There we are walking Théo, the elderly cocker spaniel, on New Year’s Eve. I try too hard to find something witty, interesting, and seemingly spontaneous to say. Only bland remarks about the drunk and raucously joyful people taking a night stroll slip out of my lips. Andrea is complaining about New Years, claiming that it’s all about celebrating and having fun, but that every year it’s the same. Lame. By now, we are sipping champagne from beautiful crystal glasses, gazing out onto the dimly lit street where we had strolled a few minutes ago. The parents have their eyes fixed on watches and phone clocks, debating whether to start the countdown, then announcing to us that it’s 2012. We all do la bise – two brisk kisses on the cheek— and clink the wondrously light glasses together, creating brittle melodies.

Ever since the first time she lingered to my garden gate, we had been friends. Andrea and I climbed our favorite tree to wavering heights and had long conversations, picking away at the crisp bark and plucking the pine prickles. Sometimes, we would simply read up there; we gave the tree a complicated name that she still remembered several years later. Andrea and I had impromptu sleepovers, when one of us would run over to our own house and grab a toothbrush and pajamas before returning to the other’s. I cut her hair with my right hand (I’m a lefty, which I sheepishly admitted after), leaving it uneven and shorter than expected, with one long strand left, as she had asked me to. We camped out in our townhouse complex’s park, eating Reese’s preciously brought back from the United States and chatting until late at night. We painted Easter eggs, made Brazilian bracelets, and sewed clothing. I could barely imagine what I had done in my spare time before we met.

But two years later she moved back. France wasn’t right for her; she missed Austria, her school, and her friends too much. I don’t remember crying, but it took me several months to adjust to not having one of my dearest friends around the corner. Her parents stayed in the house, like relics reminding me of our friendship. Every time she visited France, I felt what was initially as wide as a crack slowly become a gap between us. Her personality was changing, she was becoming more sure of herself, overly sure of herself. She was living at friends’ houses, winning national speech competitions, attending an artistic school, having a boyfriend, whereas I was stuck in France, with my parents and living an utterly, despairingly normal life. Then, she was accepted at an exclusive boarding school in Wales two years ago. I asked my parents if I could go, too. They refused.

Andrea’s parents eventually moved to a glorious apartment near Parc Monceau. Their deserted house stood mournfully with the navy blue shutters closed, where flowerbeds along the sills once were. On evening walks with my parents, we would peer towards the house, thinking about Andrea, Marie, Thomas, and Théo, their surprisingly old cocker spaniel.

Andrea has cut all contact with people she used to know in France, except for me. We see each other every now and again, when she comes back to visit her parents. Andrea is horrible about keeping in contact, so after a while I gave up writing to her. Simply finding conversation topics has become invisibly strenuous; my mom once asked me with a strange look in her eyes if we still connected like we used to. I reassured her, not admitting to her nor myself that Andrea had changed, and that maybe I had, too.

After a couple glasses of champagne and more collective chattering with the parents, we get into pajamas and sprawl on Andrea’s bed. She has a book about hypnosis that a friend lent to her. We learn the basics, talk, and test our new knowledge until dawn. She claims that I almost hypnotized her! Through all the fun, a melancholy sinks in. The closeness and secrets told before drifting into sleep are all an illusion; next time I’ll see her, we’ll again feel like strangers who used to know each other.