“We’ll be friends forever,” she told me in kindergarten, with a wide smile and curly blonde hair. And for a while it was true. We were two little girls, happy with life and filled with giggles.

            In third grade she added highlights to her hair, making the already blonde color even whiter. “We’ll be friends forever,” she told me, fixing her hair in the bathroom mirror.

She dyed her hair red in ninth grade and began straightening it every day. Come the following year it was purple, to match the colors of the new school she was transferring to.

“It’s okay,” she would tell me. “We’re still friends. We’ll be friends forever.”

Senior year she was back at my school. “We’ll be friends forever.” She smiled, her hair dyed red again.

She stopped straightening her hair when her parents began fighting. They liked it curly and she liked them happy. The fights were hushed and kept behind closed doors. Until they were public and causing a scene at our high school graduation.

“I’m going to school near my mom,” she told me, dying her hair blonde again. “But it’s okay, we’ll be friends forever.”

It took one month after college started for her to dye her hair black. It took another month after that for her to stop talking to me.

I dyed my hair red on the day of my college graduation. She called me on the phone later that night, for the first time in four years. “We’re still friends!” she gushed.

But she still thought I was a brunette.