other in different but similar ways, and that’s all that matters.