Keti Shea
how to lose (love) a friend
Your greatest act of mercy was at the baseball diamond. We were ten, eleven, maybe younger or older, who knows. It was the age when we still played rough, played with the boys but also played with dolls, although I would stay that way longer than you. It was the nineties, and I was not popular and you walked through life like it was your birthright. You weren’t afraid of being loud and I’d already trained myself to be quiet. When the neighborhood boys—feral, foul mouthed, what my mother called white trash—mocked me for using big words and not knowing how to hold the bat, you cocked your hip and smacked your watermelon Bubble Yum.
You cut your eyes at them. “She holds the bat that way because she’s left-handed, you dumb fucks. She uses big words because she’s smarter than all of you.” Here, you paused and looked around at them. Really looked at each of them. In my imagination, you dragged the bat through the dirt. “You dumb ignorant fucks—you can’t even read. You’re only here because we needed more bodies. Shut the fuck up and play ball.”
The boys stared at their shoes, toeing the dirt with their sneaker tips. Ashamed of themselves. Cowering.
And I was in awe of you.
#
You were my first friend. We went to different schools, which somehow made it better. School would have ruined it for us. You would have gotten popular and left me behind to punch my glasses up my nose and read in the library during lunch. Even after we splintered, you were the best at being my friend for the simple reason that you never once thought I was broken. The parts of me others laughed at were the parts you held to the light in praise: evidence of my greatness.
By the time I got around to telling you how high you set the friendship bar, you were beyond language, already in the portal.
#
This is the part I come back to and replay. How much did you know. I studied faces for signs of emotional volatility and propensity for violence. I assumed everyone did this. You didn’t, though. And you didn’t know a lot, it turns out, because after you learned the truth of my meager home life, you swore up and down you would have protected me. You said you would have been my big sister. I believe you.
I saw what you did to those boys on the baseball field all those years ago. You were ruthless.
#
My mother said you and your family were hicks. Rednecks. That confused me because whenever I went to your house, your mom called me honey and hugged me with both arms so hard that her perfume stayed on my clothes and she made sure I ate up and then ate up some more. Your food confused me; it was things I didn’t get at home. Everything had sugar in it. I was scared to eat in front of people, it made my limbs go tingly and weird, but my hunger overcame the fear. True hunger is pain. My ribs hurt some days. You didn’t understand all this, but you let me eat all the food in your pantry anyway, raiding everything, even handing over the pecan rolls. It was nothing to you because your house was full of laughter, full of sugar. I once ate food with worms in it. I once ate food I found in the trash.
When I swallowed the pecan rolls, I mashed them into my cheeks and gulped them down dry. My mother made fun of the food in your house, but your food fed me when she didn’t.
I was a hungry kid.
#
When you were dying and were baptized in a hot tub, I thought, this is it, I’ve lost her. Of course, I’d already lost you. Your face was a strange color, like putty. You had new friends. New friends who drove you to treatments and posted about you and raised money for you. I looked at those friends on Facebook and they all had Jesus in their posts. I grieved for the old you that was lost somewhere, lost in your weird Jesus talk. You married a man I would have mocked had I ever met him and then would have later felt guilty about mocking, because he was so dumb looking. An easy target. You married a man who posted incoherent political rants on the internet with egregious typos and bizarre capitalizations and repugnant views. You called this man your soulmate and posted hideous photos of the two of you together.
You were that man’s wife and you were also the only one in my memory who defended me. No one defends the girl like me: scabby-kneed, hungry, lost, book-smart only. I didn’t understand most rules, but I knew the one that mattered: I was a social liability; a real loser. Girls befriended me for a time before trading up for shinier girls who understood the web of rules. When I saw you in that hot tub, a final thread between us snapped.
How could you be my savior, my sanctuary, my protector—and believe in a faith and a politics that would cast away others? I could never reconcile that.
I still can’t.
But then again, you were never my savior, not exactly. You were just nice to me when no-one else was and I was such a doormat that I felt I owed you loyalty.
#
In your wood-paneled bedroom with the New Kids on the Block poster, you watched as I tried on words like coochie or skank or bitch. You’d smack your gum and look at me and say, “Do it again. Do it meaner this time.” I understood you were training me to defend myself, for the day you’d have to leave me on my own. We didn’t know that then, how little time you’d have. Well, maybe you did. Maybe you understood that I’d have to toughen up and put on an act. Or maybe that never happened. Maybe I dreamed it. You were the stuff of legend, and I had an overactive imagination.
#
You never once looked at me like other people did. You told me I was the smartest person you’d met, and you meant it. You bragged about me to other people. You said I was destined for something great. I know that’s not quite true, just like I know I wouldn’t have survived without you telling me that. My belief in that statement kept me alive.
I almost died many times, and then I grew up and wrote a book about two girls who grow into women and one of them thinks she is destined for greatness and that belief keeps her safe long enough to live.
