The Friend Who Got Away

20 women's true-life tales of friendships that blew up, burned out, or faded away

losing a friend can be as painful and agonizing as a divorce or the end of a love affair, yet it is rarely written about or even discussed.

Foreword XIII You hear the name, and your heart starts to pound, your palms sweat. You catch a glimpse of a familiar face on the street and suddenly you find yourself sideswiped by memories better left forgotten. It may have been years since you last spoke, and yet it all comes back in a moment, the fist giddy rush of talk, the shared confidences and sudden adventures, the certainty that your friendship could survive anything, and the startling heartbreak when it didn't.
..Sometimes we mourn the loss of a friend; other times we celebrate the break, but no matter what, we don't forget it.
The lost of a friendship can be nearly as painful as a bitter divorce or a death.

XVII Among my acquaintances is a woman infamous for the stormy high drama of her female friendships. ... I've never quite dunderstood why she would act that way with her friends, since it's always seemed to met that theatrics of this sort are meant to be the exclusive province of love affairs. That's why we have boyfriends, husbands, families--so we can behave like that. Ou friendships are--or are supposed to be--our most uncomplicated, sustaining, and reassuringly reasonable relationships.

p.24 YOU ARE WITH ME FOR GOOD.

P.119 Her silence is so loud, it breaks my heart.

p.131 Mark Twain wrote in Pudd'nhead Wilson, "The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will alst through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money." I knews that money was the root of all evil. I'd seen families, including my own, split over inheritance. Lifelong relationships devoured.

p.233 Ava didn't believe in regret. My first glimpse of how little she worried over what others thought of her came when ....

p.234 For Ava, if you wanted to be a certain kind of person, all you had to do was act the part. Change came from the outside and burrowed its way in.

p.237 The Best Little Girl in the World (a young adult novel told from the perspective of an anorexic teen)