Liz continued to give me the silent treatment. Clearly something was bothering her. Something she was again afraid to tell me, so I knew she was mulling over it on her own. Finally, the one day when Clark hadn’t gotten out before she got home, she texted me demanding to know when I was home because she was unbelievably angry.
I was angry the entire day after that. She got off hours before me and refused to tell me what she was so “unbelievably angry” about. I started thinking of reasons. Clark was over too often, she didn’t want him over at all. I left shit on the table when she needed to use it. The house was a mess and I guess it was my fault. I talked aloud about all these things on my way home, making arguments for each of them and getting angrier and angrier. She wasn’t going to be home for another hour, at least, so I had plenty of time to let the anger fester.
When she finally did get home, she didn’t look at me for a while. I didn’t push it. Clearly whatever she was worried about she thought I’d be angry about, probably rightfully so. She did eventually walk over to me and, surprisingly calm, told me what was going on.
“I want Clark to take over my half of the rent.”
This took me by surprise. What the hell was she going to do? Also, how does she think he’ll be able to? He doesn’t have enough extra cash just lying around to deal with the apartment price. And he didn’t love me. I put that part aside. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to set up appointments to look at apartments I can afford.” She said. She looked like she was going to cry again.
“Can I make a suggestion?” I asked. She seemed to roll her eyes, but waved me ahead. “How about you wait until your sister has a free room and move in with her? Her roommate is leaving at the end of the year, you could help her out for the rest of her lease, and it’s less than our lease, you could save up some money before moving into your own apartment.” She wouldn’t last in her own apartment. She doesn’t like being alone. She’d go crazy. She’d hurt herself.
I zoned out for the rest of the night to think about her decision. She was just going to leave, like everyone else left me. Was a really worried about her being by herself? I liked to think I was worried about her well-being, but she’d been distancing herself for months now, so I wasn’t sure if I cared. I said I cared. I tried to care. But she was leaving me too. Clark wouldn’t move in with me, he had his own problems and he wasn’t ready. All of which I confirmed when he came over to pick up his stuff that night. It made me sad. I was truly, completely, utterly… alone.
This stuck with me throughout the next day. It was frustrating. She didn’t want to try to figure out a compromise with me, she was just ready to give up and leave me with an apartment I can’t afford. She didn’t care if it caused me to go bankrupt, to have to move back into my parents, to feel alone. She didn’t care what happened to me, as long as she was happy.
These thoughts rolled through my mind all day and I was still upset when I got home. I was sitting at the table, ready to work on my projects, when Liz asked “Are you okay?”
Am I okay? Really? That’s the kind of question she asks after the shit she’s putting me through? She doesn’t give a fuck about me, how dare she ask me if I’m okay. “No,” I tell her, angry. “My only friend is leaving me with an apartment I can’t afford. Clark can’t move in with me and I don’t have anyone else in the state that I can ask to help!” She doesn’t respond, and refuses to look at me. “I’m a little upset, okay? Is that alright with you? Am I allowed to be upset that I’m being left again?” She still doesn’t answer after a few more minutes, so I leave the table and shut myself in my room.
She only cares about herself. I have spent years trying to help her deal with life and she’s only focused on herself. She doesn’t like me having a boyfriend, so she’s just going to fuck off and leave me with a mistake we’d both made. I can’t stand her. Her entitled, self-centered attitude pisses me off. Heaven forbid I have someone else in my life.
I sit in my room and think about it some more. Okay, so she hasn’t been comfortable with Clark being around when she’s not expecting it. I guess I can understand that. I could have told her more often, but it felt like it would get annoying after a while, so I didn’t tell her if she wasn’t going to be affected. I hadn’t realized that just his shoes being in the apartment would make her feel uncomfortable. That part didn’t make sense to me. Clark had never done anything to her. She was always the hostile one, he was always trying to include her. If anything, he should have been uncomfortable being here with her, since she was always so snappy and mean.
Maybe she didn’t realize what she was saying to me. I could make a compromise. Have Clark over once a week while she was here, maybe. Let her know every time. If I just talk to her. Tell her that I can’t have the apartment alone, tell her what she’s doing to me, we can work it out. I can compromise for a few more months.
I walk back out to the living room and sit at my desk. I’d been texting Clark while I was thinking, and he told me I needed to talk to her or he would come by and talk to her. And he wouldn’t be nice. I told him that wouldn’t help, we needed to figure it out on our own, and promised to take care of it. When I get out to the living room, though, she doesn’t look at me, so I sit down in her field of view and wait until she was comfortable enough to turn to me, then we can talk.
It only takes about ten minutes before she turns to me. I take a deep breath before returning the gaze. “I am a little upset,” I tell her, much more calmly and carefully. “I’m being left with an apartment I can’t afford and Clark can’t move in with me. I don’t have anyone else here that I can move in with or who can help me with the rent for the rest of the lease, and breaking it will be bad for both of us, not that we could afford it.”
“If I help you with breaking it, can you move in with Clark then?” She asks. This is good, she’s talking calmly, logically.
“I don’t know,” I told her honestly. Clark had said emotionally he wasn’t ready to live together. As upsetting as it was, I didn’t want to push him. I’d done that enough already. I look at the lease though, maybe Liz helping me break it would be okay, Clark and I could move into a small apartment for a while until we saved up some money and he paid some bills, then move into a bigger apartment more comfortably. The lease says two month’s rent is due if we break it, though. Fuck. “Two months is due if we break the lease, and at that we may as well keep the apartment.” I mean this as in, if you’re willing to help with a couple month’s rent I could just stay here then and deal with the last couple months on my own. She took it differently.
“I can’t stay here anymore! The stress is making me sick physically! Can’t you understand that I don’t like being here with you two?!” She’s crying. Damn it.
“Yes, I understand. But think about this from my point of view,” I tell her. Did I tell her about my compromise? Yea, of course I did.
“I went to my parents every weekend to get away from you,” she tells me. Wow, that hurts. “When you were gone with him, I treasured that time. I was happy.” She… treasured the time I didn’t see her? I thought she was mad that I wasn’t spending enough time with her. I don’t understand where this is going. I was trying to compromise, damn it!
“But you’re leaving me with something I can’t afford,” I tell her, getting angrier the more she yells at me. “I don’t have family or friends that I can just pop in with for six months!”
“And why do you think that is?!” She yells at me. Because my family moved to Florida and I don’t make friends easily? What the hell is she getting at? “Everything you tell me about your mom, that’s exactly what you do to me.” … what? “You’re manipulative and abusive, and you push everyone away from you.” I don’t… “Why do you think Carla doesn’t talk to you anymore? Why do you think I’m trying to leave? It’s because of you!” …Carla… thinks that…? It was me? But I was trying to help… I was trying to help you… She was… and you were so upset… I just wanted to help.
She’s still yelling at me, but I’m not picking anything up. I thought Carla was mad at me for telling her she was selfish. I hadn’t been trying to push people away, I just wanted to help them. …Was that why my family didn’t speak to me? Am I alone because of me? When did that happen? Why didn’t I notice? I didn’t remember pushing my family away. I didn’t think I was pushing Liz away. I was trying to keep her as a friend, have her be friends with Clark so I’d never have to choose between them. I was making friends with Clark’s friends, and it seemed to be going pretty well. But… did they secretly hate me too…? Did I really do this to myself?
“Why didn’t you leave before?” I finally ask. I don’t know if she’d stopped yelling at me or not, but I didn’t care. Why was she still here?
“I thought I could fix you,” she says. What? Fix me? I had some problems, sure, but I didn’t think they affected her so much she thought she could fix me. Did she think I was not emotional enough? That I wasn’t religious enough? It’s better to be able to think about things logically, so you can understand what the other side is saying, so I’d never choose to be as emotional as Liz was. And I didn’t believe in her vengeful, hateful God. If I was supposed to think everyone was going to hell for some vice they had, I wouldn’t do it. That’s no way to live.
“You don’t believe me,” Liz says to me. I focus on her again and realize I’d been staring at her while tears fell out of my eyes. I guess I looked like I thought she was lying to me.
I can’t look at her anymore. “It’s not that I don’t believe you,” I said quietly. I lock my computer and put the lease away.
“I was hoping we’d still be friends if we got some space,” she said. Maybe she realized that what she said hurt me more than anything she’d ever said to me before.
“I don’t think so,” I told her honestly. Not after this. She seemed shocked. “This was a good talk.” I couldn’t resist being a little sarcastic, even with water running down my face. Liz could go to hell for all I cared right now.
I locked myself in my room. I couldn’t speak to her again tonight. I sat in the far corner of my room, took out my phone, and called my dad. I needed the one person who always listened to me, no matter what was going on. Who always understood and made me feel better. I needed my dad.
