I made an awful discovery during my junior year of high school: I had corrupted my best friend. How exactly it happened—the actual reasons for her progression from innocent underclassmen to tainted teenage girl—remains a mystery to me. But the hot shame of knowing I played a part sits uncomfortably on my soul.

Jill and I had gathered together for our Sunday morning ritual. Over fried eggs, biscuits dipped in butter and coffee, Jill and I always reviewed the events of the night before. We spent our Saturday evenings in the company of the seniors from my high school in whoever’s house had been evacuated by out-of-town parents. The parties—always parent-unfriendly—were highly predictable, and we never missed one.

“I blacked out around 1:00, so I’m not really sure what happened, ”Jill gushed to me this morning with a sly smile, “but according to Austin we didn’t have sex.”

Out of Control

—

I wanted to pound my fists into the tabletop. I wanted to shake Jill. I wanted to sweep the dishes off the table and let the plates, silverware and glasses hit the ground.

“This,” I would explain to her calmly, gesturing at the mound of spilled food and chipped porcelain, “This is where your life is going.”

I wanted to look her in the eye and make her listen to me, to make her see things differently. I wanted to lecture her about safer sex, about binge drinking, about how awful this boy really was—how he’s a low life, actually—and how she deserved more than that. Jill was an artist and beautiful, but he didn’t appreciate her.

But instead, I smiled and laughed with her. Jill was a proud, headstrong girl. I was—and still am—afraid of losing her.  The only thing worse than hearing these stories would be not hearing them at all.

Something else stopped me. It’s the knowledge that I had brought her to this end.

Discovering Parties with Beer

Only a year ago, we awoke on Sunday mornings without the sour taste of beer in our mouths and the dizziness of a hangover. One of our parents would fix us breakfast, and we would have returned home before 10 p.m. and settled down to homework. Our weekend nights involved baking cookies, watching movies or doing makeovers. At our most mischievous, we might catch an eight o’clock movie, then sneak over to the Hilton Hotel and ride the elevators up and down, getting out at the top to press our noses against the glass window of the 20^th floor, or prowl through the hallways of the guest rooms to knock on doors and run.

“These are teenage pranks,” I told myself.” In the tradition of 15-year-olds everywhere, we’re sowing our wild oats.”

The spring of sophomore year, however, I discovered parties with beer. This was new, risqué and charged with electric sexual tension.  Going alone was intimidating.  These people were my friends, but only sort of.  I invited Jill along for comfort. She was my safety blanket in this big, bad world of leering teenage boys and back-stabbing older girls.

At first, we discussed other people’s scandals. Then, suddenly, Jill’s scandals were the main topic of conversation. Her hook-ups became more frequent and more scandalous every week. From kissing Mike upstairs in Janie’s father’s bedroom, she progressed to blowing Patrick in his father’s master bath. She went from being my sidekick to my problem.

I watched Jill’s downward spiral each step of the way, but kept my mouth shut except to laugh with her at her outrageous exploits and invite her to the next Saturday-night party.

Could I have stopped her? Maybe, maybe not. But the real question—the one that haunts me—is, “Why didn’t I try?” Was I hoping she’d make mistakes so I could learn from them? Was I hoping to look better in comparison?

Not only did I introduce Jill to the raunchy party-world, but I did little to remove her from it. I told myself that I was afraid of losing her—of pushing her away with my criticism—but in fact, I’d lost her anyway. This new Jill—the one who did drugs and sketchy boys—wasn’t the friend I once had. I realized that, unfortunately, neither was I.

A year ago, I would never have considered anything but looking out for Jill’s well-being. Now, I have abandoned my dearest friend, as well as my ideals.

A best friend isn’t necessarily the one who’s the most fun, who organizes strip poker or can drink beer for 30 seconds straight. A true best friend experiences the joys and the sorrows with you. A true best friend stays with you through life’s failures and successes. Best friends need to correct one another, to keep each other in line, to be there the morning after to learn from events.