My Best Friend Tried to Kill Me — And I Forgave Her

I still remember the way her hand shook when she poured the tea that day.

It was a small detail. Easy to ignore. But something inside me paused.

Her name was Zara. My best friend since I was 12. We had survived teenage heartbreaks, failed classes, broken homes, and toxic relationships—together. She was my sister in everything but blood.

I never imagined she’d be the one to hurt me.

It started with whispers.

Little lies she’d tell others about me. That I stole her money. That I talked behind her back. I brushed it off. Maybe she was stressed. Maybe it was someone else.

But then my things began disappearing.

My necklace. My journal. My medication.

One day, I found a note in my own handwriting I never wrote. It said: “I can’t trust anyone. Not even Zara. She scares me.”

That was when the fear started.

A few weeks later, I fell violently ill at her house. I thought it was food poisoning. Zara took care of me all night. Made soup. Wiped my forehead. Sat beside me as I shook with fever.

"You’re safe here," she whispered.

But the next morning, I found a text on her phone that wasn’t meant for me.

"She took the tea. This will work better than the pills."

I froze.

The cup I drank last night was still on the table.

I wanted to believe it was a joke. A misunderstanding. But deep down, I knew something had changed in her. There was a darkness in her I hadn’t seen before. Or maybe refused to see.

I left silently that day and went to the doctor. Blood tests showed traces of sleep medication in high doses — not just from that night, but from several weeks before.

She had been slowly drugging me.

When I confronted her, she cried. Not with guilt — but anger.

"You don’t understand!" she yelled. "You had everything. Everyone loved you. I was always second. Always forgotten!"

I couldn’t speak. I was heartbroken. Not because she betrayed me — but because I never saw her pain. Never saw how much she had buried under fake smiles.

She confessed. The jealousy. The urge to make me weaker. To be in control. To be noticed.

She never meant to kill me, she said. She just wanted me to need her.

Still, she nearly did.

I pressed charges.

She was taken in for psychological evaluation. Diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and severe emotional trauma from childhood. She was sent to a treatment center.

Everyone told me I was lucky to survive.

They were right.

But what they didn’t understand was that I also lost a part of myself. The part that trusted freely. That believed love alone could heal someone. That friendship was forever.

Six months later, I received a letter.

It was from Zara.

It said:

“I know I don't deserve forgiveness. But I'm sorry. I wish I had told you how broken I felt instead of trying to break you too. I hope someday you’ll remember me for the good parts, not just the bad.”

I cried reading that.

Because despite everything, I missed her.

And maybe… deep inside… I still loved her.

I never wrote back. But I didn’t tear up the letter either.

I keep it in a box with our old photos. The ones where we’re laughing in school uniforms, eating ice cream, dancing on rooftops.

Those memories were real.

So was the betrayal.

But forgiveness, I learned, isn’t always about letting someone back into your life.

Sometimes it’s about letting go of the anger, so it doesn’t poison what’s left of you.

Today, I don’t carry the fear anymore.

I carry the lesson:

That even the people who love you can hurt you — and that you are still allowed to heal, forgive, and move forward without them.