A real friend is hard to find. Why didn't I think of that? My common sense must have been a little like, under the sole of my foot at the time. I wanted to believe that everyone with whom my path crossed was a friend.

I was thirteen, young, dumb, and full of something other than sense. There was a wonderful person that I had been friends with since grade school. She was white and I black, a year younger than myself, but we got along fine. Her family treated me as one of their own. Then along came the master of disguise, teen of the night. Being the person I was, kind hearted and gentle toward everyone, I gave her a chance at being my friend. She didn't really have any so I felt sorry for her.

Little did I know she had a plan, and I fell for it. Her plan took about a year to unfold. Her objective was to undermine the friendship that I had and have me all to herself. It worked. My best friend for umpteen years called me crying, asking why I was treating her this way, neglecting her. Yes, sad to say I was a traitor. The other girl sat on my side laughing an evil laugh. My heart had become hardened by the encounters with the fake friend, and I left my real friend to be alone without her bestfriend.

A couple of years went by. We hung out. I got to see all of her encounters with the different young men of the town, but my eyes still were blinded. I was still stupid. Looking back I wish someone could have hit me across the head with a light bulb.

The girl started to become a thorn in my family. She even went so far as to seduce my cousin. He couldn't stand her at first. Months went by as I watched her cheat, lie, and manipulate my people. I was so stupid that I didn't even tell my own cousin what she was doing. Then the "change" came. She wanted to give her life over to God. But first she felt the need to tell the people I knew about dirt on me. By this time. I had moved on from being friends with her. My cousin told her not to hang around me any more. Isn't that something? I hung around her and got my good habits spoiled.

Back to the telling on me issue. She felt the need to make up stories about things that were not even true. Some of them were true, but the majority were not. She must have forgotten that she had done so much dirt in front of my eyes when we were close that she should have just kept her mouth closed and let bygones be bygones. The cheating on my cousin, the baby maybe not being his, all came out that day.

My eyes were opened,

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