He listened. Just like he always did. He told me everything I needed to hear. He didn’t lie to me about being manipulative. I learned it from the best, he said. He and mom were always manipulative. I laughed, even though it still hurt. At least I had a reason. At least Dad would stand by me even if no one else would. I needed to change that part of me, sure, but at least he’d still be here.
As I talked to me dad, I heard Liz sobbing loudly to someone on her phone. I didn’t care who she was talking to. She probably regretted what she’d said, just like I’d done with Carla. At least what I’d said was to help someone else. I… should apologize to Carla though. Even if she never spoke to me again, never forgave me, and never even read what I said, I wanted her to know that I regretted how mean I was to her. She hadn’t deserved it, especially since Liz never appreciated it in the first place and seemed happy I wasn’t talking to her friend anymore. I’d tell Carla I was sorry through a text and let her decide in her own time to read it. If she wanted me to explain she could let me know. But it was time for me to stop letting my pride get in the way.
I did apologize to Carla the next day. I sent her a text in the morning, telling her I was in the wrong for being so mean. I didn’t know everyone thought I was manipulative and a bitch. I hadn’t known I was in the wrong for trying to help. We talked. I think we can get somewhere back to being friends sometime. I don’t want to push it. Liz and I can’t be friends anymore. Now that I know what she thinks of me, I can’t look at her. But I want to fix things I’d done to other people. Let them know that I realize now that I was wrong.
I couldn’t help anyone. Not the way I want. I need to stop being friends with people thinking I can help them. I needed to be friends with people I could just accept.
I still don’t know where I became the villain, but I’m starting to think that, maybe, I always was. I always thought I was helping, but I was only ever hurting other people.
Clark and I had started having problems. I was so happy with him, but he started talk to me less also. He wouldn’t answer texts for hours, which I tried to attribute to his sleeping late and working odd hours. But he would be uninterested in everything I say when I spoke to him on the phone. Sometimes he’d go a couple days without speaking to me, which started to make me feel like he no longer wanted to be around me. He’d told me he loved me first, so this was confusing.
He asked me one night where I thought we were going. I was honest. “I can see a future with you. Moving in together, travelling, buying a new mattress from NFM with you,” I chuckled when I said this, both of us knowing how awful we are at shopping together. He didn’t laugh though and I felt my heart break. “What about you?” I asked, knowing I wouldn’t like the answer.
“I don’t know,” he responded. I tried not to cry. Of course he didn’t. He didn’t actually love me. Why would he? What reason could he have? I’m annoying. I’m a bitch. I’m the worst thing that ever happened to him. I didn’t mean anything to him and I’d deserved it. Tears welled in my eyes, but I kept my breathing and voice steady even as water trickled down.
“What do you want to do now?” I ran over every mistake I’d ever made in our short relationship. I said the wrong things at the wrong time, I made him feel bad around his friends, I dragged him to stuff he didn’t want to go to, and I talked too much.
“I don’t want to give up on us,” he told me. My tears didn’t stop. He just felt sorry for me. “I still care about you, but I don’t know… I just feel off lately and I’m not sure I’m ready for a relationship like this.”
He didn’t love me. This is the one thing that stuck out. No one could love me. I was a pain in the ass. “I see,” I told him. My voice was too high, don’t let him know it hurts. “Okay, I can stick around until you’re sure.” He’ll be sure he doesn’t want me.
“No matter what though, I want you to be part of my life,” he said quickly. Damn, he could tell I was crying. “All my friends like you and I still want to be friends.” Such a cliché statement. I hate this. I hate me. I’m pathetic.
“Yea, absolutely,” I told him. He wouldn’t know. But he did. He squeezed me harder.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He sounded sincere. Like this hurt. He just felt sorry for me. But I let myself believe he did care and I let go. I cried, hard. I hate when I cry. I’m ugly, pathetic, needy. But he held me and patted my back and I let it all go.
We promised to keep going how things were, but we weren’t going to move forward at all. He needed to figure things out. I knew how it would eventually end, but I let it play out. We stuck together. After a couple months, he said he’d still move in with me when the lease was up. If we were stuck together he’d fall for me again, he was sure of it. I hoped it was true, but I knew he’d find someone else. He didn’t love me. And he didn’t have a reason to.
Liz and Carla had some issues during this time. Liz was feeling depressed, probably undiagnosed depression that she didn’t feel comfortable admitting, and didn’t seem like she wanted to talk to me about it. Carla, after moving in with her parents and settling in, was finding it hard to find a therapist in her area, but she did seem to be doing better. Unfortunately, Carla wasn’t better enough to deal with Liz giving her wishy-washy attitude about wanting to talk about how she was feeling. Liz was always very noncommittal about many things, her opinions, her religion, her feelings, and kind of flowed back and forth between things for weeks before deciding something. This was something we’d had an issue between us for years, but she never seemed to understand what I was angry about each time I brought it up.
I spoke to Carla about it just once, but that was enough. Carla told me that Liz was feeling down and it was really bringing Carla down, to the point where she didn’t want to talk to Liz and was feeling sick on her own. This didn’t feel right, so I asked if Liz had asked her to talk about it. The answer was “kind of”.
In reality, Liz had told Carla that she wants to talk but she “didn’t want to bother Carla with her problems” to which Carla… didn’t respond. She just stopped talking to her about it. I understood, mostly. Liz was annoying when she was like this. “I feel bad, I want to say something, but I don’t want to bring it up in case you try to one-up me,” was the general feeling Liz had about things. Still, she had problems and she should feel free to talk about them with her friends.
Carla did have a problem with “one-upping” people. If someone said they had a problem, Carla brought up her own problems. It didn’t get to me very much, and I never thought she did it on purpose, but I realized I should have said something when I first saw it as a problem, rather than let it continue. I don’t think she ever even realized she did it.
I told her off. Liz was her friend. Carla shouldn’t put her own problems above her friends, especially since Liz was always there for her. I was mean, more mean that I’d expected or wanted to be. I felt bad after I sent it, but it was too late, I’d sent it. Everything I’d said was true, but I’d given her an ultimatum that I hadn’t needed to: fix your attitude to stop talking to Liz and me. Carla responded well to a thought-out, logical argument, and I’d made my statement emotional and angry. It was wrong.
Carla took some time away from everyone. Eventually, she and Liz started talking more, but she didn’t speak to me again. I had too much pride to apologize first-She was being a dick!-but deep down I knew I wasn’t totally in the right. I was also being a dick. But I just wanted to help Liz.
Winter came, the three of us were still okay. Of course there were arguments, silly little things that didn’t mean much to me, I’m sure I said something that annoyed them, but they both seemed to let it all go. During the winter, though, Carla started getting quiet. Liz and I had started making plans. We planned to get a cat, we planned vacations, we planned on buying things, and Carla didn’t say anything. I started to wonder, after she’d mentioned a few times about not being able to find a good therapist where we were, if that meant she was going to be leaving us soon. I didn’t say anything to her, choosing to let her figure it out on her own. Everyone likes to surprise others with news anyway, I may as well let her surprise us.
One day, when we were dog-sitting for my dad while he visited family, she told us what she was thinking. “I think I’m going to move back in with my parents,” she told us. I thought for a minute quietly about that as she continued to explain her reasoning. I found that I was alright with it. I’d miss her, but I knew she needed to do something to help with her mental things. Liz and I weren’t enough, and I was surprisingly okay with it.
And I told her that. “Okay,” I said, nodding. She seemed relieved when I said that, as if that was all she needed. I didn’t need to help Carla. Only Liz needed constant help, from what I could see. Carla could take care of herself, and she knew I was here if she needed to talk to me. At least, I hoped she knew that.
After Carla told us her problem, it seemed like a lot of energy was devoted to getting her ready to move. Packing, stacking her stuff, moving it all into one room, her transferring her job, and so on. During this time I found a boyfriend, Clark. He was a good guy, someone I’d dated briefly in high school and who I’d never really gotten over. We hit it off, I spent a lot of time at his apartment, we went on dates, and I met his friends. Time seemed to go quickly and the only time Carla was able to meet Clark was the same day she was moving out. I felt bad, I’d wanted to show everyone how happy I was with Clark, how calm he made me, and I’d put it off until Carla was already leaving. It was upsetting.
Everything seemed okay for a while. Liz and I went to another concert, had a blast even though the hotel was shitty, we’d gone out of town for my birthday, and we seemed to get along pretty well. I started bringing Clark over to the apartment more and more in an attempt to get the two to be friends, preventing the seemingly inevitable choice of best friend or boyfriend.
During this time, I’d left Liz alone. I was a bit upset by it, since she’d always seemed to cling to me, but I knew she’d need to get used to it at some point. Then Clark had to move out of his apartment.
I wanted to offer him to move into mine and Liz’s and I talk to Liz about it. She didn’t react negatively, but did say she needed to think about it. I left her to it for a couple days, then asked her about it again.
