THE COMPLICATED FRIENDSHIP

VIDEO CALL TIME: TWO HOURS, 27 MINS

I knew when Sam said yes to the call over Facebook Messenger that we’d probably go deep... and fast. We’d met in ballet class at age 13, where our teacher critiqued our Lycra-clad bodies. It led to something toxic; we constantly egged each other on to be thinner, smaller, shrink ourselves. ‘I can’t believe how horrible I used to be to you,’ Sam says, opening the conversation. She’d always criticise my choices and my body: ‘Don’t smoke, it stinks.’ ‘That top doesn’t look good on you.’ ‘You’ve put on weight.’ I took each judgement to heart, mostly staying unresponsive, but occasionally spitting back horrid retorts.

At 30, Sam sought treatment for the eating disorder that, looking back, I’d seen signs of in our twenties. She tells me about a dark period of overdoses, antidepressants and years of cognitive behavioural therapy. It was hard to hear, especially as I can’t deny the part I must have played. But I don’t think I could have been the one to support her through it. The cracks in our friendship were too deep, and

I had issues of my own. I’d always thought our friendship had started to dissolve when I’d moved to London in 2007 in my midtwenties and she’d stayed at home, but I’d unknowingly rewritten our past. ‘You know you texted me to tell me to never talk to you again,’ Sam says. ‘I took a step back, actively removed myself from your life, thinking we’d bump into each other eventually, but we never did.’ I thought I wasn’t aware of how malicious our friendship had become, but I must have been to send that text. A vague memory starts to take shape: I’d had a brief drunken flirtation with a man she then started to date (the person she is now married to, it turns out). Instead of being pleased for her, I recall bubbling with jealousy.

It’s confronting to be faced with the person I once was, and I wonder whether, if we became friends again now, we’d slip back into those old ways. I like to think we wouldn’t. We’ve both had mental health issues, both reassessed our priorities and changed who we are as a result. For the first time, it feels as if we’re no longer in competition with one another. Our chat, although difficult, was wonderfully cathartic; we cleared the air in a way that I hadn’t known we both needed. We also confessed our uncertainty about life’s big choices with the kind of unfiltered honesty that you only have with someone who’s on the same page, not knowing if having children will make us happier than we are right now without. We’ve since been sending each other regular Whatsapps.

Our fiery outbursts have been extinguished, meaning we understand each other anew.

But our past will always be a footnote in our friendship.

‘We cleared the air in a way that I hadn’t known we both needed’