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I got a letter in the mail several weeks ago, in my mailbox at work. It was from my former roommate, the only roommate I've ever had and a former best friend of mine.
M. was an awkward, quirky teenage misfit, just like me, so naturally, we gravitated toward each other in high school. The high school we went to was very privileged and particularly cliquey, and if you didn't have all the toys the other rich kids had, you likely would be one of the oddballs sitting at a table by yourself during lunch break. And with only about 60 people in my entire class, you tended to stand out that much more if you were different. Although it was tough on me emotionally, I can't thank my parents enough for the sacrifices they made to put me through that school. My family was (is) firmly middle-middle class and struggled to afford the tuition.
So anyway, that was us, M. and I sitting together at lunch each day at the Table for Uncool People. I was the fat, shy and unapproachable girl who wore clothes from Kmart and Ross -- a serious faux pas at a school full of rich kids who wouldn't be caught dead in anything but Guess!, Ralph Lauren and Benetton. There was a semi-dress code at my high school: no jeans, no sneakers, and, for girls, a blouse or button-down shirt that must be tucked in or, following the fashion of the '80s, a stylish belt around the untucked blouse. M. followed the dress code only during school hours, preferring to switch into torn death-metal shirts (Ozzy and Iron Maiden were her favorites), men's white undershirts and black leather wristbands after school. Her hair was spiky and colored in every shade of blond, auburn and brunette she could get away with without being sent home. She guffawed a lot and had a dry, weird sense of humor. She particularly liked Britcoms and had a video library of Blackadder episodes. Monty Python and Japanese animation were our shared interests, and I spent quite a few nights at her house, watching and laughing at strange videos and the aforementioned Britcoms.
You'd never know it by looking at her, but her parents were well off, and her house was huge. I actually got lost in it one time. It had an Olympic-length indoor pool with three marked lanes; her father was a competitive masters swimmer and, according to M., had once held a world record in his 60+ age group. Her bedroom alone must have been the length of my parents' entire house. Her house was big, old and musty. The 1960s-era shag carpeting was faded and dirty, and the house often smelled stale.
I'd never known anyone like her, which is what I liked about her. Her house also had a weight room with a full Nautilus gym (her dad's, for his swim training), so she herself was into bodybuilding. M. was quite muscular and big-boned but not manly. She drank protein shakes and took weight gainer, which, at the time, I'd never known a girl to do. I connected with that breaking-stereotypes, to-hell-with-being-a-cheerleader uniqueness about her. And she was a naturally gifted artist, often painting beautiful pictures of her dad's two dobermans or her two horses. Her paintings hung on many of the walls in their house, and hundreds of paint brushes and half-used tubes of oil paint were scattered about every room. I was jealous of her natural talent. I, too, loved to draw, but she could whip up in minutes what would take me an hour and only after several lessons in shading, stroke and dimension. During class or after school, she often sketched horses and naked men and women, just out of boredom.
One day during lunch, right after Christmas holiday, she was very quiet. I never did much talking to begin with, but it wasn't like her not to be chatty. To start conversation, I told her about my rather mundane Christmas break. "So," I asked, "How was yours?"
"My dad died," she said, without emotion, "on Christmas Eve."
I froze.
"He had a brain aneurysm. He went into a coma, and they told us he wasn't going to wake up. So we had to make The Decision."
"I'm so sorry..." I couldn't eat any more.
Tears started welling up in her eyes.
"So yeah, I had a good Christmas," she choked.
I don't think M. ever fully recovered from her father's death.
M. was two years older than me, so after she graduated high school, I was still there, and we didn't see each other as often. She took some classes at a nearby community college, where she met her ex-husband. I was a bridesmaid in M.'s wedding, the only wedding I've ever been in. She married an Army officer and moved to Texas, where he had been stationed.
Two years later and her marriage failing, she wanted to move back home. We'd kept in touch by occasionally writing letters. I enjoyed her letters, which were colorful and witty, and she always sketched something on them. I was just about to graduate college and was ready to leave my parents' nest, and she needed somewhere to come back to. So I proposed we get an apartment together.
They always say never to live with your best friend, because he or she won't be your best friend for long. Ain't that the truth. I won't go into every detail of our year together. But it's safe to say that from my perspective, it was a horrible arrangement. Perhaps we'd both changed a lot in the time since we graduated high school. I'd like to think I didn't change that much, but looking back, I'm sure I must have. At any rate, she certainly did. She didn't seem to have matured since high school but rather immatured. She'd become dependent and clingy. From the start, I'd been responsible for paying the bills, but I know that if it were her duty, my credit would have been wrecked. She longed to hang out with me as if I were popular and cool and she were the geeky, friendless nerd. I was frustrated and mildly embarrassed for her. In the end, I felt like her older sister or her babysitter. I always washed the dishes and cleaned the apartment. She took college classes but struggled to hold a job for longer than a couple of months. Creditors occasionally called for her. She rarely painted any more and was often depressed or annoyingly perky. I didn't remember her being this irresponsible.
She met and began dating S., a tall, blond Englishman with whom she worked and who loved to party. She'd always had an attraction to Britain, so it wasn't a surprise she'd end up with someone from there. S. was charming but as irresponsible as M. Eventually, M. asked if she and I could break the lease so that she could move in with S. I wasn't opposed, since I'd become frustrated with our living arrangement and our friendship. I thought that maybe the time apart would help heal some wounds. I found a one-bedroom apartment downtown, and she moved in with S.
