Tulum is known for its cenotes: permanent cavities in limestone caused mostly by gradual rock dissolutions. Slow erosion chips away at the subsurface bedrock until there is no longer enough support. It creates a hollow etch exposing natural pools of water underneath. Sometimes, though, an abrupt collapse of a surface layer does in seconds what can otherwise take centuries.

Jessica chose Tulum as the location for her bachelorette weekend, shortly after her boyfriend Scott proposed. I had never heard of it before. A quick Google image search of “Tulum” revealed a woody paradise with palm trees fanning rocky caves. I imagined piling into the plane with my four best friends from college, neck pillows and sweatshirts in tow, traveling cheap like old times. Like when we used to go on beach vacations at Jessica’s summer house in Maine and camping trips in South Carolina. With most members of the group scattered across different U.S. cities now, it was special whenever we got together again in one place.

But this year I destroyed my relationships with them. My best friends, my support system—the girls I lived with and called my sisters for seven years—severed ties with me. The world I created with them collapsed in one swift motion, like a cenote giving in.

Friendship breakups are a complicated, nuanced thing. There were several disputes leading up to mine. The drama usually started with me. I struggled with undiagnosed bipolar disorder, which intensified my relationships, making them difficult to maintain. I made selfish, impulsive choices in response to conflict, both real and perceived. I apologized when my moods shifted back to normal. But my apologies came off performative when I repeated patterns, etching scars.

Because I took my friends for granted, I assumed they’d forgive me without digesting the impact these incidents had on them. Veronica, my closest friend, and I fell out frequently during the last two years of our friendship. I was extremely competitive with her for our friends’ affection, especially after they moved away. This was in part because we were the only ones who stayed behind in the same city. She still felt like my best friend, but our arguments went from bickering to venomous. We acted like we moved on, but we never forgot.

The catalyst for our breakup was Eliana’s birthday group chat in November. We were planning what to bring to her party, until I criticized something harmless Veronica said. I misunderstood her intention and I was brutal about it. I refused to apologize for weeks, due to my maimed ego. The rest of the girls sided with her and began phasing me out of their lives.

I stewed in isolation until I reached a boiling point. That day, I retaliated by posting a malicious Instagram story. I photoshopped a fake conversation between myself and Veronica’s ex Diego, implying I sent him a scandalous photo. I knew I was about to cross a major line I wouldn’t come back from, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t thinking about repercussions. I was thinking of revenge. If they were going to turn on me, then I might as well set it on fire on my way out.

My phone blew up with angry texts, rightfully so, until it fell silent forever. I deleted the story, but it was too late. They dropped me. It took me a long time to acknowledge I deserved it. But it was harder for me to accept there was no going back.

Six months later, I was in bed scrolling through my phone, watching their girls trip in Tulum unfold over Instagram. They were dressed in colorful bikinis, their wet hair tied into messy buns. They floated in the dewy blue-green pools of Tulum’s infamous cenotes, arms spread wide and relaxed. Lazy smiles pasted on their tanned faces.

Jessica’s caption read: “The luckiest person to have an entire kingdom of women that makes me laugh so hard I go hoarse and can’t even thank them without crying because they’re too incredible to put into words. Thank you for being the most amazing humans this planet has to offer and for all getting on planes to eat our weight in tacos.”

Her words stung, solidifying they were moving on without me. I wondered if they noticed that I was missing, a Sophia-shaped, shadowy carcass of a former best friend invisible in the group shot. Erased from new memories, and probably in their hearts, too.

***

In college, my friends and I liked to talk about how we were such an arbitrary group of people to end up there. I know it sounds very “pick me,” but St. Mary’s was homogeneously white, sporty, science-y and localized. People like us—creative, diverse, first-generation or third culture and eclectic—tended to choose big east coast city universities, like NYU. We each had our own stories for how we fell in love with this rural waterfront school in southern Maryland.

We met freshman year living in Queen Anne, also called “Three Floors of Whores,” because it was the only all-girls dorm on campus. We thought it was funny because we were virgins at the time except for quiet Veronica, surprisingly. It was like a sorority. I lived on the first floor, the rest were upstairs. I met them while wandering the building orientation day. They were playing cards in Jessica’s room with the door open and I invited myself to join. The rest was history.

