Broken Friendships & Me

Hey guys, by show of hands, how many of you have a best friend?  How about a good friend?  One that you trust a lot?  Good, good, I see lots of hands…glad you all have friends....

WARNING: THIS WILL BE A VERY DRAMATIC POST, AND I MAY OR MAY NOT MEAN ALL OR ANY OR NONE OF WHAT I SAY.

All right, if you’re still with me, prepare to be bombarded with a tirade of...horrible things…because that’s what I’ll be…ranting about today.  Let’s go.

Guys, I’ve never really had many friends, and any friends that I thought I had…weren’t really friends at all.  I admit, I think I still have a few good friends…emphasis on think.  Lately, I’ve been finding that my relationships with people (I have relationships with books, too.  Don't ask.) aren’t going very well.  Which kinda sucks...because I don’t have many of them to begin with…

*sigh*

I’m not exactly sure how to continue with this...there’s so much I want to say…but I’m not sure how to say it all…let’s start again?

Okay, so....I have this frie—

Yo, peoples, IT'S ME, anti-Elizabeth here.  That's right.  I'm taking over for this post.  The other Elizabeth is a teary mess, and too pathetic to say much of anything right now.  You're going to see how incredibly MESSED UP my mind is...but rest assured...I won't act on them.....most of them anyway.  So....I might tell you some disturbing stuff, and you might look at me with wide eyes and scream at me for being a lunatic, and maybe I am, but that's not the point here.  The point is...I value this friendship I had/ve very much, and I thought I could TRUST this person.  COMPLETE AND UTTER TRUST.  It all belonged to this person.  And this person completely smashed it.  Crushed it....into an infinite amount of pieces....pieces I don't think they'll ever be able to put together again. So.  If I can't trust this person anymore...this person I've placed all my trust in....who CAN I trust? Everything I thought I knew....without a doubt...is now....being doubted.  I'm ruined.  
*ugh, look at how pathetic I am...I can't even sleep the misery is so bad....what time is it now?  6AM?!

Can you kinda...sorta...start to feel how upset I am right now?  Because you'll need this understanding if you're going to continue reading the rest of this post....otherwise...you'll just think I'm being overdramatic.....

Recently, my best friend told me they didn’t want to see me around anymore.  My BEST FRIEND*, my B.(B.I.T.H.O.B.)F.F told me that they've had enough of our friendship.  This friend of mine didn't tell me when they would be back....so now I'm just left waiting...waiting for something that might never happen.  I'm afraid to say it....but....could our friendship be over....indefinitely?  Finished? 
Over...?

I feel like I’ve known this friend all my life.  We’ve gone through SO much together.  This friend of mine has supported and encouraged me through the toughest of times and the best of times...and I’ve always thought that this person would never abandon me.  I always thought that our friendship was strong.  Was durable…and no matter what machetes, axes, arrows, giant rocks and flesh-eating diseases were thrown our way…we’d find a way to kick them back to wherever the beep they came from (we would look super cool while doing it, too.  It would be like a synchronized dance!  We would have super cool uniforms, a cheesy catchphrase and we would look at whatever obstacle that comes our way with confidence…because we would know that there’s NOTHING that would ever come between our super powerful friendship that will last till the end of the world…and beyond). 

*I'm going to give this friend a name.  How about Friend #4?  I hear it means death in some cultures...(you interpret the reason I chose that number however you like) or...how about Friend #8?  Okay, Friend #8 it is.

I always thought that this person would always BE my friend...I never doubted it for a second.  My friend told me they didn't want to be friend for a bit.  They need time....lots of time....without me. Told me to find other friends, assuming that I have no other friends?  Assuming that I'm just going to keep bothering them if I don't go find other friends?  

*sigh*

Well, we ended our conversation pretty horribly.

But, believe me when I say that I wouldn't want anything more than to send this friend of mine a message right now.  But, you see, I respect their wishes (for time without me) too much to send them a message.  I wish I wasn't as...respecting.  I wish I could just fearlessly send this friend messages, annoying them until they HAVE to talk to me.  Because, as horrible as it sounds....I rather have SOME conversation than no conversation at all.  Even if it's bad conversation, I KNOW we can work it out in time.  We just needed time.  We would have talked it out.  We would have been FINE.