“So, how do you feel about Clark moving in? It’d be easier on our wallets, for sure,” I said while we watched TV.
She didn’t look at me, but let out a little laugh. Then she got up to cook dinner. That… wasn’t an answer. At all. Oh well, she probably just needs a little more time to think about it. Meanwhile, Clark moved into his parent’s house, deciding to try to save some money up before moving somewhere new.
Another week went by and I finally got tired of waiting. “What is wrong with Clark moving in?” I asked Liz, in a tone I’d hoped told her I wasn’t going to let her get out without giving me an answer. I think I was pretty mean sounding though, because she almost immediately started crying and yelling at me.
“I’m not comfortable with it!” She yelled at me, only barely looking at me. “And I didn’t want to tell you because you were forcing me to be okay with it! I didn’t want to make you mad!”
Oh my fucking God. Seriously? You tell me now? All I feel now about this is rage. She led me on for so long pretending like it’d be okay and now she tells me she’s not cool with it?! I don’t say any of this for a moment, letting the anger wash over and through me. I make an attempt to control it.
“Couldn’t you have told me a little earlier? Instead of leading me on like this?” I ask her as calmly as I can. Clearly not calm enough because she cries some more.
“You always get so angry with me. And it felt like you’d already made the decision without me, so it seemed silly for me to even give my opinion,” she wailed.
You. Live. Here. Too. You make half the decisions that go on in this apartment! I’m trying to make this easier on us, I’m just trying to help. And you bottle this shit up inside and refuse to tell me, the other half of this party who will be affected by this situation, that you’re not cool with it?
“I get angry with you because you do stuff like this,” I told her. I’m sure she can hear that I’m pissed because she looks scared now. “You keep this inside and don’t let me know anything, especially if it’s something that’s going to affect me!”
“I’m sorry!” She cries. As if that helps this situation at all. She never gave me reason not to plan with Clark and now I have to tell him that, surprise surprise, Liz isn’t cool with it. I don’t remember what happens next, I’m just furious.
The next couple days though, we do talk calmly about what she’s feeling. At first she tells me it’s a sin to live with someone you aren’t related or married to, which feels like a slap in the face. I ask her if that means she thinks I’m going to hell.
“In my opinion, yes,” she says. The fuck? Did she really just tell me I’m going to hell? Fuck her!
Whatever, move past it. “I thought Jesus died for our sins so we wouldn’t go to hell.” That’s not moving past it.
This does strike her for a moment, then she responds, almost unsure. “Well, yes… but that doesn’t mean we should try to live in sin!”
Nope, she hesitated. I’ve got her now. “What’s the real reason?” I ask her seriously.
This pisses her off though, it seems. “Why is it so easy for you to write off my religion?!” She shouts at me. At least there aren’t tears yet.
“Because it took you two weeks to tell me that’s the reason,” I told her easily. She seems confused, so I continue. “If it was just because the bible is against it then you would have said that at the beginning. You sat and thought about it for a few weeks and gave me a weak reason. What’s really going on?”
“Am I that easy to read?” She asks, chuckling. Like a kindergarten picture book. “I guess… It’s because I don’t feel comfortable with myself, so I don’t feel right showing my body off to some random guy.”
You shouldn’t be ‘showing your body off’ to my boyfriend anyway. “Fine. That’s a good reason. I’ll let him know that we’ll just have to put off moving in together until our lease is up. Is it okay if he still comes over?” She nods hesitantly. “What?”
“I don’t feel comfortable with him here if I’m here alone,” she tells me. I can deal with that.
“Okay, I’ll only have him over when I’m here. Who knows, maybe you two will become friends and you’ll eventually be cool with him living here.” She shrugs. It’s a possibility, I’m not going to write it off yet.
Except that she then refuses to try to be friends with him. She doesn’t want to play games with us, she doesn’t want to go to game night with us, she won’t even talk to him politely. Anything he asks she just glares at him and snaps, like he’d just told her to fuck off. And he’s never mean to her, she’s just hostile the second he walks in the door.
I kept my promise and kept Clark away from the apartment when I wasn’t there, even as I started giving up trying to make them be friends. Liz was hostile towards Clark every time she saw him, stayed away during the weekends to stay with her family, and started speaking to me less and less too.
Liz did get home, before the five minutes was up, and we got her some water. I was still pissed, but Liz looked sorry. She had had a long time to think about what she had a problem with.
She cried again as she told us what was wrong. I hate the tears. She looks weak. But she was okay, that was good. We could leave her alone with the walking for a few days. She felt left out, Carla and I seemed to get along so easily. I told her, again, we were inviting her because we wanted to share it with her. She never listens, it seems. She said she understood, that she was sorry she lost it and didn’t tell us, we said we were sorry for making her feel left out. Time went on.
Carla and I dealt with Liz not wanting to join us most days as easily as we could. We’d ask questions, not push too hard, change schedules so Liz could join us in new things. The three of us got along well, and we decided to go see a concert together.
The way up was great, we had fun on the drive, even though we were going to drive for two days. We stopped by some cool places on the way there, had fun, talked a lot and the concert was everything we had ever hoped for and more.
The way back… wasn’t so great. I was in the back seat while Carla drove and Liz sat in the passenger seat. They started talking about Carla driving to meet some online friends for a convention. I thought it’d be cool, but I wasn’t going to suggest that Liz and I go too-
“I want to come with you,” Liz told Carla. What? Alone?
“I’d like for you to come with me,” Carla responded. Neither looked at me. They’d forgotten I was there. I started asking myself why. Why didn’t they want me to come too? Why am I not invited? Am I not their friend anymore? I knew it was selfish. Liz doesn’t think things through, she was too emotional for that. She was speaking from her feelings, not her head. But Carla? She always seemed like she had been on our sides evenly. Always making sure to include is equally if we wanted to be. And now she’d forgotten about me too? Did I really mean so little?
I tried to tell myself that I was being silly, but I was hurt. Neither seemed to remember I was in the car. They talked about plans to go to the convention, just the two of them, for another twenty minutes as I tried to ignore them. We stopped for gas and I silently took my place in the passenger seat, still trying to ignore them.
My job as the passenger seat was to talk to keep the driver awake. I was angry and stayed silent, stuck in my thoughts, and was failing my job. What was wrong with me? Liz realized after a bit that I wasn’t speaking. “What’s up?”
“Am I not allowed to join you two on your trip to the convention?” I asked them. They seemed confused. “I mean, I’m the one who got you both into this type of music, and yet neither of you wanted to invite me to this convention you seem to be planning to go to.” I wanted to hurt them, to make them feel like I felt. “We wouldn’t even be on this trip right now if it wasn’t for me, and Carla wouldn’t have these friends she was going to see.” This was all true, of course. Liz wouldn’t have dared to listen to this type of music before I played it in my car and she fell in love with it. And Liz brought it to Carla, of course acting like she’d been a fan of it longer than anyone she knew. Liar.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” Liz tried to say while Carla stayed quiet. I think Carla understood where I was coming from, even though acting like this made me sick.
“It seemed like you’d forgotten about me completely,” I snorted, not wanting to look at her. I knew she’d be crying soon. I hated the tears.
“It’s not that we’d forgotten you,” Liz said, her voice watery. Here they are. “We were just talking about stuff, of course if Carla is okay with you coming you’re welcome to, I wasn’t trying to keep you out of it.”
I stayed silent, still angry. How could she forget about the things I’d done for her? I introduced her to this stuff. I was the one who’d started all this! And she just makes plans without me, even though I’m sitting in the car?!
“I’d like for you both to come,” Carla spoke up from the back seat. “I’m sorry, I was going to invite both of you.”
I don’t remember what I said. I was still angry. But I said something that moved us past it and we kept driving.
This went on fine, except that Liz was never ready to walk. She never had the motivation just to move her legs around the block, which made me feel like she just didn’t want to be around us. I started to feel a little snubbed. Here Carla and I were, trying to help her with her image problems, and she had the gall to tell us she “didn’t feel like it” when we asked her to join us? That wasn’t cool with me. I made sure to tell her so.
“You’re not going to feel better about your weight if you never do anything to fix it!” I wasn’t expecting to yell at her, but when I got home one day she’d gotten off early and was sitting at her computer, not dressed to walk, and I lost it.
Liz and I argued for a few more minutes, then she dragged Carla into it in her most hurtful way, before stomping off to her room. Fucking child. Carla left, not emotionally stable enough to wait for me to go with her after being yelled at by Liz, and I sat at my computer, pissed. What the fuck was wrong with Liz? How could she be so… ignorant!?
When Liz had calmed down, after cleaning an entire sink of dishes, she walked out to my computer and let me know why she had been so upset. “I feel like you two are always leaving me behind!” She told me. “I’m dragging you down and making your walks worse, and I feel worse when we’re done.”
