Sophomore year was when I knew Brenda was my best friend. But before then and now we have to go back to when we first met, freshman year.

I was one of the few people from my elementary school to go to PLA, so during the first month, I was completely by myself and I didn’t think I was going to make friends. Until my close friend, Celia, who I had multiple classes with, asked me if I wanted to eat lunch with her that I met all my friends now.

At first I wasn’t the closest to Brenda, but during our first finals that changed. After we finished one final, we were on our Chromebooks browsing random websites like Etsy and Amazon when we started talking about anime and nightcore phases we had and things we remembered from when we were younger that we found out we had a lot in common.

As the school year went by we got closer and closer. We had inside jokes and spent class and free time together. It made me feel lucky that I had someone that got me like she did. And it didn’t end when the school year did either, we kept in contact, texting throughout the summer and hanging out.

When sophomore year came around, I was sad because we only had two classes together, but I can say looking back on those classes that we made the most of it, especially history which holds a lot of special memories to me. We sat in the back of the classroom together and a lot of things went on back there like funny doodles she drew on papers, classmates who made us laugh, and things we said and did to each other personal and known to us.

Our junior year we both transferred to different schools but even then we’ve never lost contact with each other. We made up for lost time by texting during class, reminiscing about sophomore year, calling during lunch while playing Minecraft or Roblox, and hanging out at the mall and spending all our money.

I’d say our friendship is built on embarrassing shared experiences and opening up each other. When I’m with her I’m able to be myself no matter how weird or off-hand I am because she’ll always be the same to me.

She’s someone I know I can talk about anything to and vice versa. Whenever there’s a time to tell each other I’ll always do it because time with her is everything and I can’t wait for the memories we’ll make in the future. I would never go back to a time where she wasn’t in my life.