But you know what really frustrates me?  I can't get mad...or stay mad...without making my friend get mad, too.  I feel like I have to always be happy, always be friendly, always be carefree....never hold grudges longer than a minute....it's....ugh. 

I've told this friend of mine that I would always forgive them...no matter what.  Is it too much to ask them to extend the same courtesy to me?  

Apparently.

Well then, what’s a shy girl like me gonna do/say to their best friend who tells me they don't want to be my friend anymore, huh?  I’ll tell you what.

This shy girl (me) has become terribly upset and awfully frustrated.

She doesn't show any outward signs though.  Not yet, anyway.  But the little things annoy her.  

It starts with talking.  Oh, why do people have to talk so obnoxiously loud?  

Then it's babies.  Oh, why can't babies just feed themselves and stop crying for crying out loud!  

Then it's the phones.  Oh, why must people always be on their devices, the sounds hurt my ears, the lights hurt my eyes.  

Then the happy people.  Couples?  Happy friends hanging out together....really?!  

Then the breathing.  Oh, why must people breathe in my direction...they're breath reeks of rotten fish! 

Then my sister.  Ow! Why on earth would you pull my hair so hard?!  Do you know how many cracks I heard in my neck?! 

Then the music.

All of Me...

"'Cause all of me
Loves all of you
Love your curves and all your edges
All your perfect imperfections
Give your all to me
I'll give my all to you
You're my end and my beginning
Even when I lose I'm winning"

You're Still the One...

"You're still the one I run to

The one that I belong to
You're still the one I want for life
(you're still the one)
You're still the one that I love
The only one I dream of
You're still the one I kiss good night"

Just Say You Won't Let Go...

"I'm so in love with you
And I hope you know
Darling, your love is more than worth its weight in gold
We've come so far my dear
Look how we've grown
And I wanna stay with you
Until we're grey and old
Just say you won't let go
Just say you won't let go"

Okay, so yes....these are LOVE songs...what of it?!  I really like my BEST friend, okay?!  You gotta problem with that?  Do ya?!  DO YA?!

Everything bothers me, and every new thing makes me one second closer to an outburst.  But I tell myself to hold back.  I can control it....I CAN control it.  I quietly fume in my own little corner of the world.

Then my brother sneezes too close to me.

AND I.

EXPLODE.

***

She wants to do so much with this frustration…because this frustration is powerful.  It’s impatient.  It’s impulsive.  It’s very likely dangerous and it wants to CONSUME her.  She doesn't usually show anger, so when she feels it, she bottles it up and maintains the bottle so that it won't explode in anyone's face....

But of course, bottling is only for show.  Mentally, her mind has gone wild, she imagines herself suffering through all sorts of unimaginable pain.  Some examples?

She wants to run on broken pieces of glass (preferably contaminated glass bottles she broke herself), she wants to jump on them, roll around in them until her body is full of cuts.

Then she'll go to her room where she has a mountainous pile of neatly stacked books (she can't afford a bookshelf) and kick them down.  Oh, but she's not going to stop there, she's going to tear out every single page of her beloved books.  She's going to tear them to shreds, making sure to give herself no small amount of papercuts.  At this point, she'll be temporarily satisfied with the cuts she's received and go soak her body in a pool of rubbing alcohol.  She HATES alcohol, which is why it would be perfect.  After she's endured the stinging pain from the alcohol, she goes back to her room, fresh with determination to create more disorder and chaos.  Some more examples?

She's going to take a very cold shower.  Then she'll take another shower...but first, she'll slam the knob all the way to the hot side and see if she can get some burns from how hot the water is.  While in the shower, she'll bite her fingers.  She'll shove her hand up her mouth, she wonders if it's possible to choke herself.  But she realises that she doesn't want to die from asphyxiation, she hasn't experienced enough pain yet. So she pulls her hand out a little and settles on biting them. She's also wondered if she would have the audacity to bite her fingers off.  She's heard the expression before...but she's never tried it.  She stops biting when she feels that any harder and her fingers will actually fall off.  When she's done, she'll dry herself off, put on some clothes and head to her room.

When she walks into her room, she'll see her desk full of stuff...namely, stuff that reminds her of her friendship with this person.  Guess what she's going to want to do next?

That's right.

She's also going to pull out all her drawers and throw everything onto the floor, because you know, chaos.  Maybe she'll throw stuff out her window, too...