“We weren’t slowing down because you were holding us back, Liz,” I told her, annoyed but keeping my voice calm. “You told us you didn’t like how you looked, and cardio exercise is the best way to lose fat. We just wanted to include you in something we liked doing, and give you a way to change if you wanted. We just wanted to help.”
“I know, and I’m sorry I got upset,” She told me.
“Don’t say that to me, I can handle it. But I think you really hurt Carla, you’ll have to tell her what you told me.”
Carla came home a couple hours later, sweaty but in control of her emotions, and Liz repeated her apology and reasoning. Carla said exactly what I’d said, and Liz seemed to understand.
Over the next few weeks, Liz, Carla, and I had an agreement where Liz got to choose her exercise, but she joined us for something. The three of us started walking, doing yoga, learning choreography, and using other exercise videos every day that we had time off together. Generally, Carla and I would do multiple forms and Liz would choose one.
This worked well for a while, Liz seemed to be okay. Until one day Carla and I were, I guess, walking a little too quickly and leaving Liz behind. Liz exploded. “I’m turning here and going home alone, you two keep going on your walk since you’re leaving me behind anyway!” She shouted at us as she cried.
I tried to do damage control. “The next street is the fastest way back, we’ll walk slower, okay?”
“No, you’re always leaving me! Just go away!” More tears. I fucking hated the tears.
“Fine!” I shouted back. “Go home, stop walking with us, just go sit on your butt and get fat!”
There was that word again. I hated using that word. I didn’t believe it, even as I said it, but it always slipped out at the worst times. Fat. It was a word Liz used to describe herself and she hated it. Why did I keep using that word? I turned around and caught up with Carla. Fuck Liz. She can deal with herself alone. It’s too hot outside, maybe she’ll get heatstroke and have to call one of us. I didn’t care.
But I did care. Carla and I got home pretty quickly. Liz wasn’t there. I checked maps, finding the best route she would have taken. It would have taken her an extra half mile to get home from the street she took. Of course I’d been right. I was always right. I gloated for a moment. Then I was worried again. How long would it take her to get home? Carla and I had walked an extra street, Liz should have still gotten there before us, so where was she?
“Let’s wait another five minutes,” Carla said, “Then go out and look for her.” Liz wasn’t answering her phone. Ugh, fuck her. I can’t believe she’d do this stupid shit, just because she was jealous. I hope she learned her lesson.
Eventually she got over it, just like she always did. Within the hour she was already laughing and joking with me, and a week later it seemed like she’d forgotten all about it. Which bothered me because what if she wasn’t retaining the things I was trying to help her with? However, I couldn’t do anything about it. I decided then that I’d leave it alone for now, come back later, and just hope that after a few more talks she’d see what I was saying.
The next thing I decided to help her with was her lack of exercise and her terrible eating habits. “I think I’m going to start exercising regularly,” I told her, hoping she’d ask to join me. Of course she did; she didn’t like to be left out of anything. We lasted a week. After that she didn’t want to walk with me.
“You agreed to join me,” I reminded her angrily. “Are you just going to give up?”
“You always move to quickly and I get tired quickly, I’m not going to get in your way anymore,” she told me. Bitch, I’m doing this for you! I don’t need to exercise as much as you do, so just do this!
Instead, I say something worse. “Fine, just keep sitting on your ass and get fatter and fatter. You’re lazy.” And I left. I hated saying stuff like that. She wasn’t fat, she just didn’t like how she looked. Medically she was considered “overweight” and I knew that weighed on her pretty heavily. I just wanted to help her, but she didn’t like trying new things and hated being a little uncomfortable. I fumed that entire day and ignored her when I got back home.
The next day I apologized. We lived together, I couldn’t continue to punish her. I’d wait a few weeks and try to convince her to exercise again, that would work.
Soon after that, another friend, Carla, came to live with us. She was cool, she and I got along really well. We liked to exercise, we liked to talk, we liked the same things and had the same thoughts and got really close really fast. Liz wasn’t so happy about it. For a while, I didn’t get it. Liz never wanted to do these things with me, wouldn’t exercise, wouldn’t play games, didn’t seem to have fun with me anymore, but Carla did. Why shouldn’t I do things with Carla if Liz didn’t want to anyway?
I figured out pretty quickly that Liz was jealous. Carla was her friend first, and I was taking her from Liz. I didn’t tell her that I’d figured it out (I didn’t tell Carla either) and instead decided I’d help. “Let’s all go on walks together,” I suggested after Liz sighed while Carla and I were making plans for the week. “We can all go about a half mile down the road, then head back up. Carla and I can do yoga when we get home while Liz is in the shower and then we can watch a movie.”
That seemed to work and we all started walking together. We walked every day after Liz got off work for a week. Then Liz’s legs hurt really badly one day and Carla and I decided to go on a longer walk and let Liz have the TV, rather than taking over the TV when we got home to do an exercise video. It was okay, Liz could join us the next day.
When the next day came, Carla and I waited for Liz to get home. Unfortunately, when she did she immediately locked herself in her room. Carla and I had looked at each other, confused. What was wrong with her? “Are you going to join us today?” I asked through Liz’s door.
“No,” was the short response that came back.
“Is everything okay?”
“Fine. You two just go.” That, of course, did not sound like she was fine, but I’d had a long day at work and didn’t want to deal with it. I shook my head at Carla and she frowned, but we left Liz alone and went on our walk. It was a nice day and we stayed out for an hour, exploring around our apartment.
When Carla and I got home, we didn’t mention anything to Liz, choosing to change the subject to what movie we wanted to watch. Liz seemed fine with that, if a little upset about something she wasn’t telling us.
The next day, Carla sent me a message while I was at work, letting me know she’d talked to Liz about not telling us when she didn’t want to walk. Liz had, apparently, agreed to let us know when she wasn’t feeling up to exercise. This way, Carla and I could walk and be done by the time Liz got home, and she wouldn’t feel like we were leaving her out.
I just wanted to help people. Especially my friend, Liz. Whenever we hung out I always noticed that her views on the world were just… wrong. And she always looked so uncomfortable. She wasn’t fat, mind you, but I always thought she looked like she was so angry about how she looked. So I took it upon myself to try to help her. To fix her, I guess. I just wanted her to feel better, think better, be better. But I didn’t want her to know that I thought she did things wrong. So I decided to just show her how I do things and just hope she chose to do them the same way.
It started with how she viewed the world. She was so persistent about believing in the bible. Everything in it was complete truth, according to her. Gay people, men and women living together unmarried, women who perform abortions, all of these people who didn’t follow the “word of God” to the letter were going to hell. This is extremely irritating.
“I just don’t think that saying people who are gay shouldn’t get married is something you have the right to do,” I told her out of the blue one day. It had been bothering me for the past couple weeks, ever since we had a huge argument about it.
“Of course I have the right to say that,” she responded, already getting angry.
I took a deep breath to calm down before I argued again and she started to cry. I couldn’t handle her stopping the conversation to cry. “Okay,” I continued soothingly. “Tell me why.”
“Because it says so in the Bible!” She yelled at me. “Why can’t you understand that that’s enough?”
“It shouldn’t be enough,” I sighed at her. She was an adult, she had her own brain, she could make her own decisions about things and didn’t need to blindly follow a book that was written in the dark ages. Things have changed, for fuck’s sake. I couldn’t tell her that, though, it would shut down the conversation. “Things have changed in the world, the book that states that is one you don’t even read in church, and you can’t throw one part of the book out and not throw out all of it.”
“What?” She asked. Thank goodness, I’ve confused her enough that she’ll actually listen to me for a minute.
“The only part of the bible that says you can’t be with someone of the same sex is the same one that says women should be stoned to death for not being a virgin before marriage, that women shouldn’t work outside the home, and that men can’t shave their hair. Right?” I turned to her in the car when I stopped at a red light to see her expression. She was refusing to look at me. “Unless you’re following that advice also and I’ve just missed it.”
“No, that stuff doesn’t make sense now-a-days,” she said, shaking her head. “But-“
“No, no buts,” I told her, starting to move again when the light turned green. “You can’t pick and choose like that, either the entire book is thrown out or none of it is.”
“I… I just don’t like it,” she finally said.
“Why?” I pressed.
“Because… just because!” She finally yelled at me, turning completely away to look out the window.
I sighed again. I had a feeling why she didn’t like it. She was raised to not like it. And I was starting to suspect that she’d fallen in love with a woman she knew and hated herself for it. I could be wrong, but she was so adamant about “it’s just wrong” that it couldn’t just be because her book says so. There had to be another reason, one that she wasn’t admitting to herself, let alone to anyone else. But I let it go; if she didn’t want to figure it out on a car ride home then I’d leave her alone for now.
