When you spend an elongated period of time with someone you grow with them, you get to see this person evolve and change right in front of your eyes. Your relationship with them gets stronger each day just from having small conversations and those small conversations turn into longer deeper lectures, where you don’t just know who they are, you know them and their life.

     In just a few days my best friend, junior Evie Heinlein, and I will be celebrating five whole years of being friends. Now, that can either be a very long time for some but for others that is just a small portion of life, for me five years is almost one-third of my life. 

     So, Evie and I have been with each other for a good amount of our lives. And in those five years, we have gone through numerous life or death situations (maybe that’s a little dramatic but you understand). So naturally, Evie and I talk a lot about our past experiences, one experience that we remember vividly is the ibuprofen story.

      It started out a nice late-summer morning, tryouts for fall sports were still going on because school hadn’t even started yet. I was at cross-country, Evie was at soccer, and our old friend was trying out for volleyball. All three of us were super close, and we were planning to hang out later that day. 

     The day was going pretty okay, besides starting out my day by running. Fast forward to after practice, the three of us all gather in my father’s car as I remember and take off to hang at my house. We were all working very hard that day so we were a little sore, but that can be easily fixed with ibuprofen… right?

     Well, my dad gave us the medicine and went on his way because a few freshmen surely should be trustworthy, it’s a simple medicine, nothing could go wrong. Well, we all take the recommended amount, and Evie and I are fine, yes a little sore still, the Ibuprofen helped. Well for our friend, she wanted to take more. Immediately Evie and I questioned why. We took the dose and know you shouldn’t take more than the “warning: do not exceed six tablets in 24 hrs,” so why would this girl want more. 

     Not thinking of it much after a slight “no I don’t think it’s a good idea if you take more.” 30ish minutes later our friend starts complaining, her stomach hurts, her head hurts, she doesn’t feel good. Earlier, we had been messing around and dropped some of the tablets on the floor, we picked them up and put them aside to be thrown away. If you haven’t already put two and two together, our supposed best friend went behind our back after telling her no, took even more ibuprofen, and lied about it. 

     Three freshmen freaking out because one of us isn’t mature enough to be trusted with a simple ibuprofen bottle and some water. Our old friend reported that her mouth was “foaming” and she felt really bad. I didn’t know what to do, I’m not a freaking medical professional, I was 14 for Christ’s sake! And Evie… she is even more clueless than I am. 

     After some thinking and talking we decided that it was time to call the ambulance, no one else was home besides my brother and he was about 19 so I dragged him up to help us. Actually, I made him do all the work, but I was scared, give me a break. The Ambo gets here with a police officer and Evie and I look at each other knowing this is no one’s fault besides our friend’s. We get questioned, our friend gets checked up, and everything is actually fine… all of that and she was fine. 

     Now clearly, our old friend cannot be trusted, and no that wasn’t the only time she almost died from lying to us. In the end, what has happened, has happened, and Evie and I can’t destroy those memories, we just know that we stuck through it together. Through the lying and manipulation of our old friend, Evie and I stayed friends, and I couldn’t thank her more. Happy five years of friendship, bestie.