In hindsight, it’s often easy to see the moment when a friendship ends. The time of death can be placed pretty precisely in retrospect.

The image I had for the year I was hoping a cherished friendship was not dead was me carrying the corpse of a relationship I was desperately believing was not actually dead.

I realized just the other day that a more accurate image, in light of how relentlessly this heavy cadaver fought me to the death every time I tried to make peace, is that I was carrying a zombie who kept trying to bite me. Lovingly toting around a biting zombie. Try getting your brain around that.

Bad enough to be naive enough to carry the dead body of a beloved in hopes that maybe they’re not dead. But how much worse to carry a zombie that is actively trying to bite you the entire time?