I ran into my old best friend yesterday. I didn’t really recognize her at first; her weary, wasted expression and her sorrowful sunken eyes caught me off-guard. Even her formerly bright red hair had faded to a dull strawberry-blonde, a pale shadow of the fire that had once blazed within her; all that was left amounted to nothing more than smoke and ashes.

Smoke and ashes. I let myself wonder, just for a second, if she had ever been more. Maybe the fire wasn’t dead – maybe it had only been an illusion in the first place.

"Have you taken Precalculus?"

I nearly choked on the breath I didn’t realize I was holding. Of all the ways to start this conversation, all the paths I had envisioned this taking . . . that was unexpected.

She continued. "I don’t really understand it. I missed two days and had to take a quiz as soon as I got back – I didn’t even know what it was on!" Pause. "Do you think I should drop down to Algebra 3?"

Oh, this was even more unexpected. Three years of not so much as returning my friendly greetings as we passed each other in the hallways – and now she asks for advice! I smiled ruefully. Well, maybe she would ask me for help or something. "I think you can handle it. Stick it out."

We just kind of stared at each other for a moment, almost enjoying the first semi-comfortable silence between us since . . . that day. Questions rose in my mind, dominated by a good measure of bitterness, distrust, and pain. Instantly, they boiled down to one word: "Why?"

I remembered my frustration, my anger as I walked down that hallway years ago, that impossibly long hallway away from the cafeteria, away from this girl I had once called my best friend. Kicking a locker door shut, I recalled everything I had done for her. I had introduced her to everyone when she was a timid little sixth grader with red hair too bright for her shy, pale face; I sat next to her on the bus when no one else would. I defended her when classmates taunted her about her predominantly German heritage and last name after studying World War Two, and I was willing to bear a considerable amount of teasing on my own part for her sake without a second thought: that’s what best friends were supposed to do. And I was that best friend, closer than a sister and probably more influential in her life than her biological sister, a hopeless, near-suicidal shell of a girl barely clinging to life whose own plight tormented my friend. I was the one who supported her through her parents’ separation, I offered a shoulder to cry on when her ancient, intolerably mean but beloved cat died (even though I hated the stupid thing and would’ve been glad at its passing were it not for the many tears my friend shed), and I was there for her through the countless other traumas she had been forced to endure.

I wondered then, as now, what I had failed to do.

Shivering, I remembered the extreme coldness in her eyes as she silently snubbed me that day. I recalled with a smirk the odd juxtaposition of the unusual warmth that March day and the bitter chill of that conversation.

"So this is it," I muttered, trying fervently to keep the tears from falling as my "friend" and my apparent replacement sneered at me and walked down the hall, yanking seven years of friendship away with all the inherent gentleness and softness of a hungry alligator.

I ran down the hallway, calling her name. "Why?" But she didn’t turn around.

"Why?" I asked aloud.

She stared at me blankly.

She didn’t understand then, either, as she walked away from everything I had offered her. "Seven years!" I yelled, desperation filling my voice. "Don’t I at least deserve a decent explanation? And apology? Anything!" My voice grew hoarse as I shouted, but nothing worked.

I guess it was like taking a wad of German money minted before World War One to the store after the Treaty of Versailles and, upon realizing it wouldn’t trade for more than a week-old crumb of bread, shouting: "It used to be worth something! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?" But the shopkeeper turns around and almost imperceptibly shakes her head, tossing back one stale crumb:

"It’s nothing personal."

Staring at her, mouth agape, as I asked the question that begged to be asked: "What went wrong? What did I do wrong? If it’s nothing personal, what is it?"

"What did I do wrong? If it was nothing personal, what was it?"

Those hopeless, wasted, sunken gray-green eyes gazed beyond me, her frail attempt at something resembling eye contact. "I don’t guess I remember," she said at last.

So that was it. I sighed. Three years of wondering how I had messed up, what I had done to stifle the flame, only to discover the fire had been snuffed by its own smoke and ashes. Nothing. There was nothing I could’ve done, nothing I had done, and nothing I could do.

"Oh."

This time, it was my name echoing down an impossibly long hallway – the lockers were bigger, the walls dirtier, and the lights dimmer as befit a crumbling suburban high school as opposed to the brand-new, state-of-the-art middle school three years before. And in some twist of irony, it fit that my reaction was different than hers: I turned around.

"I’m . . . I’m sorry. I never deserved you."

I opened my mouth, a statement of forgiveness ready to emerge . . . but I bit my tongue. Didn’t forgiveness imply some modicum of trust? And while I was ready to forgive her, there was no way I was ready to trust her, nor to forget what she had done. While I knew there was a God in heaven willing to wipe away all trespasses and remember them no more . . . that was beyond my power.

But forgiveness also implied mercy, that the transgressor not be given what she deserved. That I could handle.

The words slipped out almost of their own accord, before I truly decided I believed them: "I forgive you."

And then, I did believe it; I could forgive her, and did, in that moment. Still, it was kind of like that German money; it didn’t really amount to much, it just was. And it couldn’t buy enough wood to rekindle that old fire, let alone keep it going.

"I’m sorry, too," I added, resuming my long, painful walk down that hallway. When I reached the end, an image flashed in my mind, that of an old German lady burning her worthless paper money for fuel. It wouldn’t last long, of course, but long enough to thaw the fingers enough to chop some wood, to gather some real fuel . . ..

Tempting, but I refused to be burned by her fire again. I turned around, knowing that she wouldn’t understand me but determined to speak one last time:

"Remember those seven years? All they’re good for now is fuel; maybe those flames will warm you up a bit." I paused. "And I do hope that, one day, you’ll find another best friend, one you won’t betray and who won’t betray you. I’m sorry it can’t be me."

I walked out the door, turning one last time although she couldn’t see nor hear me.

"And don’t let the smoke and ashes suffocate you."