Friendship breakups usually come with a clear expectation: Move on. Replace your former friend with someone newer—“better”—and build a happy, thriving life that no longer includes them.
But what if this isn’t the ending you want? What if, years after a fallout, the impulse isn’t to move on, but to go back?
As much as we talk about platonic breakups, we talk far less about reconciliation—especially when it isn’t easy, neat, or even guaranteed. Repairing an old friendship (one that perhaps ended badly) demands a particular kind of vulnerability: revisiting old memories, swallowing your pride, taking accountability, and accepting the discomfort of not knowing whether your effort will be reciprocated. And yet, in some cases, that difficult work is exactly what reopens a door that once felt firmly shut—after petty drama, a major betrayal, or a slow-burning rift.
That was the case for podcaster and creator Cameron Rogers and Jessica Nash. Once inseparable college best friends, the two stopped speaking entirely after what Nash considered a “betrayal.” Their lives, once deeply intertwined, split suddenly, and for three years, there was no contact.
Today, however, they’re not just on speaking terms. They’re back to being best friends—a relationship that not only survived what once felt like a definitive ending, but deepened because of it. In their own words, Rogers and Nash reflect on what it took to recover from a fallout—and the complicated, uneasy work of choosing to try again.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Cameron: We met in college in 2010. I know exactly where—in the bathroom, right before I rushed our sorority. Jess is a year older than me. She was a junior, and I was a sophomore at the time, and she later ended up becoming my big.
Jess: Once you joined, we became instant. I used to sleep in your dorm. I was at your 21st birthday at your parents’ house. Even if we were on a college break, we were still together. So our breakup felt big.
Cameron: It seems short, but we were super close for a year and a half. And then Jess kind of stopped talking to me. It was over sorority drama, pretty much.
