She saves money, I spend it. She wears classic clothes in dark colours, I wear things that show off my tattoo. She is married, I don't stay with a guy longer than six months. She gets up at sunrise to make breakfast for her kids, I go to bed at that time after another night on the dance floor. But in high school, we were almost identical.

On the rare occasions that one of us was spotted alone, she got, "Where's your other half?" I got, "Where's your shadow?" We dressed alike often, even when we didn't call each other in the morning. We dated brothers, best friends, we lost our virginity the same day, both got our first periods eleven days after our 13th birthdays.

What binds us now, though, is much deeper than any of that.

The experiences of teenaged girls are brushed off by forgetful adults as petty and inconsequential, but our friendship reminds us, though we rarely speak of such things now, that they are far from it.

Old secrets still bind us, and the things we shared, from whispered, giggled, girlish secrets to adolescent crimes to boyfriends to betrayals: things that if they don't tear a friendship apart can only fuse it more firmly together.

Like the time our close friend, her ex-boyfriend, raped me. I didn't report it, of course. Who would have believed me and I didn't want it to change my life (though I know now of course it did in some way anyway). She was the only person I could tell and she understood that too, just like she understood how I didn't know how to fight back hard enough when suddenly toking, teasing and tickling went too far and when it was over I was so confused, so lonely I sought comfort in the arms of my very attacker.

She supported me by understanding, and of course by ending her friendship with him.

A decade and a half later we are both women, changed and molded by experiences, wonderful and terrible, we don't even remember. While we came out of our experiences differently, we shared so many. Even the ones we didn't share in body we shared in spirit, in conversation, laughter and tears.

She is much more conservative now, and settled and truly happy, but while some people accuse me and my crazy lifestyle of searching, of not being fulfilled, when I say I am happy too and I mean it she is the one who believes me, because she is the one who knows me.