I wish I could tell you this is going to be a happy story. I wish I could tell you I did the right thing.  I wish I could tell you I didn't kill my friend. But I can't, because that would all be a lie.

Alexis and I were what I guess you would call the dream duo.  Became friends from a very young age because our parents took us to church together. Clicked almost instantly. I was the quiet one who tended to hide away, happy to just watch. Alexis? She was a blooming flower even at a young age. She just had this way about her that drew people to her.

Yeah, I know. This sounds like some super cliche, impossible thing. But it happened. Alexis was this light that wouldn't stop shining.

I could go on and on about how great she was.  About how kind and caring she was at such a young age.  You might even notice her problem if I talked too much. But I'll focus on one aspect - the reason she always understood me in a way nobody else did.

I said before how we met at church. Not only did Alexis just get me, but she somehow always knew what I needed to hear. Like God was whispering to her the verses that would make me smile and feel better. We were middle schoolers when this started to be a real big part of our relationship. She was a moral, Godly support. She even helped me through a hard time when my grandpa died.

To tell the truth, I didn't feel like I deserved her.  She was too amazing. Maybe I never really did.  Maybe that's why it all happened...

I think I started to notice it in high school. Alexis had always been my best friend, so when I was upset she started hanging out with a... not so good crowd, I convinced myself that it was just because I was jealous. I was used to hogging Alexis. It was wrong of me to want her to myself. Others deserved the amazing friend that she was.

It was also around this time that she began to fall a bit out of church. Not to the point she never came. But once a month or so, she just wouldn't come. She would claim she was sick or something when not long after she'd feel completely better. Okay, I would think. Maybe she just had a lot of homework and slept bad.  Maybe even she really was just somehow catching a bug around Sundays.

Tenth grade year, she started dating a guy from that not so great crowd. I found out he was the reason she'd started hanging with them to begin with. Alexis had formed a crush on him early on.  He'd been dating some girl before or something, but apparently he'd always had a bit of feelings for Alexis.

I didn't like it.  Alexis started hanging out with me even less.  I tried to think that was the only reason I didn't want her dating the guy.  I wanted to think that the sick feeling he gave me deep down was just because of jealousy. So I did.  After trying so hard to make myself blind, it worked. Probably why I didn't see the growing problems until too late.

They didn't show up at home life. No - only at school. At home? She acted mostly like the Alexis I knew and loved. Even went to church mostly consistently. Could still answer questions about the bible as fast as the snap of the fingers.

At school, though, the signs showed.  I would hang out with her and her "friends" now that she was around them so often. This one girl always had the habit of insulting other girls. Whispering about how ugly she thought they were or how pathetic they were. Things that were outright cruel. She didn't do it as much when Alexis had first started hanging out with them. But once, Alexis agreed with the girl, and it snowballed from there. The girl started voicing her opinions more freely, and Alexis started to agree more and more.

Such a tiny thing, right?

She was losing her grip on loving others, and I didn't even see it. Just thought maybe we were stating facts. It felt wrong to me, but if it was Alexis doing it, it just had to be okay.

Then the cursing started. It was just an angry slip every once in a while. I couldn't have been able to tell that was a sign, right? Please tell me I'm right...

It started getting worse and worse. All she started to see was the bad in others. Words left her mouth that would have made her faint only a couple years before.  She started dressing and acting different. Really short, tight clothes. Not because she liked them. Not because she was too warm. But because her boyfriend just loved how she looked in them.

And those two during school? A teacher actually had to ask them to separate once. I don't want to think of what was going on outside of school.

It wasn't until she came to school drunk that I finally couldn't take it.  I couldn't stay blind anymore. Alexis, my friend, was gone. Left in her place was this popular kid that was molded by the worst sort of popular.

I asked her what was going on. I asked her where the Alexis I loved was.  I asked her if maybe we should talk to her parents about whatever was going on.  If she had something in her life she needed me to pray about?

Her response?

"Mind your own business."

I wasn't in charge of her life.  I didn't get to decide things for her.  She was happy with her current life. She was feeling better now than she ever had in some dumb old church building.

I can't say if I believed her.  Looking back now, I remember seeing pain in her eyes, but I think at the time, she had both of us convinced her words were true.

Regardless, I did exactly what she wanted. I minded my own business. I cut her out of my life. Sure, I saw her faking at church, but I stopped caring. I never told her parents of the mess she had become. To tell the truth, I can't remember the last time I prayed for Alexis. But after she hurt me? I can't say there wasn't a part of my heart that hoped she would get justice for how she was acting.

A year later, she died in a car crash.

I can't say how bad it got. Perhaps I'm as ashamed by that as I am by everything else. Over the next year, I had cut her off so much I didn't even know what kind of person she had become. But I did know she never became my Alexis again.

Her parents didn't know how bad things were. I remember everyone going up to them at the viewing and assuring them that Alexis was in a better place.

I had to leave. I couldn't stand there and listen to people talking about the great Christian Alexis was when I knew. When I had seen her fall. When I had left her to drown in her own dark place. Maybe the people were right. But I had no way of saying they were. Not after the "light" I had seen her shine.

She was my best friend. I was the only one seeing her falling. And what did I do?

I minded my own business.