The Companion 012: How do you break up with your best friend?

It's one of the most confronting experiences you can have.

This week on The Companion we’re joined by our second guest, my friend and Skin Deep colleague, the playwright Nkenna Akunna. Like many of us, she’s had a dear friendship take a sour turn and has turned to creativity to make sense of some of those feelings. Nkenna truly writes with starshine at her fingertips. This is a special one, so please do read on, and buy tickets to her play, cheeky little brown, a coming-of-age story that examines a friendship between two Black women, on at the Bristol Old Vic now!

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When I was 17, I fell out with my best friend over some very stupid shit. We’d been inseparable since we were three, a fearless twosome no teacher dared to get on the wrong side of. One drunken night and a lot left unsaid ended it all. Hindsight is etc etc, but knowing now what we didn’t know about ourselves then — the ways we were responding to shifting contexts around us, the limited tools we had to do so — it’s clear we didn’t really stand a chance. 

Five years later at 22, I had my first romantic break-up. I say 22; the breakup was more like 22 to 25. Longer than the relationship, for goodness sake. It wasn’t only my first true romance, it was my first queer one. It was strong and beautiful and stifling. We became necessary cocoons from each other, living in a time and town that was hostile at best, and violent at worst. That relationship defined so much of my new sense of self that letting go of it drove me crazy. Literally. It was the year of ANTI and best believe Rih stayed on repeat.

Though in very different ways, both of these relationships taught me how crucial companionship is in my life. My friends are my first loves, and if I love you romantically, you quite instantly become my best friend, too. But what does it mean to have a best friend? Having and being a vessel for one’s complete self? Celebrating loudly and quietly holding to account? Acceptance?

And what about when acceptance looks like silence? Sometimes the ones we love the most are the hardest to be honest with. When the patterns between you become rigid and fixed, change can feel like disruption. Rather than bring about a new shape to relationship norms, it can cause things to just… break.

And so I wrote a solo show called cheeky little brown about friendship breakups. Endings are hard, but there’s something uniquely devastating about losing a friend. I wanted to explore the mess of feelings inside of this, and what it might look like to process them out loud and — hopefully — come out on the other side. 

When I started writing cheeky little brown, I’d recently moved to a new city and had my own flat for the first time. It was also mid-2020, and I hadn’t shared space with anyone for a few months. The newness in my personal life and the outer world ushered in a very specific kind of isolation, one that made it near impossible to avoid the questions around relationships lingering in my subconscious. I kept thinking about endings, about living in what you could’ve only imagined as alternate realities. 

Writing this play made the hard thing clear: it’s not just who you lose, it’s what the space they left forces you to confront internally. Nobody wants to see the worst in themselves, but there’s nothing like your closest friend turning their back to amplify just that. Sometimes losing a friend is for the best, and sometimes letting go of each other is the only way bad habits and boundaries can die. The hope, then, is that you can see the rough and soft of who you are, understand why, and have some grace about it all.

Me and my childhood best friend got back in touch last year. We are still terrible when we’re together, and I thank God for that. Sometimes you and your friend can, eventually, be a space for each other again. But other times not. And that’s okay, too. 

If you can, go and watch my play. It won’t give you all the answers, but I think it’ll feel familiar. If you can, face the hard thing. Look at it, scream inside of it, let it change you. I promise you’ll be better for it.

cheeky little brown is playing at the Bristol Old Vic from 21 September 2023 to 14 October 2023. Tickets start from £8.

The show is going on tour until 3 November 2023. It will be staged at The Lowry Manchester 20-21 Oct, Belgrade Theatre 24 - 28 Oct and Derby Theatre until 30 Oct - 3 November.

Nkenna Akunna: ‘What seems important is being seen to have friends’

Nkenna Akunna

What’s the best thing you’ve read, listened to or watched on friendship recently?

I watched the 1995 crime film La Cérémonie recently. I don’t think it depicts the healthiest friendship per se, but it really shows how one’s environment is just as much a part of the equation in a friendship as the two people themselves. It also relishes in that spiral that happens sometimes, of affirmation leading to bad behaviour. Though pushed to extremes in the film, I love seeing a bit of shadow behaviour on screen. It’s honest. 

Who is a friend you appreciate at this moment and why?

One of my best friends is an actor called Issy. We’ve known each other since we were 16 and have been through a hell of a lot together. She teaches me so much about showing up as your full self, having boundaries, and what being in true community can look like. That’s my sister. Let’s pray no breakups are on the horizon. 

And finally, how do think the culture of friendship is changing in this moment?

It’s hard to say. I think conflicting things are happening simultaneously. On one end we recognise how important it is to have real friends, on the other what seems important is being seen to have friends. When a culture is so atomised, trust can be hard to foster and friendships can feel transactional. It can be even harder to ask difficult questions so instead we reach for definitive action. It’s easier to cut someone out of your life than to work through things. 

At the same time, I also think more and more of us are aware on an intellectual level that romantic relationships alone cannot sustain you. My friends and I chat about buying a commune together all the time. It’s just a pipe dream — who’s got commune money — but the sentiment is one that recognises the village above the nuclear unit. And that feels good to me.

Follow Nkenna’s work here!