Kayla Penoli

Kayla Penoli was my best friend, originally my business partner until life happened and she had some things of her own to handle, battling her mental health, unhealthy family dynamic as well as other relationships in her life, we were both young, just trying to find our place in the world. Kayla and I met in kindergarten, we were about 6? I don't entirely remember what age grade school starts but we were each others first friends at Yulupa Elementary in Santa Rosa. We hardly ever separated, we fought and argued a lot along the way but we always found our way back to each other. I've never met someone so much like me, it was like we shared a brain 50% of the time. Kayla faced some of the most challenging things in life at a young age, I would love to type her entire life story on here just to share exactly how tough she fought at such an innocent age but it's not an easy story to tell. Just know she was incredibly resilient, brave and kind even when the world hadn't been so kind to her. In our adult life, we were neighbors at a (terrible) apartment complex in Santa Rosa, she lived above me, our work schedules became busy and we often missed each other but we texted and talked daily even if we didn't physically see each other. The longest we went with out seeing each other was about 2 months when she went on Double Shot at Love on MTV, she couldn't have her phone while filming. She was so excited for this new opportunity, it was so crazy to see my friend, from our small town on MTV. After returning from Arizona from filming, Kayla told me she'd be moving to Oakland, she rented a beautiful penthouse suite in a tall building over looking the city, it was much better than the dump we were living in, I was happy for her but also incredibly sad to see her go, I still remember the day she was packing her haul to go and I wanted to just beg her to stay but what kind of friend would I be to stop her from improving her living circumstances? Not a very good one, so I kept my mouth shut. She loved her apartment, she began dating someone new, all was well. We still talked on the phone and texted every single day, we had a few rough patches and some disagreements but like I said we always remained close, no matter what. This year that she was living away, we spent our first year of birthdays apart, our first of many holidays apart. Thinking back, I wish I made the hour drive to go visit, but here's the thing, her relationship had turned upside down, she was isolated from her social life completely. We argued about this often and it really drove me crazy to see my strong, resilient friend be taken control of like this. Her relationship really drove a huge wedge into our friendship and it really broke my heart. We still texted every day but phone calls were limited, assuming she didn't want him listening. Eventually, unfortunate circumstances landed me in the hospital and the closing of my storefront, the one she was so proud of me for opening, I remember her coming with me to get the keys, she was there for everything she could be there for, from the very beginning, cheering me on and keeping me motivated from the very beginning. I closed my store and moved to Temecula, closer to my mom but farther from Kayla, we hardly ever saw each other anymore, I would still do her hair occasionally but breaking my back really slowed me down. In November of 2022, I told her I was planning to make a trip to Santa Rosa in December to do some of my clients hair and asked her if she wanted an appointment, she told me she wanted to go super blonde, she thenupdated me on how terrible her relationship had gotten and even texted me (now) the most chilling message I've ever received, she stated, "the only way out of this (her relationship) is if one of us dies" I didn't think anything of it at the time because honestly, we'd always text each other dramatic stuff and just add an lol at the end and laugh it off. I told her I was coming up there and I was going to just take her to Santa Rosa with me, she had no choice but she just said that wasn't an option but she'd definitely make her way up there for her hair appointment and I said okay, I begged her to consider coming down to Souther California with me for a bit, just for a break and she said maybe. I went up to Santa Rosa, did my clients hair but Kayla kept rescheduling, this wasn't strange for her to do at all, she was always all over the place deciding if she even wanted to leave the house or not so I understood and I kept rebooking her, it was my very last day in Santa Rosa, December 7th and I hadn't heard from Kayla at all and we hadn't done her hair super blonde like she wanted, I was sending her tiktoks all morning and none of them were delivering. I didn't think too much of it but I was very worried all day. I went on with my day and ran my errands, it was about 6 pm and I was getting ready for dinner with some friends and I realized none of my texts and delivered at all. I became really worried. around 8 or 9 pm I was at dinner at Hooters in Rohnert Park and a girl I'm friends with on instagram messaged me and asked me to call Kayla's mom, given that the girl who messaged me works at a hospital in Santa Rosa, it couldn't have been anything good, I was assuming Kayla had been involved in an accident, my mind was racing. I gave her mom a call and she informed me that Kayla had passed away the night before. My mind went spinning, and every single memory and conversation with my best friend flashed before my eyes. My entire life changed this night, I have never been the same since then. I lost one of the most important people in my life, I felt like I had taken all these years of friendship for granted and I just wanted to re-do all of it and keep her even closer to me and never let her go. A lot of fake news articles claim she lost her life to a car accident but that's not true. I haven't spoke about her cause of death because I don't feel that her case was looked at thoroughly enough, it was ruled a suicide but because of the events that lead up to the end of her life, I have a hard time believing it. In any which case, a beautiful, innocent life was taken from us at only 27 years old, her life was too short and she had so much beautiful potential. I wish as a friend I was there for her more and did more to get her out of the situation she was in. 

everything I do from now forward is for Kayla, my best friend. 

Thank you for always believing in me more than I believed in myself.