The passage of time...

Sometimes I think I missed out on the gene that makes me good at relationships.

I mean, the Other Half and me are solid (apart from when I give my mobile number to fellow explorers in the grounds of derelict buildings, but that's another story), I think I do pretty well as a mother to Small Person and I have a couple of strong friendships that I can't imagine doing without (you know who you are). Aside from that, though, it's a bit of a wasteland. I can't bear to be within thirty miles of my mother. If I spend time with my father I (admittedly this isn't helped by the inevitable, liberal application of Irish whiskey) immediately revert to needy teenager. I haven't spoken with the man who brought me up between the ages of two and seventeen (me, not him. That would be weird, and against the laws of physics) for about twelve years.

And friends. What of friends?

Throughout my life I've always talked of my "oldest" friend. We met when we were eleven, in a second-year Science class. United by a sense of dislocation from our peers, we spent our school years in an exclusive club with only two members. We didn't need anyone else. We understood each other - she had been diagnosed with diabetes at the same time that her brother was being treated for cancer and felt sidelined and unloved. I was growing up in an utterly dysfunctional environment; my weekdays marked only by an increasing sense of tension as my parents' weekend skirmishes drew ever nearer. We were both isolated and felt that we were the only ones who could possibly understand each other.

It sounds perfect, doesn't it? Two lonely kids from affluent, yet emotionally deprived backgrounds, helping each other through the day-to-day crap, being exactly what the other needed to keep struggling on.

Except, as with anything, there's another side to it.

I don't know how to articulate this part of it without sounding pathetic, or painting myself as a "victim". I wasn't. I'm not. I just clung onto something I thought was helping me, as it was the only thing in my life that seemed worth hanging onto. But if I look back, realistically it was more emotional abuse, just on a different scale. The times my school work would be flung out of the classroom window as a "joke". The elaborate birthday scenarios - gift after gift, which I was only permitted to open in front of the whole class, each seemingly designed to humiliate and to test my loyalty. I recall sitting in an English lesson one year, covered in flour and water from already opened "presents", opening yet another embarrassing gift and wondering what the hell I was doing there. I remember running away from school the same day - I left the classroom and spent half an hour in the loos, compiling a list of desperate options and listing the pros and cons, before getting a bus home and spending the afternoon despairing over what to do next - even my best friend thought I was a joke. What was left for me?

Looking back, I still don't know if she knew what she was doing. I've always given the benefit of the doubt - after all, we rescued each other, didn't we? But even now the past still rears its head. A few weeks ago my daughter came home from a weekend spent with the Ex and my friend - since he and I split they spend a lot of time together. Mummy, said Small Person, is it true that your nickname at school was "...."*. Who told you that? I asked. The answer was sickening. My friend appeared to have "forgotten" that I had been bullied in the first couple of years at senior school, and had told my daughter the name they had called me, that had haunted me, that she knew had hurt me...as a joke.

At this point I began to re-evaluate things. We'd been through a lot. My marriage breakdown. Her breast cancer, her recovery, her subsequent divorce. I thought we were on an even keel; that somehow, now we were grownups, the relationship had equalised somehow. She spent the summer with the Ex and Small Person and I wondered where I fitted in with that but reconciled it. In the last few months, however, there's been a change. I don't know whether it's her or whether it's me. I haven't seen her since we moved into the new house in March. I get the odd comedy text ("it's national you're a cunt day!! so I'm sending this to you!!") in the middle of the night, but nothing more.

The other morning I checked my phone and saw a text she'd sent me at 1am. "You seem to have given up on me", read the message. Not at all, I texted back. We're busy, that's all. Come and see me next week - I'll cook dinner and we can catch up. I'd come to you, but I have Small Person all week.

That was nearly two weeks ago. On Thursday night I decided maybe I should be the one to assert myself. I sent a text explaining that recently, she only messages me in the middle of the night when I'm not likely to reply. If I reply the next day I never hear back. Is this it then, I asked? Are we done? Talk to me.

Nothing.

That told me, didn't it.

* Clearly, "..." wasn't the name they called me. That would be a shit insult, and even sensitive me might have got over it. It's secret, you see. Durr.