A best friend is someone you laugh with. Someone you cry with. Someone you share your most intimate secrets with, knowing they’re safe. Losing a best friend is never easy. It’s hard if they die, of course. But in many ways, it’s even harder if they turn their back and walk away from you. And if your best friend happens to be the sister you love and admire with all your heart, the grief and resentment never fade completely.

I lost my best friend, my older sister, “Kristina,” the summer she turned fifteen. She visited her dad for two months that summer. After that, nothing was ever quite the same. As she stepped off the plane, jealousy seeped from my every pore. She had changed a great deal. I noticed her tall, lean figure; her blond hair; her blue eyes—and what happened to the glasses she had when she left? She had traded them in for contacts, and now she wore makeup. She was really pretty. And I was really aware of it.

I myself was a little bit on the chubby side, with light brown hair and brown eyes. I saw myself as plain. I was twelve, and had little girl crushes on the boys in my grade. Soon, all of my childish days would end. I would force myself to fit in with the same crowd my sister did, and the days of playing with Barbies and My Little Ponies would be over. That night, I snuck down the hall to her room so I could hear about all of her private secrets. The ones she wouldn’t share  …