Milk and Poison: Sorority was Never the Word

The Last Thing I Forgave

When I started high school, I became friends with a new girl.

We had a lot in common, and I got attached to her. For a long time, we called each other best friends. I never questioned our relationship—never even imagined it could end one day.

She was a little territorial with her friends and sometimes said things that really hurt, but it wasn’t until the later years that I began to realize the kind of person I had gotten attached to. We had a new classmate—somehow, without knowing when or how, we included him. We weren’t that inseparable duo anymore; now we were a group of three. And it’s not that I was jealous of adding someone else to our circle; I actually liked him.

Then I started noticing strange behavior from her. Every time I talked to him, there she was—dragging her chair between us, marking her territory. I began to look at her with disgust, unsure whether she liked him or just hated that I got a bit of attention. Until one day, she confessed it to me: “I’m jealous,” she said. I stared at her, perplexed, as if I hadn’t understood.
“I don’t get it—why does he tell you things he doesn’t tell me? Why does he trust you more?”
Her question felt unreal to me. I couldn’t grasp how someone could be that immature, that irrational. Then she said the words I still can’t erase from my mind:
“If the fact you were abused made him trust you, I wish I’d had an experience like that too—so he’d tell me his problems instead of you.”

I was genuinely stunned. Had I really heard what I thought I heard? I couldn’t look her in the eye. Couldn’t stand her voice. Because that’s what she became—irritating to the point of nausea, of hives, of allergy. My body reacted to her presence the same way it does when I eat lactose knowing I’m intolerant: sick, shaky, disgusted.

Then came the accusations. She didn’t want physical contact with us, yet she felt excluded whenever we had it. Or so she said. That I made her feel excluded. That I was pushing her aside. I couldn’t understand—because she was the one pushing me away. Her constant complaints drove me into a mental instability I’d never known before. Because it didn’t matter that we were a group, or that she said everyone’s behavior bothered her—I was the only one she blamed.

Back then, I was coming out of an abusive relationship that had lasted years. I knew not all my decisions were pristine—that I had made mistakes. But I wanted to do things right. I wanted to end it. To take the moral path. But even when I tried to run, I was chained. And if my ex wouldn’t let me leave a relationship I no longer wanted, then I stopped caring about “doing the right thing.”

And there she was, questioning every single one of my mistakes. Because she—she was pure. And me? I was just her shadow. Her shadow in grades. Her shadow in friendships. Her shadow in sports.

Years later, she said: “If I had known how bad you were feeling, I wouldn’t have been so harsh.”
But I know she didn’t say it for me. There was no regret in her eyes, no guilt in her tone. Did she regret being cruel—or was she just exposed because he was there?

I tried more than once to forgive her. I loved her like a sister. I loved her so much I thought I’d never stop. But every time I felt ready to forgive, her toxic behavior resurfaced—and so did all my resentment.

The moment I decided I would never love or accept her again was when I noticed a pattern I had missed before. More than once, she had been involved in situations with blurred consent with our mutual friends—people who were sleeping, half-awake, or sick. Touches, closeness, things that stopped the second she noticed I had walked in.

That was the moment I knew: I could forgive her for being fake, for being a shitty friend, for needing to outshine me at every turn—but I could never, ever forgive potential predation.

Sometimes I get notifications saying she reposted the same videos and images I did, raising awareness about sexual abuse. And I can’t help feeling nauseous. Powerless.
Was she truly unaware of the things she’d done—or worse, was her sorority and solidarity all a performance?