#
All the writing I’d published had you reach out. You said the right things, but still I stayed away in your last months. Your gray waxy skin reminded me of death. Your weary, bloated body. Your fuzzy gosling head. If the cancer scared you, the pain gutted you—in horrifyingly exponential ways. I could see it through the screen of my phone. Your skin fell off. Something else, too—your face reminded me of things I didn’t want to remember. My family, that house with the green floorboards, the reverberations of unpleasant memories. All the reminders that root in my chest and that I have excised.
By the time I waded through it to get back to you, it was too late. You’d slipped into the portal. Your husband posted about it on Facebook and my grief was muted because your husband voted for a person who will destroy everything that is good; I stared at your husband’s face and tried to hate him, but I couldn’t because he looked too dumb to hate. Losing you must have been his punishment, I reasoned.
#
In our last text, I told you the truth: You set the bar too high for friendships. You never replied because you’d gone to your Maker. Your maker, not mine. I believe in the afterlife, in rebirth, in continual death and renewal, a perpetual cycle of regrowth. I believe that whatever we don’t resolve in this life we are invited to confront in the next. Your maker believes gay people should die. Apples and oranges.
You tapped the bat into the dirt that day and those boys shook. In my memory, they actually shook. I’ve channeled that energy for many years. At work. Outside of work. People have said they find me intimidating. You taught me well.
#
I’m sorry your imminent death depressed me. I’m sorry the toxic sludge they pumped through you didn’t work. I’m sorry your kids are growing up without a mother. I’m sorry you worked so hard to stay alive only to leave your family drowning in medical debt. I’m sorry I can’t look at your husband’s face without thinking how dumb he is. Something else too—your voice reminded me of a time I’ve worked to forget. By the time I waded through it to get back to you, it was too late.
Into the portal you’d gone. Ready for your reinvention.
#
If you see me first in our next lives, I wonder if you’ll give me a sign? Will you smack your watermelon Bubble Yum and yell girrrrrlllll, what the fuck from across the room in a loud way that would normally embarrass me but won’t embarrass you because you’ve never been embarrassed at your loudness. I have no doubt we’ll recognize each other. Your old body was changed, and I still recognized you then. Even if you shape shift, I’ll clock you.
I hope you’re still funny. I hope you still believe in me. I hope you’ll still hold my broken bits to the light. I hope you’ll forgive me. I hope I can do the same.
You cut your eyes at them. “She holds the bat that way because she’s left-handed, you dumb fucks. She uses big words because she’s smarter than all of you.” Here, you paused and looked around at them. Really looked at each of them. In my imagination, you dragged the bat through the dirt. “You dumb ignorant fucks—you can’t even read. You’re only here because we needed more bodies. Shut the fuck up and play ball.”
The boys stared at their shoes, toeing the dirt with their sneaker tips. Ashamed of themselves. Cowering.
And I was in awe of you.
#
You were my first friend. We went to different schools, which somehow made it better. School would have ruined it for us. You would have gotten popular and left me behind to punch my glasses up my nose and read in the library during lunch. Even after we splintered, you were the best at being my friend for the simple reason that you never once thought I was broken. The parts of me others laughed at were the parts you held to the light in praise: evidence of my greatness.
By the time I got around to telling you how high you set the friendship bar, you were beyond language, already in the portal.
#
This is the part I come back to and replay. How much did you know. I studied faces for signs of emotional volatility and propensity for violence. I assumed everyone did this. You didn’t, though. And you didn’t know a lot, it turns out, because after you learned the truth of my meager home life, you swore up and down you would have protected me. You said you would have been my big sister. I believe you.
I saw what you did to those boys on the baseball field all those years ago. You were ruthless.
#
My mother said you and your family were hicks. Rednecks. That confused me because whenever I went to your house, your mom called me honey and hugged me with both arms so hard that her perfume stayed on my clothes and she made sure I ate up and then ate up some more. Your food confused me; it was things I didn’t get at home. Everything had sugar in it. I was scared to eat in front of people, it made my limbs go tingly and weird, but my hunger overcame the fear. True hunger is pain. My ribs hurt some days. You didn’t understand all this, but you let me eat all the food in your pantry anyway, raiding everything, even handing over the pecan rolls. It was nothing to you because your house was full of laughter, full of sugar. I once ate food with worms in it. I once ate food I found in the trash.
When I swallowed the pecan rolls, I mashed them into my cheeks and gulped them down dry. My mother made fun of the food in your house, but your food fed me when she didn’t.
I was a hungry kid.