Then she'll sit in the middle of all that mess, and try to read.  She's going to open up all her chat records with this friend and read them.  Then she'll move the screen really close to her face and turn the brightness all the way up.  Who cares about bad eyesight?  Not her.  If she can't see her friend anymore, she doesn't really want to SEE anymore.  Then she'll move the screen really far away and squint because that's also bad for her eyes.

But she's not going to stop with just one sense.  She's also going to damage her hearing, too.  She's going to play all the silly voice recordings they've shared, all the phone calls they've saved as memories and listen to them one last time...before she puts on some earphones and plays music as loud as possible.  She won't need to hear anymore, either.

After she's done all this, she will start to pull at her hair because of how hurt she is...how frustrated, how incredibly uncontrollable her negative feelings are.  At first, it'll be gentle tugging....just to feel the sensation...but it will gradually get harder as she realises that she's discovered another way to incite pain.  She'll yank and pull until she sees her hair around her lying in clumps around her.  This will momentarily satisfy her...until she sees her phone lying on the "ground" in her peripheral vision.  

She'll pick up her phone and open her messages again.  There she will re-read over and over again the hurtful messages that were last sent to her.  She will read them and relish in the pain it brings to her heart.  

Her heart....oh, her poor, poor (emotional) heart.  She feels that someone has cut open her chest to roughly pull out her heart and delicately (but deliberately) slice into it right in front of her.  She sees the angry red lines trailing down...then, the person starts to get impatient with the slicing, they crave more pain....MORE blood, so he finds an axe from somewhere and starts hacking away at the heart. When he's done and satisfied that the heart is nothing but a pulp that can just barely beat, he shoves the heart back into her chest and crudely stitches her back together. 

When that's all done, she sees that her friend is ACTIVE.  They've online!  And this brings a sudden, immeasurable joy to her heart.  She smiles through her tears, thinking that her friend has changed their mind, that they're back and willing to try this friendship again.  But after staring at the screen for a few minutes, she realises that there will be no message.  Her friend remains silent.  They don't say anything.  No jumping dots in a speech bubble....nothing. 

She stares at her phone....stares and stares...tears will start to fall...fall....fall.....

Then she glares at her phone angrily.  She curses at herself for being so forgiving.  She hates herself for still caring about them after what they said to her.  She bitterly wonders if her friend is enjoying their time without her.  Her tears are falling heavily and quickly now. She hugs the phone to her chest and sobs her eyes out.  She half screams the words she's wanted to say to this friend for the past few days they've been silent.  She longs to "hear" their voice again, their comforting words...their encouraging embrace.  She sobs so hard she drops her phone and starts yanking at her hair again.  Then, noticing how close her hands are to her neck, she grabs at her neck instead.  With both hands she starts squeezing...clawing....as if there's a giant tarantula stuck in her throat.  She knows she looks like a depraved animal right now but she doesn't care.  Oh, how she wished that her friend knew how miserable she was....

She HATES that even after that, she KNOWS that if her friend sends a message, she'll drop everything and ask THEM for forgiveness.  She'll probably forget all the hurtful things they've said to her and want to pretend everything is back to the way they were before.  They'll be back to being BEST friends again.  

She wonders if they'll even care if she, say, got into a car accident and was severely injured. They probably won't even know.  Won't care.  After all, how would they know?  They don't seem to care enough to want updates on her life anymore.  She's as good as dead to them.

Well, she'll get tired from staring at her phone soon and will want to resort to other measures to keep the pain present.  More examples?

She's going to punch a wall.  As hard as she can.  She wants to make a hole in it, a big one.  She wants to see blood on her fist.  She wants to see bone.  Then she'll slam her body into another section of the wall.  She'll ram her body repeatedly at the wall until she's absolutely sure that there will be big bruises on her body tomorrow.

When she's finished (ha, she's far from finished), she'll soak her hand in bleach because her mom has always warned her that bleach is BAD (thanks mom).  She'll also go find some toothpicks.  As a kid, she loved to do VERY SILLY things with them...sometimes even poking them where they aren't supposed to go.  But there's no one here to stop her this time.  This time, she'll be doing VERY SILLY things with the intention of causing harm.  She will shove them up anywhere she can...her nose, her ears, maybe even her belly button?  She's always wondered if her belly button was considered a hole.  Guess she'll finally get to find out now.  When she's done all that, she'll yank them out, pick up a small package and go out to a grocery store to buy a very sharp knife.

