After two straight days of her bullshit she asked if we could talk. She tried to meld the conversation into a dinner invite which I declined. I mean just hours before we were arguing in the street - so I clearly wasn't breaking bread with her. Besides I had already eaten and taken refuge in the hotel. Soon she came back from her involuntary stroll and dinner for one. She immediately began prancing around while trying to explain herself. She appeared to be extremely erratic so I chose to ignore her. While she spoke I didn't even look at her. I never made eye contact with her. It was clear she wasn't expecting a response. She simply took our time to "talk" to explain her behavior and overall personality anyways. These were her excuses. These were the reasons I should allow her to go on as she had been. Basically the gist was she had always been like this. Her earlier outburst had nothing to do with money or resentment or jet lag. She just made a mistake in inviting me or anyone for that matter.
She explained that she had been alone all her life. She was forced to get by - alone. She was forced to make it through things - alone. She walks everywhere in NYC - alone. She enjoys dining - alone. She doesn't befriend other women. She doesn't like people talking about her behind her back. So she then crawled across the bed and changed her tone and asked "do you talk about me? do you talk to other people about me on your phone? is that what you're always doing?" I wanted to say three things but chose to refrain. I did so because I didn't want to leave, I didn't want to fight and I didn't want either one of us sitting in the embassy as a criminal.
1. I did talk about her … three times … on my private blog
2. I did talk about her … out of sheer concern to my mother and our mutual friends
3. I did talk about her … to try to make light of the misery I was dealing with on the trip
I was always in fear of her finding my blog. I felt like I should delete the entries whenever she was herself. I just knew they would be found and when they were she would have already explained and or redeemed herself. Besides I had promised that she could use my computer while abroad. She had left hers in Nantes so she was using mine to check email and back up her photos. I had been letting her use it and it didn't occur to me that she might snoop. I thought maybe she'd find a bookmark or go through my history - but not like intentionally. It took a long while for me to create a guest account just for her use. I'd gone to the bathroom way too many times leaving my blog up and wondered would she glance at it. It took me a long while to not trust her meanwhile my mother began to call her "The Single White Female". She had been the sweetest person and a great friend. I always reciprocated her "sweetness" even when I loathed it. I was telling my mother daily how evil she was. She was glaring at me, asking how much money I had and asking who was I texting. I worried night and day what was happening to my friend. So at first I was reaching out to people because I cared.
Who was this person?
Was she going through some sort of separation anxiety? From home? Her own turmoil?
Was she depressed?
Had someone written her off?
Was it the diet pills?
I kept trying to believe everything she was doing was temporary. I didn't have a reason to believe that I was the sole reason for her mood swings and bad behavior. She was always on some crazy endurance run and it was sad to watch. There were days she'd later reveal that she was feint. She would go hours without hydration and claim to be fine. The refusal to eat in combination with Spanish diet pills was excruciating. At times her face was gaunt and she'd pull back her hair so she just looked sick. With her constant denial of needing anyone or needing anything it became comical. At first, it wasn't easy to laugh about her demise. To talk about her like she wasn't there was both therapeutic and guilt ridden. I ultimately felt like she was unraveling and had no one to talk to. I always had the "upper hand" because I had the support system of friends, family and a blog. She really didn't communicate with anyone. In fact, her trying to mimic the idea of communication was her just sending out mindless tweets into the universe. For months all she supplied were silly affirmations and location check-ins that were barely read.
One could say I became the enemy without knowing. The irony was she knew how horrible she was being to me. I may have been saying things she had yet to see or hear but they were all from experience first hand. I'd been the friend, I'd compromised, I'd been docile quite long enough. I had no pity for her background or her plight. It was time someone gave her a dose of her own medicine. For the following five days the joke was on her. I made sure to have a good time despite her awful sentiments. I made sure she was the authority on everything. I allowed her to try to redeem herself which she never did. So when finally she learned of the blog or gotten her money back it was just. She was never a friend to me. I was nothing but her door mat. This is how she'd operated her entire life with everyone and everything. Nothing was by chance. Everything was an opportunity, every person a stepping stone and then she played some victim when things didn't go her way. I no longer blogged. I barely talked. I just smiled and counted the days.
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