Now, let me tell you a little bit about them.

Jessica was a spunky designer who grew up attending boarding schools in Paraguay, Ecuador and Wales. She invested deeply in her friendships, which she cultivated like a plant. She moved around her whole life, cycling through countries and making friends in every new place she called home. Jessica was highly observant. She surprised us with little gifts that addressed things we never paid attention to about ourselves. She and I expressed our sensitive sides to each other. We loved Tumblr poetry, indie music and moody films with cliffhanger endings. But you could tell she thought of herself as the leader. I could feel the imbalance whenever we fought.

Eliana was an outspoken Chilean-American social worker driven to help the underserved. Guided by a strict moral compass, she lived the way she believed, even if it meant going against the social current. She was direct and abrasive with her advice, mostly about guys and dating, rarely softening the edges of hard truths I needed to hear. I called it tough love. Her heart seemed to be in the right place, but we disagreed on how we viewed things.

Maeve was a curly-haired Irish-American teacher from Philadelphia with a knack for math and logic, an intellectual who was as silly as she was brilliant. We were roommates senior year and she never complained about me smoking weed in our room, as long as I blew smoke out the window. She often advocated for me, making me feel seen when everyone else didn’t always align. She was the most compassionate, but I understand it might not have been easy for her.

Then there was Veronica, the daughter of Portuguese immigrants. A private but impenetrable force of a person. She’s passive, but not someone you want to mess with. She was a division III swimmer and global educator who mothered those closest to her, never asking for much in return. She was loyal to a fault, biting her tongue the times I lashed out at her. We used to stay up until 4am in the Queen Anne common room talking about everything you could imagine. Then it turned into a codependency. Veronica stuck by my side until she couldn’t anymore.

As for me, I was a biracial, bipolar writer coming from the only divorced family in the group. I was a late bloomer compared to them. Naive and sheltered, I spoke without much of a filter. I was a chameleon with my identity who anchored myself to the solid female friendships I was forming. I was the one with crazy hookup stories and other wild card experiences that made them laugh until they realized how sad it made me feel. They never failed to remind me how much they loved me. How much they forgave me.

Coming from mixed backgrounds and finding ourselves at this small liberal arts school most people haven’t heard of, my friends felt like a miracle. I never had a friend group before. I was more of a loner with two or three friends from separate walks of life. I didn’t know how much fun it was to share inside jokes among a group, where everyone played some part in each other’s collective memories. How nice it was to have a built-in guest list for your birthday party and an extra set of parents you could borrow any time. Their families became my families. Their homes, a seat at their kitchen table, felt like mine, too.

We were raw and (most of the time) unproblematic with one another. We called each other out when it was necessary. We breezed in and out of each other’s closets, feeling closer to whoever owned the dress we borrowed that day. We took shrooms in the school gardens and laughed until we cried and slid white flowers in our hair.

As we switched majors and broke hearts and changed our minds, the one thing that remained constant was us. Jessica’s fun ideas. Eliana’s determination to save the world. Maeve’s loud laugh. Veronica’s punchy one-liners. Of course, I saw them at their worst, too. But the more we settled into our post-grad lives, the closer we grew as friends. The physical distance meant we were constantly messaging each other. We knew the names of each other’s new friends in our respective cities. We hopped on buses and planes to visit any chance we could.

One time during the spring semester of junior year, we sat on our rooftop drinking Blue Moons, trying to figure out the common denominator we shared besides similar vibes. Veronica pointed out we all had brothers (except Maeve, an only child). None of us had any sisters. Maybe that’s why we connected so hard, like a family. We became the sisters we'd wanted growing up.

Losing the sisterly bond twisted the knife in my gut as I reluctantly returned to my loner state once again. It was quieter than I remembered.

The further time went on without them in my life, the more it sunk in that these girls weren’t my people anymore. I was starting to feel disconnected from my entire college experience. I would most likely never go to an alumni event again. Over time, I reached out to the girls through emails and texts attempting to reconcile. I was met with unanimous rejection.

