Adventure Angst: Letting Go of A Friend

echocadence (38)in #life • 7 years ago

Hello again my favorite Steemers! This is Echo Cadence bringing you a sad, personal tale that's affecting my life right now. I wish that I could write about my engagement (which I'm super excited about) or about my upcoming move to Arizona (which I'm also super pumped up about) but this issue with saying goodbye forever to my friend has been bogging my mind down with sadness; and what better way to help myself than to share it with my favorite digital people?

Before I begin to tell you my woes, I must firmly state that while my friend, we'll call her Ebony here, has hurt me a great number of times and is greatly at fault, I too am at fault and am not completely innocent to all that has happened. I completely own up to what I've done wrong and will totally address those issues as well.

With that being said, I hope that you have a big fat cup of joe sitting in front of you and are sitting in a comfy chair! Here we go~

I met Ebony on the collegiate tennis team I was on during my Freshman year of college and I immediately wanted to claim her as my friend. I just had that warm feeling about her; there was something about her smile and the way her eyes crinkled that made me believe that she had the same warped sense of humor that I have.

It didn't take long for us to become best tennis mates, then best friends. We both had such a big passion for writing, anime, yaoi, and food, and we also came from similar backgrounds, both of us coming from dysfunctional families.

I remember one time we both got the flu at the same time and we stayed within my dorm room eating soggy chicken noodle soup while crying over Love Never Dies. I remember writing lemony smut together about our tennis coach and making fun of his accent. I remember the day we went off to go to the beach and were trapped for two hours in a hellish rain storm, screeching at passing cars on the side of the road. I remember watching Attack on Titan with her for the very first time and binging half of the first season in one night. We related on so many things; however, despite Ebony and I connecting on numerous things it quickly became apparent that we were severely different.

For instance, I was open to going on dates with a number of boys, and if I really liked one of them then I would bless them by exclusively dating them for a few months. Ebony, on the other hand, had been dating the same boy since she was 17 years old (she was 20 when we became friends) and when she was interested in an other boy she would have sex with whomever until the feeling was out of her system. I justified going out on numerous dates by saying that I'm young, awesome, and you have to kiss a few frogs to find a prince; she justified her actions by saying that she's young and her boyfriend is abusive so she deserves some fun on the side.

Please understand that while I absolutely hated her boyfriend and was completely against them being together, I didn't support the cheating. In any case, it took months and months to build up her confidence to leave this horrible person, and during those months I fell really hard for her. It was unexpected and scary, but I felt so strongly for Ebony.

After Ebony broke up with her boyfriend, I had told her about my feelings for her and exploded with happiness when she told me that she felt the same way. For two weeks, we were super happy, but too afraid to come out to anyone just yet.

One day when she was supposed to come over, she didn't. She wouldn't answer my texts, phone calls, emails, or anything for days. Then when she finally contacted me, she told me that she got back together with her boyfriend and that she's super happy with him.

I remember bursting into tears and telling her that I felt so betrayed and why didn't she tell me this before getting together with him? Why did she do this to me?

To which she calmly replied as if it was the most obvious answer in the world, "We're both girls, did you really think that this would work out? Think about how your parents would feel if they were to ever know?"

Looking back at this, I know that I should have ended the friendship immediately right then and there; but I have an issue with letting people who I see value in go. So I continued the friendship with it being exactly that; a friendship, with one party being completely broken hearted and depressed. During my depression, I had gained 50 pounds and literally obsessed over her, purposely making myself available every hour of the day just in case if she called to talk.

I can't tell you how hurtful it was to see Facebook and Instagram posts from her saying how she had so much fun hanging out with her buddies while she was ignoring me, how much it hurt when she said that she was so lonely even when I would text her constantly.

After six months of this, I snapped myself out of this depression and began to better myself, but still couldn't pull away from her despite her doing hurtful things.

During that period of time, she became pregnant with her boyfriend and a lot of her friends soon pulled away from her and she finally contacted me. We had a fight, we apologized, and things seemed to go better for awhile.

And then I met Mr. Lover Boy~ And Ebony's jealous side blossomed into the light like a poisonous thistle.