I just wanted to help people. Especially my friend, Liz. Whenever we hung out I always noticed that her views on the world were just… wrong. And she always looked so uncomfortable. She wasn’t fat, mind you, but I always thought she looked like she was so angry about how she looked. So I took it upon myself to try to help her. To fix her, I guess. I just wanted her to feel better, think better, be better. But I didn’t want her to know that I thought she did things wrong. So I decided to just show her how I do things and just hope she chose to do them the same way.
It started with how she viewed the world. She was so persistent about believing in the bible. Everything in it was complete truth, according to her. Gay people, men and women living together unmarried, women who perform abortions, all of these people who didn’t follow the “word of God” to the letter were going to hell. This is extremely irritating.
“I just don’t think that saying people who are gay shouldn’t get married is something you have the right to do,” I told her out of the blue one day. It had been bothering me for the past couple weeks, ever since we had a huge argument about it.
“Of course I have the right to say that,” she responded, already getting angry.
I took a deep breath to calm down before I argued again and she started to cry. I couldn’t handle her stopping the conversation to cry. “Okay,” I continued soothingly. “Tell me why.”
“Because it says so in the Bible!” She yelled at me. “Why can’t you understand that that’s enough?”
“It shouldn’t be enough,” I sighed at her. She was an adult, she had her own brain, she could make her own decisions about things and didn’t need to blindly follow a book that was written in the dark ages. Things have changed, for fuck’s sake. I couldn’t tell her that, though, it would shut down the conversation. “Things have changed in the world, the book that states that is one you don’t even read in church, and you can’t throw one part of the book out and not throw out all of it.”
“What?” She asked. Thank goodness, I’ve confused her enough that she’ll actually listen to me for a minute.
“The only part of the bible that says you can’t be with someone of the same sex is the same one that says women should be stoned to death for not being a virgin before marriage, that women shouldn’t work outside the home, and that men can’t shave their hair. Right?” I turned to her in the car when I stopped at a red light to see her expression. She was refusing to look at me. “Unless you’re following that advice also and I’ve just missed it.”
“No, that stuff doesn’t make sense now-a-days,” she said, shaking her head. “But-“
“No, no buts,” I told her, starting to move again when the light turned green. “You can’t pick and choose like that, either the entire book is thrown out or none of it is.”
“I… I just don’t like it,” she finally said.
“Why?” I pressed.
“Because… just because!” She finally yelled at me, turning completely away to look out the window.
I sighed again. I had a feeling why she didn’t like it. She was raised to not like it. And I was starting to suspect that she’d fallen in love with a woman she knew and hated herself for it. I could be wrong, but she was so adamant about “it’s just wrong” that it couldn’t just be because her book says so. There had to be another reason, one that she wasn’t admitting to herself, let alone to anyone else. But I let it go; if she didn’t want to figure it out on a car ride home then I’d leave her alone for now.
Eventually she got over it, just like she always did. Within the hour she was already laughing and joking with me, and a week later it seemed like she’d forgotten all about it. Which bothered me because what if she wasn’t retaining the things I was trying to help her with? However, I couldn’t do anything about it. I decided then that I’d leave it alone for now, come back later, and just hope that after a few more talks she’d see what I was saying.
The next thing I decided to help her with was her lack of exercise and her terrible eating habits. “I think I’m going to start exercising regularly,” I told her, hoping she’d ask to join me. Of course she did; she didn’t like to be left out of anything. We lasted a week. After that she didn’t want to walk with me.
“You agreed to join me,” I reminded her angrily. “Are you just going to give up?”
“You always move to quickly and I get tired quickly, I’m not going to get in your way anymore,” she told me. Bitch, I’m doing this for you! I don’t need to exercise as much as you do, so just do this!
Instead, I say something worse. “Fine, just keep sitting on your ass and get fatter and fatter. You’re lazy.” And I left. I hated saying stuff like that. She wasn’t fat, she just didn’t like how she looked. Medically she was considered “overweight” and I knew that weighed on her pretty heavily. I just wanted to help her, but she didn’t like trying new things and hated being a little uncomfortable. I fumed that entire day and ignored her when I got back home.
The next day I apologized. We lived together, I couldn’t continue to punish her. I’d wait a few weeks and try to convince her to exercise again, that would work.
Soon after that, another friend, Carla, came to live with us. She was cool, she and I got along really well. We liked to exercise, we liked to talk, we liked the same things and had the same thoughts and got really close really fast. Liz wasn’t so happy about it. For a while, I didn’t get it. Liz never wanted to do these things with me, wouldn’t exercise, wouldn’t play games, didn’t seem to have fun with me anymore, but Carla did. Why shouldn’t I do things with Carla if Liz didn’t want to anyway?
I figured out pretty quickly that Liz was jealous. Carla was her friend first, and I was taking her from Liz. I didn’t tell her that I’d figured it out (I didn’t tell Carla either) and instead decided I’d help. “Let’s all go on walks together,” I suggested after Liz sighed while Carla and I were making plans for the week. “We can all go about a half mile down the road, then head back up. Carla and I can do yoga when we get home while Liz is in the shower and then we can watch a movie.”
That seemed to work and we all started walking together. We walked every day after Liz got off work for a week. Then Liz’s legs hurt really badly one day and Carla and I decided to go on a longer walk and let Liz have the TV, rather than taking over the TV when we got home to do an exercise video. It was okay, Liz could join us the next day.
When the next day came, Carla and I waited for Liz to get home. Unfortunately, when she did she immediately locked herself in her room. Carla and I had looked at each other, confused. What was wrong with her? “Are you going to join us today?” I asked through Liz’s door.
“No,” was the short response that came back.
“Is everything okay?”
“Fine. You two just go.” That, of course, did not sound like she was fine, but I’d had a long day at work and didn’t want to deal with it. I shook my head at Carla and she frowned, but we left Liz alone and went on our walk. It was a nice day and we stayed out for an hour, exploring around our apartment.
When Carla and I got home, we didn’t mention anything to Liz, choosing to change the subject to what movie we wanted to watch. Liz seemed fine with that, if a little upset about something she wasn’t telling us.
The next day, Carla sent me a message while I was at work, letting me know she’d talked to Liz about not telling us when she didn’t want to walk. Liz had, apparently, agreed to let us know when she wasn’t feeling up to exercise. This way, Carla and I could walk and be done by the time Liz got home, and she wouldn’t feel like we were leaving her out.
This went on fine, except that Liz was never ready to walk. She never had the motivation just to move her legs around the block, which made me feel like she just didn’t want to be around us. I started to feel a little snubbed. Here Carla and I were, trying to help her with her image problems, and she had the gall to tell us she “didn’t feel like it” when we asked her to join us? That wasn’t cool with me. I made sure to tell her so.
“You’re not going to feel better about your weight if you never do anything to fix it!” I wasn’t expecting to yell at her, but when I got home one day she’d gotten off early and was sitting at her computer, not dressed to walk, and I lost it.
Liz and I argued for a few more minutes, then she dragged Carla into it in her most hurtful way, before stomping off to her room. Fucking child. Carla left, not emotionally stable enough to wait for me to go with her after being yelled at by Liz, and I sat at my computer, pissed. What the fuck was wrong with Liz? How could she be so… ignorant!?
When Liz had calmed down, after cleaning an entire sink of dishes, she walked out to my computer and let me know why she had been so upset. “I feel like you two are always leaving me behind!” She told me. “I’m dragging you down and making your walks worse, and I feel worse when we’re done.”
“We weren’t slowing down because you were holding us back, Liz,” I told her, annoyed but keeping my voice calm. “You told us you didn’t like how you looked, and cardio exercise is the best way to lose fat. We just wanted to include you in something we liked doing, and give you a way to change if you wanted. We just wanted to help.”
“I know, and I’m sorry I got upset,” She told me.
“Don’t say that to me, I can handle it. But I think you really hurt Carla, you’ll have to tell her what you told me.”
Carla came home a couple hours later, sweaty but in control of her emotions, and Liz repeated her apology and reasoning. Carla said exactly what I’d said, and Liz seemed to understand.
Over the next few weeks, Liz, Carla, and I had an agreement where Liz got to choose her exercise, but she joined us for something. The three of us started walking, doing yoga, learning choreography, and using other exercise videos every day that we had time off together. Generally, Carla and I would do multiple forms and Liz would choose one.
This worked well for a while, Liz seemed to be okay. Until one day Carla and I were, I guess, walking a little too quickly and leaving Liz behind. Liz exploded. “I’m turning here and going home alone, you two keep going on your walk since you’re leaving me behind anyway!” She shouted at us as she cried.
I tried to do damage control. “The next street is the fastest way back, we’ll walk slower, okay?”
“No, you’re always leaving me! Just go away!” More tears. I fucking hated the tears.
“Fine!” I shouted back. “Go home, stop walking with us, just go sit on your butt and get fat!”