The loss felt heavier than I could have anticipated. This heartbreak was not acute, sharp pain. It was numbing and agonizing, drawn out like when you slowly remove a bandaid and your skin peels inch-by-inch from the stickiness. I tried not to dwell on my mistakes, except in therapy when unlearning unhealthy parts of my behavior. But it didn’t take away how alone in the world I felt without them. I was anchorless now, barely floating with nowhere to go.

***

The same summer my college friends went to Tulum, I met a blonde girl named Virginia at a nightclub. This was part of my agenda to make new friends while moving on with my life.

Virginia lived in a white bungalow with a wraparound porch in the DC suburbs that she shared with two other roommates. During the week, her home was a designated spot for intimate gatherings swathed in blankets, white wine and gossip. On weekends, it transformed into a party house abundant with blue solo cups, DJs and girls in identical black crop tops. Already, Virginia and her house music friends were providing me with a sense of community.

I was recently there with our other friend Genevieve, where we took turns sharing our unhinged travel stories. Sitting in the middle of Virginia’s living room, legs crossed with a joint dangling between my fingers, I was slightly dizzy from the ciders we were drinking, giggling freely, shoulders relaxed. Taking in everyone around me, my heart burst with gratitude. I felt lucky to have met them at a time I needed it most. Here, I could start over with a blank slate.

I didn’t ruminate on Maeve, Eliana, Jessica and Veronica as often anymore, not consciously at least. But when someone suggested playing Kings, my mind drifted to the unkempt apartment I shared with them. The girls who first taught me how to play the game.

I lost my friends because I chose violence at a moment I was consumed with powerlessness. We built up copious amounts of resentment until we had enough. I was their toxic friend just as much as they became that for me. They loved to hold my past up against me like a mirror. That wasn’t always a bad thing, but when they weaponized it over and over, I felt hopeless.

Our history clouded my new friendships. With Virginia and Genevieve, I practiced thinking before speaking. I wasn’t close enough to have any real conflict with them, but I did laser focus on avoiding certain mistakes that cost me last time. I stopped shoving every problem in their faces anytime something went wrong, demanding to be solved because I wanted someone to save me from my mental anguish. Jessica and Eliana complained about that many times near the end.

I was learning how to walk without my old friends as a crutch, but my movements felt wobbly. When I missed Virginia’s birthday party because I was too tired to go, my body seized up, anxious I would lose her in the same way I lost my college friends—over something small that would later catastrophize into chaos.

I cried the next morning when I saw Virginia hadn’t replied to my cancellation text, despite knowing she was out drinking the night before. I wasn’t thinking rationally. She later texted back saying it was okay. Don’t sweat it. Take care of yourself first, the message read. I exhaled. This was a new beginning for me. These were the second chances I gained with my new friends as I ran out of them with my old friends.

I may not sit with those girls in one of our bedrooms ever again, legs draped over each other’s laps talking candidly about the night before. I would never go on another vacation with them. A part of me kept holding out hope that one day, maybe years from now, Veronica or any one of them would text me, their names popping up on my notifications panel, sliding back to the top of my inbox where they once resided for so long. But their silence spoke volumes.

***

I found out from Facebook that Jessica’s wedding took place in Maine on a field with yurt-like tents and string lights. It looked like the fairytale bohemian wedding she always dreamed of, the kind we used to stay up late talking about during sleepovers. I clicked through photos of teary-eyed family members hugging, paired above emoji-laden captions surfacing what seemed to be an indescribable feeling of warmth. Jessica and Scott beaming, their joined hands raised high in the air at the altar. The rest of the girls with braided hair, wearing different colored floral dresses. They looked like a garden. I noticed the corners of their eyes crinkling from so much smiling. This was joy. They were really happy. And so, I knew I needed to let them go.

I think of it this way: when a cenote caves in, the structures break down, becoming something unrecognizable as to what it once resembled. But sometimes, the pools of water that are created after, are beautiful enough to swim in.