My Best Friend is Getting Married: A Friendship Story

She was this walking set of white teeth, molars and all.  And I was this awkward set of brown eyes that always managed to look like deer in headlights.  One day she stopped me by the water fountain in school and told me she loved my eyes and I secretly wondered what that stain-looking thing on the edge of her bottom lip was.  After school, as we waited for our parents to pick us up,  I asked about it and she told me with a straight face that somebody had punched her, and that her name was Rebecca. I totally believed her. That was about 12 years ago. That is my very first memory of us. 

Of course, years later I was slightly less stupid and found out her so-called bruise was just a birthmark. And she found out my eyes only got more dramatic with age. I had especially perfected my raised eyebrow aimed at anything ridiculous. In the twelfth grade, I learned how limited her creativity was after we were grouped together to make a scrapbook for english class. My days quickly turned into a constant travail to tell her that her scrapbook pages were shit in the least hurtful way possible. To this day I'm not sure I ever told her. So if you're reading this, here it is, my dear. I still love you despite all things.

 After we had buried the scrapbook project deep in the earth, our life that year proceeded to be a whirlwind of sleepovers, movies, parties in San Juan, friend-dates, and occasional stay-cations at our friend's beach house. In school we would sit together during lunch time and recount the whole weekend, complete with somebody's first kiss, someone else's drama with Mrs. Vega, what-did-you-get-in-calculus?, dammit-I-got-a-90, discussion of The Scarlet Letter and La Casa de Bernarda Alba, and days where I was a complete train wreck and she stopped me from crashing. 

When we're asked how long we've known each other I like to say "forever". Although we only solidified this thing we call our "friendship" after high school was done and over with and we had moved on to bigger and better things. Little did we know that our lives would be so intertwined since that moment after prom when we travelled away from the crowd and took pictures of each other in the hotel's beautiful staircase. Me with a peach chiffon dress, her rocking a strapless one in cobalt blue. I still remember it so well. This rite-of-passage, this opening sentence, this crisp wrapper.

Maybe it was the promise of new beginnings, or the fear of them; maybe it was that we'd both moved to Iowa (of all states); maybe it was that we both were swarmed with nostalgia for home; or maybe we just got each other. We only grew closer since then. That summer right after our freshman year of college proved to be the one that defined our relationship the most. And I still look at that summer with particular fondness for the babies we were; the hard-ass, shit-eating, overly confident, but-secretly-a-disaster, babies we were. I particularly remember all the times we had to remind each other to pick up our dignity off the floor. Do you remember this too? And all the domino games, all the domino games. 

We both spent that summer back home, alternating between the beach, her house, my house, the pool, the mall, San Juan, random parking lots, random houses. Boys. One in particular. I was so convinced he was good for me. She was so convinced he wasn't. 

The amount of hours, all-together, that we spent poring over his text messages, analyzing every period, exclamation mark, emoji or lack thereof,  is probably ridiculous. And a little embarrassing. So I'll just skip to the part where I tell you that of all the seasons we lived together, this was probably my favorite.

We have so many inside jokes — so many — about that time in particular. We coined the phrase "There are two ways to go around this" for absolutely every endeavor involving a guy, a domino game, an outfit, or plans for the night. We learned that you just don't crack jokes when people are swimming or are about to if you don't want to witness death by asphyxiation. We learned that we can't sleep together; that she is literally a hurricane, and I'm an angel. We learned that we would still sacrifice potential nights of amazing sleep just to be able to whisper words of encouragement through the dark. We learned that my cat gives us both horrible allergies. That we love him anyway. Or at least I do. I learned that I could always go to her when I felt like my boat was on the verge of sinking; somehow she always found a way to keep me from drowning.

There was this one time I pulled up to her house and yelled out to her from the car ,“It’s sunny. Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!” I love how hungry we were for life. I love our drive, our motivation. I love how happy our happiness is. I love how pure. 

I love her in the present tense. And love isn't always pretty. Or self-serving, or easy. It sure came wrapped up in all the times I looked at her sternly and said, "Becky, just stop."

