Pilar and I have just finished our 8-mile jog around the neighborhood. Without showering, armed with carob and water, we plop ourselves down on oversized pillows in front of the T.V. to watch Charlie's Angels.

Carob, because we think it's healthier than regular chocolate, and Charlie's Angels because we think as 1970s teenage girls — it's empowering.

Probably neither of these things is true, but our friendship is one of the truest and most valued things in my life.

Pilar's mother, Louise, and my mom are friends-ish — they're not besties but they're not enemies either. They go to thrift stores, auctions, and garage sales looking for treasure and then have garage sales.

They are the most like friends during the garage sales because they sit in lawn chairs, drinking wine, and getting happily intoxicated.

My mother developed her anti-hoarding/clutter disorder before this time, but I believe the high she got from selling her possessions got the soil ready for the seeds of her compulsion to get rid of things.

I'm grateful for Louise and my mother's association because I don't know if I'd be friends with Pilar if they weren't connected.

Pilar is one year older than me, a cheerleader, and popular. Popularity wasn't anything she courted, it just happened. She's kind, not bitchy, beautiful, and smart.

Her long legs look amazing in her short skirt but she prefers jeans and baseball shirts, her brown hair is in a touseled but chic long shag, and she has full lips that never need an application of Bonnie Bell rootbeer lip smackers.

She breaks every cliché about cheerleaders you have, and although she had a wonderful time in school, I bet she never looks back at it as the best time of her life.

Her boyfriend is also beautiful and kind, but she won't end up marrying him — she'll marry someone who is homely and brilliant.

Being friends with Pilar elevates my status but that's not why I adore her. She educates me about women's rights and encourages me to be the best I can be.

Hence, the eight-mile jogs.

We do all the teenage late 1970s girl stuff — we go to the movies, we go to the mall and buy cords and shirts with hoods (not hoodies yet, shirts with hoods,) at Foxmoor Casuals and Judy's. We lay out and grease our bodies with baby oil, drink Tab, and eat sunflower seeds.

Pilar isn't my best friend — I can't hope for that — but she is a good friend.

One day she handed me a homemade card. Inside she writes how I'm her best woman friend, how smart and funny and evolved I am, and how our friendship will last forever because of how deep it is, and how connected we are.

She signs it with love.

I hugged her a little too hard, hung on a little too long, and tried to wipe away my tears without her catching on.

Pilar has a younger sister, Sissy, and there's no good way to put this except to say, Sissy is a pill.

When she's not whining, she's complaining, and if neither of those two gets her enough attention, she's annoying — sometimes, especially in the car when Louise is driving us to the mall, Sissy is all three at once.

I just did an Internet wellness check, and Sissy appears to be alive and thriving which surprises the hell out of me. If anyone seemed on a path of self-destruction, it was Sissy.

Some people do grow up and change for the better.

Since Pilar loves, loves, loves her baby sis, she assumes everyone does, so no longer is it Pilar and me hanging out, it's now Pilar, me, and Sissy.

Yippee!

I don't have to tell you friendship threesomes rarely work because someone always feels left out.

I shut my mouth, and pretend to enjoy Sissy's company because Pilar's friendship is worth it.

But I can only take so much.

Pilar calls me one night to confirm shopping plans for the next day.

"Sissy is going to come to. Is that okay," Pilar asks.

Here it comes folks, my fatal move.

"Um, Pilar, is it okay, if Sissy doesn't come with us? I kinda don't like her."

Mic drop.

Silence.

"You know what? I remember that I promised to do something with Phil tomorrow. Raincheck, okay?" Pilar says and without giving me time to answer, hangs up.

And those are the last words Pilar ever said to me.

When I called her house, her mom told me she was out, when I wrote her letters, they were returned to me, and when I went to the Good Earth she worked at, making sure to sit in her station, she switched with another waitress.

I was heartbroken. I sent friends to try to talk to her, and while she was perfectly pleasant, she refused to explain to them what I did that was unforgivable.

A few years later, my neighborhood had its first street festival. It's a remarkable day because it's the first time I've eaten a Cheddy brot — sausage with cheese in it, yum, and the last time I see Pilar.

Like in the movie Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Pilar walks from one end of the fair, and I walk from the other, but in this fight, we don't stop in the middle. I start to say something to Pilar, and she looks through me and walks on by.

While I did learn a valuable lesson — Never ever talk smack about someone's relative, even if they're estranged or they talk badly about them, it wasn't worth the pain I felt at losing Pilar.

It destroyed me, and it took years for me to fully trust people.

In the years that followed, nothing will hurt me more than Pilar dumping me as a friend and ghosting me.

She broke my heart and made sure it couldn't be put back together again.

Time heals all wounds, right?

Well, Pilar became a therapist and has a thriving practice in our old neighborhood. I found her email address and sent her an apologetic email and she never responded.

A licensed psychotherapist who you'd think would have some empathy and compassion and be able to forgive a 15-year-old's faux pas all these years later.

Pilar missed the most important message of Charlie's Angels — female friendship isn't always easy but it's worth it.

Thanks so much for reading!!