There was that word again. I hated using that word. I didn’t believe it, even as I said it, but it always slipped out at the worst times. Fat. It was a word Liz used to describe herself and she hated it. Why did I keep using that word? I turned around and caught up with Carla. Fuck Liz. She can deal with herself alone. It’s too hot outside, maybe she’ll get heatstroke and have to call one of us. I didn’t care.
But I did care. Carla and I got home pretty quickly. Liz wasn’t there. I checked maps, finding the best route she would have taken. It would have taken her an extra half mile to get home from the street she took. Of course I’d been right. I was always right. I gloated for a moment. Then I was worried again. How long would it take her to get home? Carla and I had walked an extra street, Liz should have still gotten there before us, so where was she?
“Let’s wait another five minutes,” Carla said, “Then go out and look for her.” Liz wasn’t answering her phone. Ugh, fuck her. I can’t believe she’d do this stupid shit, just because she was jealous. I hope she learned her lesson.
I hope she gets home soon.
Liz did get home, before the five minutes was up, and we got her some water. I was still pissed, but Liz looked sorry. She had had a long time to think about what she had a problem with.
She cried again as she told us what was wrong. I hate the tears. She looks weak. But she was okay, that was good. We could leave her alone with the walking for a few days. She felt left out, Carla and I seemed to get along so easily. I told her, again, we were inviting her because we wanted to share it with her. She never listens, it seems. She said she understood, that she was sorry she lost it and didn’t tell us, we said we were sorry for making her feel left out. Time went on.
Carla and I dealt with Liz not wanting to join us most days as easily as we could. We’d ask questions, not push too hard, change schedules so Liz could join us in new things. The three of us got along well, and we decided to go see a concert together.
The way up was great, we had fun on the drive, even though we were going to drive for two days. We stopped by some cool places on the way there, had fun, talked a lot and the concert was everything we had ever hoped for and more.
The way back… wasn’t so great. I was in the back seat while Carla drove and Liz sat in the passenger seat. They started talking about Carla driving to meet some online friends for a convention. I thought it’d be cool, but I wasn’t going to suggest that Liz and I go too-
“I want to come with you,” Liz told Carla. What? Alone?
“I’d like for you to come with me,” Carla responded. Neither looked at me. They’d forgotten I was there. I started asking myself why. Why didn’t they want me to come too? Why am I not invited? Am I not their friend anymore? I knew it was selfish. Liz doesn’t think things through, she was too emotional for that. She was speaking from her feelings, not her head. But Carla? She always seemed like she had been on our sides evenly. Always making sure to include is equally if we wanted to be. And now she’d forgotten about me too? Did I really mean so little?
I tried to tell myself that I was being silly, but I was hurt. Neither seemed to remember I was in the car. They talked about plans to go to the convention, just the two of them, for another twenty minutes as I tried to ignore them. We stopped for gas and I silently took my place in the passenger seat, still trying to ignore them.
My job as the passenger seat was to talk to keep the driver awake. I was angry and stayed silent, stuck in my thoughts, and was failing my job. What was wrong with me? Liz realized after a bit that I wasn’t speaking. “What’s up?”
“Am I not allowed to join you two on your trip to the convention?” I asked them. They seemed confused. “I mean, I’m the one who got you both into this type of music, and yet neither of you wanted to invite me to this convention you seem to be planning to go to.” I wanted to hurt them, to make them feel like I felt. “We wouldn’t even be on this trip right now if it wasn’t for me, and Carla wouldn’t have these friends she was going to see.” This was all true, of course. Liz wouldn’t have dared to listen to this type of music before I played it in my car and she fell in love with it. And Liz brought it to Carla, of course acting like she’d been a fan of it longer than anyone she knew. Liar.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” Liz tried to say while Carla stayed quiet. I think Carla understood where I was coming from, even though acting like this made me sick.
“It seemed like you’d forgotten about me completely,” I snorted, not wanting to look at her. I knew she’d be crying soon. I hated the tears.
“It’s not that we’d forgotten you,” Liz said, her voice watery. Here they are. “We were just talking about stuff, of course if Carla is okay with you coming you’re welcome to, I wasn’t trying to keep you out of it.”
I stayed silent, still angry. How could she forget about the things I’d done for her? I introduced her to this stuff. I was the one who’d started all this! And she just makes plans without me, even though I’m sitting in the car?!
“I’d like for you both to come,” Carla spoke up from the back seat. “I’m sorry, I was going to invite both of you.”
I don’t remember what I said. I was still angry. But I said something that moved us past it and we kept driving.
Winter came, the three of us were still okay. Of course there were arguments, silly little things that didn’t mean much to me, I’m sure I said something that annoyed them, but they both seemed to let it all go. During the winter, though, Carla started getting quiet. Liz and I had started making plans. We planned to get a cat, we planned vacations, we planned on buying things, and Carla didn’t say anything. I started to wonder, after she’d mentioned a few times about not being able to find a good therapist where we were, if that meant she was going to be leaving us soon. I didn’t say anything to her, choosing to let her figure it out on her own. Everyone likes to surprise others with news anyway, I may as well let her surprise us.
One day, when we were dog-sitting for my dad while he visited family, she told us what she was thinking. “I think I’m going to move back in with my parents,” she told us. I thought for a minute quietly about that as she continued to explain her reasoning. I found that I was alright with it. I’d miss her, but I knew she needed to do something to help with her mental things. Liz and I weren’t enough, and I was surprisingly okay with it.
And I told her that. “Okay,” I said, nodding. She seemed relieved when I said that, as if that was all she needed. I didn’t need to help Carla. Only Liz needed constant help, from what I could see. Carla could take care of herself, and she knew I was here if she needed to talk to me. At least, I hoped she knew that.
After Carla told us her problem, it seemed like a lot of energy was devoted to getting her ready to move. Packing, stacking her stuff, moving it all into one room, her transferring her job, and so on. During this time I found a boyfriend, Clark. He was a good guy, someone I’d dated briefly in high school and who I’d never really gotten over. We hit it off, I spent a lot of time at his apartment, we went on dates, and I met his friends. Time seemed to go quickly and the only time Carla was able to meet Clark was the same day she was moving out. I felt bad, I’d wanted to show everyone how happy I was with Clark, how calm he made me, and I’d put it off until Carla was already leaving. It was upsetting.
Everything seemed okay for a while. Liz and I went to another concert, had a blast even though the hotel was shitty, we’d gone out of town for my birthday, and we seemed to get along pretty well. I started bringing Clark over to the apartment more and more in an attempt to get the two to be friends, preventing the seemingly inevitable choice of best friend or boyfriend.
During this time, I’d left Liz alone. I was a bit upset by it, since she’d always seemed to cling to me, but I knew she’d need to get used to it at some point. Then Clark had to move out of his apartment.
I wanted to offer him to move into mine and Liz’s and I talk to Liz about it. She didn’t react negatively, but did say she needed to think about it. I left her to it for a couple days, then asked her about it again.
“So, how do you feel about Clark moving in? It’d be easier on our wallets, for sure,” I said while we watched TV.
She didn’t look at me, but let out a little laugh. Then she got up to cook dinner. That… wasn’t an answer. At all. Oh well, she probably just needs a little more time to think about it. Meanwhile, Clark moved into his parent’s house, deciding to try to save some money up before moving somewhere new.
Another week went by and I finally got tired of waiting. “What is wrong with Clark moving in?” I asked Liz, in a tone I’d hoped told her I wasn’t going to let her get out without giving me an answer. I think I was pretty mean sounding though, because she almost immediately started crying and yelling at me.
“I’m not comfortable with it!” She yelled at me, only barely looking at me. “And I didn’t want to tell you because you were forcing me to be okay with it! I didn’t want to make you mad!”
Oh my fucking God. Seriously? You tell me now? All I feel now about this is rage. She led me on for so long pretending like it’d be okay and now she tells me she’s not cool with it?! I don’t say any of this for a moment, letting the anger wash over and through me. I make an attempt to control it.
“Couldn’t you have told me a little earlier? Instead of leading me on like this?” I ask her as calmly as I can. Clearly not calm enough because she cries some more.
“You always get so angry with me. And it felt like you’d already made the decision without me, so it seemed silly for me to even give my opinion,” she wailed.
You. Live. Here. Too. You make half the decisions that go on in this apartment! I’m trying to make this easier on us, I’m just trying to help. And you bottle this shit up inside and refuse to tell me, the other half of this party who will be affected by this situation, that you’re not cool with it?
“I get angry with you because you do stuff like this,” I told her. I’m sure she can hear that I’m pissed because she looks scared now. “You keep this inside and don’t let me know anything, especially if it’s something that’s going to affect me!”
“I’m sorry!” She cries. As if that helps this situation at all. She never gave me reason not to plan with Clark and now I have to tell him that, surprise surprise, Liz isn’t cool with it. I don’t remember what happens next, I’m just furious.