I still recall with uncanny clarity that day that we were both loitering around her kitchen sampling her latest baking disaster when her mom walked in and blurted out, "Who do you think will get married first, of all of you?" To which we laughed and said "Of course, Andrea". Her mom rebutted, "Nah, probably Bianca," which we didn't argue. Let me clarify that none of these girls are married yet. What we did point out was that I would be last, because of course, the hypothetical guy has all these books to compete with, and that Rebecca would be next-to-last because, of course, the hypothetical guy has all these domino games to compete with.

But that was that summer. That was then. This is now. And throughout the rest of the years that were to come, nothing changed. We only got better. We grew in our love for God, and we grew in our love for each other. Boys came and went. She visited me in Ames, and I visited her in Davenport. We met in Puerto Rico over the holidays. I was the only one of her friends to attend her mother's remarriage. We've shared everything. From deodorant to a bed, from flip flops to sport bras, from our food to my mother's affection. We've even passed the cat around at times. 

One day during that first summer that made us, we sat in her balcony overlooking San Juan, being girls like it was the only thing we knew how to do, and she told me, "I have this feeling that when we're older...these other guys will come around, and they'll think just how lucky they are to call us theirs. You won't be last. I know him. The guy you'll marry. It's like I can see him in my mind. It's so weird."

If I could rewind time and be the one to say those words, I would. 

Because, I know him. The guy you'll marry. He has a name. It is Jared. 

And I still can't believed I introduced you.

I met Jared through my Church's family group the summer of 2012. Out of all the people I met that summer, he was one of the only ones that truly got me. We didn't drive to church listening to Hillsong or Rend Collective; we drove all the way switching from Thrift Shop to Jack Sparrow to Gold Digger. We made fun of ourselves, and we shared the same apathy towards swearing. He taught me many things. Like the fact that sometimes we don't need all these external things to prove to the world that we are children of God. That we are that already, and we are free. Our hearts will forever say more than what our outfit choices, musical tastes, and word choices can say. That a heart that says "dang" instead of "damn" has the same intention, and that that is everything. I've loved him like a brother ever since.

The story of how they met is for them to recount. Just know this: It had something to do with Rebecca coming over to visit me in Ames, and Jared, in his unique awkward way, cracking a joke, to which Rebecca wasn't sure how to respond. She responded the way she always does, cackling wholeheartedly and asking him "this is a joke, right?"

I wonder if she has ever thought about us that day after school when she told me someone punched her and she told me my eyes were pretty, or when we were in the same volleyball team for a semester, or when she did my mom's dishes at home, or when she was in love with that boy in high school, or when we were at prom taking pictures in the staircase. I wonder if she has thought about how every single moment since then was just leading up to this. How wonderful how inordinate this path. 

We'll be different now. 

This time there aren't two ways around the fact that when I have some stupid news to share with her I won't just show up at her house and yell at her that it's sunny, that life is now. There's no way around the fact that when we go back home to Puerto Rico she won't stay with me, with the horrible sleep and the allergy-inducing cat. There's no way around the fact that she's a part of something bigger now, the sanctity of marriage. In the most selfish way I'll miss her. I'll miss us in all the ways we were us, just us. In all the ways that that was the most important thing; the center of all things. But there's so much more. If we were a caterpillar, this is the butterfly. There is so much more. 

I thank her always for teaching me the value of time and reciprocity. That friendship is a lot like running a race and extending your arm behind you to see who will keep up. Real friends understand the value of time, yours and theirs. For teaching me that the best relationships in life are built on the base of intentionality and selflessness. That to truly love another you must both love yourself and be beside yourself at times. That these things evolve. That we evolve and so do our friendships. And that maybe we should spend less time fighting that and embrace it headlong for the uncontrollable, nasty plane crash it can be. That we should just burn right alongside it. 

And on that day of her wedding I hope she jumps for joy. That she celebrates herself. That she celebrates God. That she celebrates him. That she's still just a walking set of white teeth, molars and all, after all.