#
When you were dying and were baptized in a hot tub, I thought, this is it, I’ve lost her. Of course, I’d already lost you. Your face was a strange color, like putty. You had new friends. New friends who drove you to treatments and posted about you and raised money for you. I looked at those friends on Facebook and they all had Jesus in their posts. I grieved for the old you that was lost somewhere, lost in your weird Jesus talk. You married a man I would have mocked had I ever met him and then would have later felt guilty about mocking, because he was so dumb looking. An easy target. You married a man who posted incoherent political rants on the internet with egregious typos and bizarre capitalizations and repugnant views. You called this man your soulmate and posted hideous photos of the two of you together.
You were that man’s wife and you were also the only one in my memory who defended me. No one defends the girl like me: scabby-kneed, hungry, lost, book-smart only. I didn’t understand most rules, but I knew the one that mattered: I was a social liability; a real loser. Girls befriended me for a time before trading up for shinier girls who understood the web of rules. When I saw you in that hot tub, a final thread between us snapped.
How could you be my savior, my sanctuary, my protector—and believe in a faith and a politics that would cast away others? I could never reconcile that.
I still can’t.
But then again, you were never my savior, not exactly. You were just nice to me when no-one else was and I was such a doormat that I felt I owed you loyalty.
#
In your wood-paneled bedroom with the New Kids on the Block poster, you watched as I tried on words like coochie or skank or bitch. You’d smack your gum and look at me and say, “Do it again. Do it meaner this time.” I understood you were training me to defend myself, for the day you’d have to leave me on my own. We didn’t know that then, how little time you’d have. Well, maybe you did. Maybe you understood that I’d have to toughen up and put on an act. Or maybe that never happened. Maybe I dreamed it. You were the stuff of legend, and I had an overactive imagination.
#
You never once looked at me like other people did. You told me I was the smartest person you’d met, and you meant it. You bragged about me to other people. You said I was destined for something great. I know that’s not quite true, just like I know I wouldn’t have survived without you telling me that. My belief in that statement kept me alive.
I almost died many times, and then I grew up and wrote a book about two girls who grow into women and one of them thinks she is destined for greatness and that belief keeps her safe long enough to live.
#
All the writing I’d published had you reach out. You said the right things, but still I stayed away in your last months. Your gray waxy skin reminded me of death. Your weary, bloated body. Your fuzzy gosling head. If the cancer scared you, the pain gutted you—in horrifyingly exponential ways. I could see it through the screen of my phone. Your skin fell off. Something else, too—your face reminded me of things I didn’t want to remember. My family, that house with the green floorboards, the reverberations of unpleasant memories. All the reminders that root in my chest and that I have excised.
By the time I waded through it to get back to you, it was too late. You’d slipped into the portal. Your husband posted about it on Facebook and my grief was muted because your husband voted for a person who will destroy everything that is good; I stared at your husband’s face and tried to hate him, but I couldn’t because he looked too dumb to hate. Losing you must have been his punishment, I reasoned.
#
In our last text, I told you the truth: You set the bar too high for friendships. You never replied because you’d gone to your Maker. Your maker, not mine. I believe in the afterlife, in rebirth, in continual death and renewal, a perpetual cycle of regrowth. I believe that whatever we don’t resolve in this life we are invited to confront in the next. Your maker believes gay people should die. Apples and oranges.
You tapped the bat into the dirt that day and those boys shook. In my memory, they actually shook. I’ve channeled that energy for many years. At work. Outside of work. People have said they find me intimidating. You taught me well.
#
I’m sorry your imminent death depressed me. I’m sorry the toxic sludge they pumped through you didn’t work. I’m sorry your kids are growing up without a mother. I’m sorry you worked so hard to stay alive only to leave your family drowning in medical debt. I’m sorry I can’t look at your husband’s face without thinking how dumb he is. Something else too—your voice reminded me of a time I’ve worked to forget. By the time I waded through it to get back to you, it was too late.
Into the portal you’d gone. Ready for your reinvention.
#
If you see me first in our next lives, I wonder if you’ll give me a sign? Will you smack your watermelon Bubble Yum and yell girrrrrlllll, what the fuck from across the room in a loud way that would normally embarrass me but won’t embarrass you because you’ve never been embarrassed at your loudness. I have no doubt we’ll recognize each other. Your old body was changed, and I still recognized you then. Even if you shape shift, I’ll clock you.
I hope you’re still funny. I hope you still believe in me. I hope you’ll still hold my broken bits to the light. I hope you’ll forgive me. I hope I can do the same.
Keti Shea is a neurodivergent lawyer and writer based in Northern Colorado. Her writing has been published in Reverie Mag, Swim Press, Oranges Journal, Cosmorama, Inside Voice, Nuthole Publishing, Twenty Bellows, Libre Lit, and Wild Roof Journal. Her CNF piece, “Bad Dick,” which explores social conditioning and rape culture, was a 2024 Best of the Net nominee. She shares more about her publications—which focus on trauma, queer motherhood, and neurodiversity—on Instagram, Bluesky, and Substack @ketishea.