The next couple days though, we do talk calmly about what she’s feeling. At first she tells me it’s a sin to live with someone you aren’t related or married to, which feels like a slap in the face. I ask her if that means she thinks I’m going to hell.
“In my opinion, yes,” she says. The fuck? Did she really just tell me I’m going to hell? Fuck her!
Whatever, move past it. “I thought Jesus died for our sins so we wouldn’t go to hell.” That’s not moving past it.
This does strike her for a moment, then she responds, almost unsure. “Well, yes… but that doesn’t mean we should try to live in sin!”
Nope, she hesitated. I’ve got her now. “What’s the real reason?” I ask her seriously.
This pisses her off though, it seems. “Why is it so easy for you to write off my religion?!” She shouts at me. At least there aren’t tears yet.
“Because it took you two weeks to tell me that’s the reason,” I told her easily. She seems confused, so I continue. “If it was just because the bible is against it then you would have said that at the beginning. You sat and thought about it for a few weeks and gave me a weak reason. What’s really going on?”
“Am I that easy to read?” She asks, chuckling. Like a kindergarten picture book. “I guess… It’s because I don’t feel comfortable with myself, so I don’t feel right showing my body off to some random guy.”
You shouldn’t be ‘showing your body off’ to my boyfriend anyway. “Fine. That’s a good reason. I’ll let him know that we’ll just have to put off moving in together until our lease is up. Is it okay if he still comes over?” She nods hesitantly. “What?”
“I don’t feel comfortable with him here if I’m here alone,” she tells me. I can deal with that.
“Okay, I’ll only have him over when I’m here. Who knows, maybe you two will become friends and you’ll eventually be cool with him living here.” She shrugs. It’s a possibility, I’m not going to write it off yet.
Except that she then refuses to try to be friends with him. She doesn’t want to play games with us, she doesn’t want to go to game night with us, she won’t even talk to him politely. Anything he asks she just glares at him and snaps, like he’d just told her to fuck off. And he’s never mean to her, she’s just hostile the second he walks in the door.
I kept my promise and kept Clark away from the apartment when I wasn’t there, even as I started giving up trying to make them be friends. Liz was hostile towards Clark every time she saw him, stayed away during the weekends to stay with her family, and started speaking to me less and less too.
Liz and Carla had some issues during this time. Liz was feeling depressed, probably undiagnosed depression that she didn’t feel comfortable admitting, and didn’t seem like she wanted to talk to me about it. Carla, after moving in with her parents and settling in, was finding it hard to find a therapist in her area, but she did seem to be doing better. Unfortunately, Carla wasn’t better enough to deal with Liz giving her wishy-washy attitude about wanting to talk about how she was feeling. Liz was always very noncommittal about many things, her opinions, her religion, her feelings, and kind of flowed back and forth between things for weeks before deciding something. This was something we’d had an issue between us for years, but she never seemed to understand what I was angry about each time I brought it up.
I spoke to Carla about it just once, but that was enough. Carla told me that Liz was feeling down and it was really bringing Carla down, to the point where she didn’t want to talk to Liz and was feeling sick on her own. This didn’t feel right, so I asked if Liz had asked her to talk about it. The answer was “kind of”.
In reality, Liz had told Carla that she wants to talk but she “didn’t want to bother Carla with her problems” to which Carla… didn’t respond. She just stopped talking to her about it. I understood, mostly. Liz was annoying when she was like this. “I feel bad, I want to say something, but I don’t want to bring it up in case you try to one-up me,” was the general feeling Liz had about things. Still, she had problems and she should feel free to talk about them with her friends.
Carla did have a problem with “one-upping” people. If someone said they had a problem, Carla brought up her own problems. It didn’t get to me very much, and I never thought she did it on purpose, but I realized I should have said something when I first saw it as a problem, rather than let it continue. I don’t think she ever even realized she did it.
I told her off. Liz was her friend. Carla shouldn’t put her own problems above her friends, especially since Liz was always there for her. I was mean, more mean that I’d expected or wanted to be. I felt bad after I sent it, but it was too late, I’d sent it. Everything I’d said was true, but I’d given her an ultimatum that I hadn’t needed to: fix your attitude to stop talking to Liz and me. Carla responded well to a thought-out, logical argument, and I’d made my statement emotional and angry. It was wrong.
Carla took some time away from everyone. Eventually, she and Liz started talking more, but she didn’t speak to me again. I had too much pride to apologize first-She was being a dick!-but deep down I knew I wasn’t totally in the right. I was also being a dick. But I just wanted to help Liz.
Clark and I had started having problems. I was so happy with him, but he started talk to me less also. He wouldn’t answer texts for hours, which I tried to attribute to his sleeping late and working odd hours. But he would be uninterested in everything I say when I spoke to him on the phone. Sometimes he’d go a couple days without speaking to me, which started to make me feel like he no longer wanted to be around me. He’d told me he loved me first, so this was confusing.
He asked me one night where I thought we were going. I was honest. “I can see a future with you. Moving in together, travelling, buying a new mattress from NFM with you,” I chuckled when I said this, both of us knowing how awful we are at shopping together. He didn’t laugh though and I felt my heart break. “What about you?” I asked, knowing I wouldn’t like the answer.
“I don’t know,” he responded. I tried not to cry. Of course he didn’t. He didn’t actually love me. Why would he? What reason could he have? I’m annoying. I’m a bitch. I’m the worst thing that ever happened to him. I didn’t mean anything to him and I’d deserved it. Tears welled in my eyes, but I kept my breathing and voice steady even as water trickled down.
“What do you want to do now?” I ran over every mistake I’d ever made in our short relationship. I said the wrong things at the wrong time, I made him feel bad around his friends, I dragged him to stuff he didn’t want to go to, and I talked too much.
“I don’t want to give up on us,” he told me. My tears didn’t stop. He just felt sorry for me. “I still care about you, but I don’t know… I just feel off lately and I’m not sure I’m ready for a relationship like this.”
He didn’t love me. This is the one thing that stuck out. No one could love me. I was a pain in the ass. “I see,” I told him. My voice was too high, don’t let him know it hurts. “Okay, I can stick around until you’re sure.” He’ll be sure he doesn’t want me.
“No matter what though, I want you to be part of my life,” he said quickly. Damn, he could tell I was crying. “All my friends like you and I still want to be friends.” Such a cliché statement. I hate this. I hate me. I’m pathetic.
“Yea, absolutely,” I told him. He wouldn’t know. But he did. He squeezed me harder.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He sounded sincere. Like this hurt. He just felt sorry for me. But I let myself believe he did care and I let go. I cried, hard. I hate when I cry. I’m ugly, pathetic, needy. But he held me and patted my back and I let it all go.
We promised to keep going how things were, but we weren’t going to move forward at all. He needed to figure things out. I knew how it would eventually end, but I let it play out. We stuck together. After a couple months, he said he’d still move in with me when the lease was up. If we were stuck together he’d fall for me again, he was sure of it. I hoped it was true, but I knew he’d find someone else. He didn’t love me. And he didn’t have a reason to.
Liz continued to give me the silent treatment. Clearly something was bothering her. Something she was again afraid to tell me, so I knew she was mulling over it on her own. Finally, the one day when Clark hadn’t gotten out before she got home, she texted me demanding to know when I was home because she was unbelievably angry.
I was angry the entire day after that. She got off hours before me and refused to tell me what she was so “unbelievably angry” about. I started thinking of reasons. Clark was over too often, she didn’t want him over at all. I left shit on the table when she needed to use it. The house was a mess and I guess it was my fault. I talked aloud about all these things on my way home, making arguments for each of them and getting angrier and angrier. She wasn’t going to be home for another hour, at least, so I had plenty of time to let the anger fester.
When she finally did get home, she didn’t look at me for a while. I didn’t push it. Clearly whatever she was worried about she thought I’d be angry about, probably rightfully so. She did eventually walk over to me and, surprisingly calm, told me what was going on.
“I want Clark to take over my half of the rent.”
This took me by surprise. What the hell was she going to do? Also, how does she think he’ll be able to? He doesn’t have enough extra cash just lying around to deal with the apartment price. And he didn’t love me. I put that part aside. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to set up appointments to look at apartments I can afford.” She said. She looked like she was going to cry again.
“Can I make a suggestion?” I asked. She seemed to roll her eyes, but waved me ahead. “How about you wait until your sister has a free room and move in with her? Her roommate is leaving at the end of the year, you could help her out for the rest of her lease, and it’s less than our lease, you could save up some money before moving into your own apartment.” She wouldn’t last in her own apartment. She doesn’t like being alone. She’d go crazy. She’d hurt herself.
