later is greater? or not...

so because some couldn't get online over the holiday, the current flash fiction friday deadline was extended to noon (cst) today. i was actually done by the regular deadline, but since i had an extra day, figured i'd wait and see if anything else came to me. and this is my last chance to post before noon, and it hasn't happened.
i don't dislike my entry this week, i'm just not sure it's ready yet, and i'm not sure how i feel about how much it seems influenced by my working on the children's hour (which i'll finally say something about this week)- but time's up...
big-up jj for being the man with the plan:

“They should make people take a test before they...”
“before they what?”
she cut me off, challenging me, daring me to say to her what she’d heard me say about so many others, and i had to admit to myself that she had a right to angry. but i’d never thought it’d be her, either.
i stopped and rewound my thoughts. was i friends with somebody i believed that about? who was the hypocrite here?
“how dare you judge me? and what do you know about it? you know what, you’re such a fucking snob – you sit there and look down your nose at everybody – nobody’s as smart as you, reads such good books as you, listens to such good music as you. but you don’t know shit about this. you’ve never done this and you never will. because you can’t. so you can take your opinion and shove it!”
she left me standing there, guiltily.
i had no right to judge her, but aren’t friends supposed to tell each other the truth?
i was only trying to offer an opinion, and somehow it ended in my saying – for all intents and purposes – that the person i’d been making catty comments with for so many years, was now one of those i made comments about. that wasn’t supposed to happen…
years of friendship.
years of confidences, crises, commenting on the stupid people we were somehow surrounded by…when did she become one of them?
had she become one of them?
she was the one who promised nothing would change. i knew things would, but she insisted – she’d still be the same person, so how could things change? she’d be a little more busy, that’s all.
but as soon as she came home, i could tell she wasn’t the same.
she tried to say it was me viewing her differently, but it was her. i was just reacting to the new person i was faced with – not that i saw her right away – she was busy with family and whatever else she was busy with, and i was just a friend on the phone. she was too tired. i should come by next week. she needed a few days to catch herself and adjust.
i complied – i’m her friend. i want what’s best for her, and she said she needed a few days. so i gave her a week. the longest we'd gone without seeing each other in years.
when i saw her again she was somebody else. somebody else with somebody else. somebody i didn’t know anymore, who didn’t really need me anymore. she had a different support system. and everybody changed with her – the only thing they had to say to me now was to ask when it’d be my turn. and when she heard that, she’d smile and tell them i wasn’t interested in babies. and they’d encourage me, saying it’d change my life, and she’d just keep smiling up at me then back at her new life – she knew i couldn’t.
i wasn’t the one who changed.
and then she had the nerve to come to me complaining about the difficulties of parenting, expecting sympathy. we never spared anybody else; was i supposed to spare her? i told her what i thought.
and now apparently we weren’t friends anymore.

walk good.