Then she'll wait till it's dark before she undresses and runs around her neighbourhood shouting, screaming, and mourning* (like a person who should be put into an asylum) until her voice becomes hoarse and she eventually loses it.  She'll start with outrageous obscenities, screaming hateful words at the world. She'll want to pretend that she's not completely heartbroken that her BEST friend would leave her like this.  She'll want people to see her as a vengeful wraith, not a heartbroken soul.
*she mourns the death of her beloved friendship

She'll probably catch a cold, or maybe she'll even freeze to death!  How wonderful would that be?!

After, she'll find some means of transportation to get herself to her friend's house.  She won't go try to get in, and do anything TOO stupid.  But she'll stand outside.  She'll stare at the door*.  She will len against a wall and slowly slide down to the floor.  Her shoulders will shake a little as she tries to muffle her cries.  When she trusts herself to contain her tears, she'll take out that knife she bought earlier, cut away some of her clothes and draw on her body.  Who knows what she'll draw....geometric shapes...straight lines....swirly lines....not-really-lines....maybe she'll even find herself subconsciously slicing her best friend's initials!  Oh, how beautiful the red trails are!

*whoa, almost sounds like something a heartbroken girlfriend would do!  Interesting....but right now, I'm talking about a friend, so....

In that hallway of her friend's house, she will get some time to think.  She'll wonder what she's done wrong for her friend to react so angrily towards her.  She'll blame herself.  She'll start to turn all her frustration inward.  Maybe her friend didn't want to hang out with a person as ugly as her.  After all, she already kinda hates her body.  

Her teeth are crooked, so she doesn't like smiling.  Her toes are crooked, her body is riddled in acne, her hair is coarse and poofy, with grey hairs seen from every direction.  And most of all, her fat. She's a very fat person.  Her thighs are huge, they could crush a small puppy, her stomach is unbelievable, it's bulging so much, she wonders if she's somehow pregnant, or maybe she subconsciously ate a watermelon whole.  She's also incredibly stupid.  She still counts using her fingers, and she's always the last person to make connections.  She was never the smartest in her class...or even smart.  She was always that girl who started as a dumb kid, and stayed a dumb kid.  The list goes on.  

She finds so many things wrong with herself...she starts to realise that maybe it's all HER fault.  Her friend doesn't want to be her friend and that's okay.  She'll accept that her friend just can't stand to be around a fat and ugly person anymore.  Her friend also doesn't want to always have to answer all her stupid questions that should be self-explanatory. Her friend doesn't want to have to explain every single thing to her.  It always ruins the moment. 
She'll understand.

In this little scene of hers, there will also happen to be a quarantine nearby.  So she would get herself to a quarantine!  And lick every last surface of it.....!  That is...assuming she can get in....if she can't...well...maybe she'll volunteer herself in a snuff film then.  Of course, right before she goes, she'll check her phone one last time.  She'll give her friend one last chance to stop her, to change her mind.  She'll open her messages....tap on her friend's picture....read the last hurtful words sent....and see that her friend hasn't been online in thirteen hours.  13 is an unlucky number, no?  

Well....thirteen hours is also a very long time....but just as she's about to put her phone away...her friend becomes ACTIVE again!  Unfortunately, as much as she tells her emotions to calm the beep down (because they AREN'T going to say anything again this time), her emotions still skyrocket and for a moment, she's happy.  She excitedly glues her eyes to the bottom of the screen where she expects the jumping ellipsis to appear at any moment....

A minute goes by....two.....five....nine.....nothing.

She walks in.

Suddenly, it all goes by in a blur.  

When the gun is out, clicked, and ready to pull the trigger, she passes out. She welcomes the darkness that envelopes her, but she realises that she doesn't want to wake up from this nightmare, she wants to sleep.  Forever.  She takes out a special pill from the package she stored in her pocket....

...but she didn't have enough time.

...she passes out with a look of anguish on her face.

***

She awakens to find herself lying on the grass.  Perhaps the people took mercy on her?  Darnit.

She walks back home...no one's home yet.

She goes back to her room, hunts down her laptop in the mess she's made and starts to type out a post.

She cries.