I zoned out for the rest of the night to think about her decision. She was just going to leave, like everyone else left me. Was a really worried about her being by herself? I liked to think I was worried about her well-being, but she’d been distancing herself for months now, so I wasn’t sure if I cared. I said I cared. I tried to care. But she was leaving me too. Clark wouldn’t move in with me, he had his own problems and he wasn’t ready. All of which I confirmed when he came over to pick up his stuff that night. It made me sad. I was truly, completely, utterly… alone.
This stuck with me throughout the next day. It was frustrating. She didn’t want to try to figure out a compromise with me, she was just ready to give up and leave me with an apartment I can’t afford. She didn’t care if it caused me to go bankrupt, to have to move back into my parents, to feel alone. She didn’t care what happened to me, as long as she was happy.
These thoughts rolled through my mind all day and I was still upset when I got home. I was sitting at the table, ready to work on my projects, when Liz asked “Are you okay?”
Am I okay? Really? That’s the kind of question she asks after the shit she’s putting me through? She doesn’t give a fuck about me, how dare she ask me if I’m okay. “No,” I tell her, angry. “My only friend is leaving me with an apartment I can’t afford. Clark can’t move in with me and I don’t have anyone else in the state that I can ask to help!” She doesn’t respond, and refuses to look at me. “I’m a little upset, okay? Is that alright with you? Am I allowed to be upset that I’m being left again?” She still doesn’t answer after a few more minutes, so I leave the table and shut myself in my room.
She only cares about herself. I have spent years trying to help her deal with life and she’s only focused on herself. She doesn’t like me having a boyfriend, so she’s just going to fuck off and leave me with a mistake we’d both made. I can’t stand her. Her entitled, self-centered attitude pisses me off. Heaven forbid I have someone else in my life.
I sit in my room and think about it some more. Okay, so she hasn’t been comfortable with Clark being around when she’s not expecting it. I guess I can understand that. I could have told her more often, but it felt like it would get annoying after a while, so I didn’t tell her if she wasn’t going to be affected. I hadn’t realized that just his shoes being in the apartment would make her feel uncomfortable. That part didn’t make sense to me. Clark had never done anything to her. She was always the hostile one, he was always trying to include her. If anything, he should have been uncomfortable being here with her, since she was always so snappy and mean.
Maybe she didn’t realize what she was saying to me. I could make a compromise. Have Clark over once a week while she was here, maybe. Let her know every time. If I just talk to her. Tell her that I can’t have the apartment alone, tell her what she’s doing to me, we can work it out. I can compromise for a few more months.
I walk back out to the living room and sit at my desk. I’d been texting Clark while I was thinking, and he told me I needed to talk to her or he would come by and talk to her. And he wouldn’t be nice. I told him that wouldn’t help, we needed to figure it out on our own, and promised to take care of it. When I get out to the living room, though, she doesn’t look at me, so I sit down in her field of view and wait until she was comfortable enough to turn to me, then we can talk.
It only takes about ten minutes before she turns to me. I take a deep breath before returning the gaze. “I am a little upset,” I tell her, much more calmly and carefully. “I’m being left with an apartment I can’t afford and Clark can’t move in with me. I don’t have anyone else here that I can move in with or who can help me with the rent for the rest of the lease, and breaking it will be bad for both of us, not that we could afford it.”
“If I help you with breaking it, can you move in with Clark then?” She asks. This is good, she’s talking calmly, logically.
“I don’t know,” I told her honestly. Clark had said emotionally he wasn’t ready to live together. As upsetting as it was, I didn’t want to push him. I’d done that enough already. I look at the lease though, maybe Liz helping me break it would be okay, Clark and I could move into a small apartment for a while until we saved up some money and he paid some bills, then move into a bigger apartment more comfortably. The lease says two month’s rent is due if we break it, though. Fuck. “Two months is due if we break the lease, and at that we may as well keep the apartment.” I mean this as in, if you’re willing to help with a couple month’s rent I could just stay here then and deal with the last couple months on my own. She took it differently.
“I can’t stay here anymore! The stress is making me sick physically! Can’t you understand that I don’t like being here with you two?!” She’s crying. Damn it.
“Yes, I understand. But think about this from my point of view,” I tell her. Did I tell her about my compromise? Yea, of course I did.
“I went to my parents every weekend to get away from you,” she tells me. Wow, that hurts. “When you were gone with him, I treasured that time. I was happy.” She… treasured the time I didn’t see her? I thought she was mad that I wasn’t spending enough time with her. I don’t understand where this is going. I was trying to compromise, damn it!
“But you’re leaving me with something I can’t afford,” I tell her, getting angrier the more she yells at me. “I don’t have family or friends that I can just pop in with for six months!”
“And why do you think that is?!” She yells at me. Because my family moved to Florida and I don’t make friends easily? What the hell is she getting at? “Everything you tell me about your mom, that’s exactly what you do to me.” … what? “You’re manipulative and abusive, and you push everyone away from you.” I don’t… “Why do you think Carla doesn’t talk to you anymore? Why do you think I’m trying to leave? It’s because of you!” …Carla… thinks that…? It was me? But I was trying to help… I was trying to help you… She was… and you were so upset… I just wanted to help.
She’s still yelling at me, but I’m not picking anything up. I thought Carla was mad at me for telling her she was selfish. I hadn’t been trying to push people away, I just wanted to help them. …Was that why my family didn’t speak to me? Am I alone because of me? When did that happen? Why didn’t I notice? I didn’t remember pushing my family away. I didn’t think I was pushing Liz away. I was trying to keep her as a friend, have her be friends with Clark so I’d never have to choose between them. I was making friends with Clark’s friends, and it seemed to be going pretty well. But… did they secretly hate me too…? Did I really do this to myself?
“Why didn’t you leave before?” I finally ask. I don’t know if she’d stopped yelling at me or not, but I didn’t care. Why was she still here?
“I thought I could fix you,” she says. What? Fix me? I had some problems, sure, but I didn’t think they affected her so much she thought she could fix me. Did she think I was not emotional enough? That I wasn’t religious enough? It’s better to be able to think about things logically, so you can understand what the other side is saying, so I’d never choose to be as emotional as Liz was. And I didn’t believe in her vengeful, hateful God. If I was supposed to think everyone was going to hell for some vice they had, I wouldn’t do it. That’s no way to live.
“You don’t believe me,” Liz says to me. I focus on her again and realize I’d been staring at her while tears fell out of my eyes. I guess I looked like I thought she was lying to me.
I can’t look at her anymore. “It’s not that I don’t believe you,” I said quietly. I lock my computer and put the lease away.
“I was hoping we’d still be friends if we got some space,” she said. Maybe she realized that what she said hurt me more than anything she’d ever said to me before.
“I don’t think so,” I told her honestly. Not after this. She seemed shocked. “This was a good talk.” I couldn’t resist being a little sarcastic, even with water running down my face. Liz could go to hell for all I cared right now.
I locked myself in my room. I couldn’t speak to her again tonight. I sat in the far corner of my room, took out my phone, and called my dad. I needed the one person who always listened to me, no matter what was going on. Who always understood and made me feel better. I needed my dad.
He listened. Just like he always did. He told me everything I needed to hear. He didn’t lie to me about being manipulative. I learned it from the best, he said. He and mom were always manipulative. I laughed, even though it still hurt. At least I had a reason. At least Dad would stand by me even if no one else would. I needed to change that part of me, sure, but at least he’d still be here.
As I talked to me dad, I heard Liz sobbing loudly to someone on her phone. I didn’t care who she was talking to. She probably regretted what she’d said, just like I’d done with Carla. At least what I’d said was to help someone else. I… should apologize to Carla though. Even if she never spoke to me again, never forgave me, and never even read what I said, I wanted her to know that I regretted how mean I was to her. She hadn’t deserved it, especially since Liz never appreciated it in the first place and seemed happy I wasn’t talking to her friend anymore. I’d tell Carla I was sorry through a text and let her decide in her own time to read it. If she wanted me to explain she could let me know. But it was time for me to stop letting my pride get in the way.
I did apologize to Carla the next day. I sent her a text in the morning, telling her I was in the wrong for being so mean. I didn’t know everyone thought I was manipulative and a bitch. I hadn’t known I was in the wrong for trying to help. We talked. I think we can get somewhere back to being friends sometime. I don’t want to push it. Liz and I can’t be friends anymore. Now that I know what she thinks of me, I can’t look at her. But I want to fix things I’d done to other people. Let them know that I realize now that I was wrong.
I couldn’t help anyone. Not the way I want. I need to stop being friends with people thinking I can help them. I needed to be friends with people I could just accept.
I still don’t know where I became the villain, but I’m starting to think that, maybe, I always was. I always thought I was helping, but I was only ever hurting other people.
I want to write a lot of things. I’m not sure yet if I should put them as chapters or if I should just put the entire think up at once. I’ll think on it.