There are some people out there who seem to have hearts of gold, yet they can't ever seem to stand on two feet. It's one step forward, two steps back, for their entire life. They just attract bad luck, time and time again, even though they themselves are good people. I don't know how these folks can attract so much misfortune, yet there are others who deserve the worst types of misfortune and never, ever get it. It's a great injustice in life that defies explanation.
M. had turned into one of those good but unfortunate people. Shockingly, things didn't work out between M. and S. He turned out to be a royal scumbag, dumping M. for a heroin addict after having been deported back to England. He told her terrible things over the phone -- charging her for all the international calls -- such as how he never loved her and was using her and her money. Again, she was gullible and dependent, always taking his collect calls, and why she spent thousands of dollars to try to get him back, I'll never figure out. Eventually, M. struggled to pay rent by herself at their expensive apartment but was evicted. She needed a place to stay until she got her affairs in order, so I reluctantly offered to let her sleep on my couch in my one-bedroom, 500-square-foot apartment for a few weeks.
Or so I thought. A few weeks turned into several months. I'd wanted to help her. But as the weeks went on, I became frustrated, and although I'd like to think that she was trying really hard to find a steady job and an apartment of her own, I began to feel as though I was her guardian angel again, there to pick her up every time she fell down -- and she fell down a lot. I often came home to find the TV blaring, paper and clutter everywhere, while she slept on the couch, looking as though she didn't go to bed but rather passed out.
One afternoon, I arrived back home from a week's vacation, suitcases still in hand, to find M. lying on my kitchen floor. My ex-BF and I threw down our bags and rushed to her. She was incoherent, eyes rolling, unable to focus. A pool of vomit was next to her. While the ex-BF called 911, I tried unsuccessfully to bring her back to consciousness. An ambulance arrived within minutes, and the paramedics strapped her to a stretcher.
Obviously, I was scared for her. But there was a little tiny part of me that couldn't help but think, "Now what'd she do?" I felt guilty at the thought.
We followed the ambulance to a nearby hospital, where we waited nervously for a couple of hours. Finally, a doctor approached us.
"Your friend is OK. She's talking. Do you know where your friend went last night?"
"No. We weren't in town. We arrived home to find her unconscious on my floor."
"We had to pump her stomach. She's not a pretty sight, but she'll be fine."
"What?"
"Do you know what GHB is?"
I didn't at the time, but I do now. It's gamma hydroxybutyrate, the colorless, odorless date-rape drug. M. later told me she'd been out at a club the night before, and she'd been drinking everything that had been handed to her. Apparently, something she drank was spiked with GHB. The ER doctor said that if we hadn't come home when we did, M. might not have been so lucky.
That taking-candy-from-strangers incident was the last straw. When she eventually moved out -- and I didn't outright ask her to leave, but by barely speaking to her after that, except to often ask her if she had found a place to stay yet, I made it obvious that the living arrangement was very temporary -- I severed all ties with her. I was torn between compassion for her and hoping like hell she'd grow up. Here was a person who needed constant support from others. Unfortunately for M., I'd been hardened, perhaps jaded, by years of emotional roller-coaster rides, depression, self-hatred, lack of self-confidence and bipolarism myself, and sadly, I'm somewhat frustrated by others who can't overcome or suppress the feelings I went through. I wish I were more tolerant.
But I came to the conclusion that as long I were her friend, I'd have to watch out for her safety; that the unfortunate, sad incidents she either attracted or brought upon herself would never end until she met a man who could take my place as guardian angel. I decided not to ever call her, e-mail her or answer any letters. She would become the Friend Who Never Existed.
It's been several years since I last talked to her. About once a year, she'll call my office and leave a nice voicemail message asking how I'm doing. I've never responded. What if she's in financial trouble? Needs another couch to sleep on? What if she's on the street? To this day, I've never been able to reconcile whether I was her friend or her crutch. I worry for her safety, but also worry for myself. Is that too selfish?
I wonder if I should respond to the letter she sent me several weeks ago, which still sits on a shelf in my kitchen because I haven't had the heart to throw it away.
Current mood: Pensive
Replies: 5 shoutouts
Wow, great story. Now reply to my email missy!
Posted by P @ 08/13/2004 09:50 AM EST
L: great, sad story. opening your home and heart to people like her is always risky, but the rewards can be great, too. you know there's a neat, fascinating person inside this shell of an irresponsible, needy brat.
it's hard to say what you "should" do, other than to follow your instincts -- which is usually a lot safer than following your heart.
Posted by rj @ 08/06/2004 06:39 AM EST
wow, what a story. this scenario reminds me A LOT of my relationship with my stepsister, Traci. I love her, but she is such a mess and always seems to pull everyone around her into her vortex of dysfunction, so it's hard to be around her. it's energy-draining.
Posted by tiff @ 08/06/2004 12:52 AM EST
It was an innocent "How have you been? Here's what I've been doing... I miss you" letter, much like the phone calls she periodically leaves me. I just ask myself whether it's time for me to bury the hatchet or whether it's best to keep her out of my life.
Posted by Huffy @ 08/05/2004 11:57 PM EST
So, uh, what did the letter say?
Posted by ~ @ 08/05/2004 07:18 PM EST