“The Friend Who Wasn’t”

“Some thieves steal your trust, not your stuff.”

I didn’t have many friends growing up. Most people kept their distance, and I told myself I was fine with that. But when you’ve been lonely for long enough, you start to mistake proximity for connection. You start to believe that anyone who sticks around must be a real friend. That’s what I thought with her. She laughed at my jokes. She sat next to me at lunch. She shared her secrets, and I shared mine. I thought we understood each other in a way other people didn’t.

And then one day, something went missing. Not something huge — not the kind of thing that would make headlines — but something that mattered to me. When I asked her about it, she lied. Looked me straight in the face and told me she didn’t know what I was talking about. My gut told me otherwise. It wasn’t just the loss of the thing itself. It was the way she made me feel crazy for even bringing it up. Like my memory couldn’t be trusted. Like my feelings didn’t matter. And in that moment, I realized this wasn’t just about a stolen object.

It was about the way I’d opened my heart, let her in, and believed — even for a second — that I was safe with her. That she’d protect that trust. But she didn’t. She took something small and broke something big. After that, I learned to pull my trust closer to my chest. To second-guess kindness. To build walls so high, even the people who truly cared had to climb until their hands bled just to reach me.

I wish I could say I’m over it — that I look back and laugh, or that I’ve forgiven her completely. But the truth is, some betrayals don’t fade. They become a scar you carry, invisible to everyone else but obvious to you.

Because some thieves don’t just steal your stuff.

They steal your belief that people can be different.