Friend Who Lived with Kamala Harris to Escape Abuse Recalls Her ‘Natural Protective Instincts’ (Exclusive)

Kamala Harris’ high school best friend is reflecting on how the now-vice president “changed the whole trajectory of my future” and gave her a place to stay when she was in need.

Wanda Kagan, who attended Westmount High School in Montreal with Harris before graduating in 1981, befriended the current presidential candidate when they were young teenagers. The pair would “spend a lot of time together” in school, participate in various activities and even went as a group to prom with other friends — which she says was Harris’ idea after not all of their friends had dates lined up.

One day, as Kagan recalls to PEOPLE, Harris noticed “I wasn’t being myself.”

“She finally, one day out and out, asked me what was wrong. I had finally decided to confide in her and tell her that I was being physically and sexually abused at home by my stepfather,” Kagan tells PEOPLE. “And it was difficult… She was like, ‘Well, you’re just going to have to come and stay with us.'”

“First, she wanted to know how long I had been going through that. I was like, ‘Are you sure your mom’s going to be OK with this?’ And she said, ‘I’m sure.’ She then called her mom [Shyamala Gopalan], and then her mom said, ‘Yes, she can come home. She can come and stay with us,’ ” Kagan says. “And I went home with them— actually, that day; came straight from school.”

As Kagan shares, Harris opened her doors for her during the pair’s senior year of high school in 1981 when she and her mom “welcomed” her into their family. She stayed with Harris for a few months during their final year in school together, which Kagan says offered her a “sense of security” during a difficult time.

By that point, Kagan had faced abuse for “a few years” and it was getting “worse.” Part of the abuse, she says, also meant she “didn’t get to eat,” something that Harris also appeared to pick up on when Kagan would show up to lunch empty handed.

“[Kamala] always had these great lunches and I’d say, ‘Oh, your lunches are so good.’ And so she just, I guess, picked up on it,” Kagan says. “She started going, ‘Oh, I made you this today. I bought this sandwich today.’ And so she started bringing lunch for me.”

That kindness is instinctual to Harris, Kagan says. She calls the Democratic presidential candidate an “empathetic person” with “natural protective instincts.”

Harris, too, shared their story on X (formerly Twitter) back in October, when she revealed that helping her friend was “one of the reasons I wanted to become a prosecutor.” The vice president told Kagan the same when the pair reconnected years later.

They had lost touch some time after Harris left for Howard University in the ’80s, Kagan — who by 2005, had a family and a successful career in the healthcare industry — says a mutual friend called her that year to inform her Harris was featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, while serving as District Attorney for San Francisco.

Kagan was “totally shocked,” located contact information for Harris’ office and left a message, before her daughter came to her to inform her that her “friend from Oprah” was calling.

“I remember picking up the phone and it’s like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe you called me back. You must have a million people calling you,’ ” Kagan recounts to PEOPLE of their first conversation after 20 years. “And then she said to me, ‘Well, you’re not just anyone.’ “

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“I still sometimes can’t believe it,” Kagan remarks of their phone call, noting that their catch-up felt as though “time stood still.”

“She proceeded to tell me how much I affected her life and what she had become,” says Kagan. I was like, ‘Whoa, I am trying to find you to thank you for intervening at the most pivotal point in my life, and you’re thanking me for giving you clarity to the direction that you wanted to go into for your future and fighting for women and children who’ve been abused!’ ”

The two reminisced about all that had happened in the years since, Harris telling Kagan she pursued the legal field “‘because of what I went through with you; with helping you and advocating for you.’ ”

“‘It changed something inside of me,’ ” Kagan recalls Harris telling her.

Reconnecting with her high school friend reminded Kagan that Harris “truly is the same person.”

“[Kamala’s] always been this fighter.. who fights for what she believes in,” Kagan says. “And when she said it to me at the time. It wasn’t just like I’m picturing her as a lawyer running, setting up these different units and protective for kids and women and children of sexual abuse. But it really brought me back to that time.”

“She didn’t just say, ‘Oh, come stay with me and let’s all go to the movies and let’s do this, let’s do that’… She really advocated for me,” Kagan notes. “And she has such a powerful voice.”

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.