There was something so Sweet Valley High about the whole incident. A brief encounter that was either supposed to intimidate me or inspire some sort of jealousy—neither of which was felt. There she was my former best friend, climbing over salon chairs, tables, hair dryers, her beige patent leather (I suspect Jessica Simpson) heels clacking away on the linoleum, and her cobalt blue (Victoria’s Secrets perhaps?) wrap dress swaying against her perfect frame. Beautiful as always with her perfectly petite figure and gorgeous thick black hair cascading around her chiseled features, but gone must be the days of Jimmy Choo and Dior, gone also is the dignity and class she once possessed. “Bye Thomas,” she shouts at my colorist as she walks out of a side door that no one uses (a deliberate gesture so she would have to cross in front of me). Not that I expected a “hello,” but it seemed  beneath her formerly regal stature to, at 30-something years old, make a scene that leaves the group of people around me asking, “Are we back in high school?”

I had to laugh, though I couldn’t match the volume of the giggling hyena behind the Glamazon. In tattered jeans, straggly hair, a belly tank, and flip flops, she looked lost behind my former friend—like the little fat girl trying to vie for a spot at the cool kids lunch table. Did she thinking laughing as she walked by me would make me all of sudden feel like less of a person?

What it did instead was replace the nostalgic and lovely memories I had revolving around my former friendship with a bit of sympathy and shock. I’ve reconciled my mistakes and have made my apologies and tried to make amends with those that are open to it; but I certainly won’t stoop to that sort of behavior—the kind that is equivalent to prank calls, writing on bathroom walls, and spreading juicy rumors—not like she. It’s a lot of fun, I know, but it just leaves you feeling dirty and lonely, especially when the entire truth comes out. When the little girl you’ve been bullying reveals some sort of tragic story that you didn’t guess, or the leader of your little pack winds up being a liar, and you’re suddenly in an empty room without any real meaning to your life…or maybe, you just ignore those things because it’s easier, because the damage is done…and maybe you just wind up sailing along, with no one to really call a friend.

I don’t know what happens to those adults that never grew out of that awkward inadequacy you feel in High School—the kind that makes you mean. In a fair world they wind up married to a man that are more interested in porn than real intimacy, or maybe they wind up in some small local job using a quarter of their talent, perhaps its tagging along with the very people you used to make fun of because you have no one left…but it doesn’t really matter if people get what they deserve, because even though I barely recognized the petty woman she had clearly become, I do miss my friend…

And it’s times like this where, for her sake, I sure hope that life isn’t fair.