Before I go into detail about that, I really should tell you about her boyfriend. He was raised by an upper middle class family who looked down their nose at the lower class families, which Ebony was apart of. His parents completely disapproved of her and her familial background, and due to that he in return treated her less than favorable. For instance, she was putting his laundry away and found an engagement ring in his sock drawer. Of course she would think that he would propose to her. Instead, he ended up giving her the ring, stating, "Yeah, I was going to propose to you, but I changed my mind. You can have this as a gift; it wasn't expensive."

In addition to that, he would be so jealous of me every time I would try to hang out with Ebony, even after I had told him that there was no longer anything between her and I. For awhile, I could understand where he was coming from and would purposely hang out with her while he was around; but even after I started dating Mr. Lover Boy he told Ebony that he didn't want her getting mixed up with someone like me.

Yeah, he was one of those lovely people. As you can tell from that description, their relationship was not a happy one while my relationship with Mr. Lover Boy was steadily building into a wonderful one; it quickly became apparent that Ebony did not like that at all and would say and do things to try to pull me away from Mr. Lover Boy, like saying that she said hi to him and he ignored her. Petty stuff like that.

Well, anyways, she had the baby and for a time it was peaceful... until she started to have another affair with someone that worked at the high school. I'm not too sure how affairs normally start (online, duh), but the way she started hers was pretty messed up. She wrote a note and gave it to her sister who is in high school, told her to deliver it to the guy whom she has never spoken to in person, he texted her to meet him outside in the parking lot, which she did, and then she went and did the hokey pokey with him at his house... which had just moved into... while waiting for his wife and 7 children to move up there with him.

She stopped talking to me for awhile after telling me all of that, because I told her that if she really wanted to go after someone to do so AFTER breaking up with her current boyfriend, and that it probably was definitely not a good idea to be having an unprotected affair with a married man. So, I was shut out until she called me to announce that she was pregnant again and had no idea who the father is.

After she reached back out to me, she genuinely apologized for her treatment of me and once again, things seemed to be going smoothly... until Mr. Lover Boy received clearance on the job in Arizona and we were informed that we would be moving at the end of February. She's become super distant despite me reaching out and telling her that physical distance doesn't matter to me, emotional distance does.

It didn't matter what I said nor how often I went down to her hometown to visit her; she pulled away from me altogether. She wouldn't answer my phone calls, would open up my messages to leave the seen stamp on it without replying, would post pictures of her hanging out with the friends that paid her attention when things were all well and dandy.

I was hurt, but it was more like a hairline scratch ontop of layers of scar tissues. It hurt, but it was a weary kind of pain. I was still sad that she was acting like this, but I figured that this was part of her pregnancy hormones.

Until Mr. Lover Boy proposed to me. When that awesome moment happened, I was so excited that I immediately messaged my best friend, we'll call her Tobi, and Ebony. Tobi immediately called me and freaked out with me, being so happy for me. Ebony saw my message, ignored it for 30 minutes, then messaged back, OMG you're engaged? And proceeded to message me a string of hearts. I tried to call her later on that night, to which she didn't answer nor returned my call... and didn't message me back.
Again, I was hurt, but I was so sick of this. Jealousy is something I can understand, but when it's a best friend involved you HAVE to put on a smile and tell them that you're happy for them. Even if you're not and you're burning up with green envy, somewhere deep within yourself you know that you're happy that they're happy... or at least that's what a decent human being would feel.

I finally realized that I deserved better, that I AM better than this, and stopped speaking to her completely.

And then she sent me a Baby Shower Invitation a week afterwards. That's just it; it was a picture of an invitation sent to me via messenger. Nothing other than that was said, just an image.

So, I debated between my dark side and my good side if I should purchase a DNA test and hand it over to her boyfriend or if I should purchase two binkies and tell her, one is for the baby and the other one is for you... SINCE YOU LIKE SUCKING ON THINGS SO MUCH!

I was also tempted to buy a shit ton of diapers and at the bottom of the box write, I hope that you enjoy using these just as much as you enjoyed using me.

But, my angel side won the battle (unfortunately) and I bought very tame gifts and went to the baby shower with the intention of staying for an hour, eating all of the cake, and then leaving. Now, you may be thinking that I mean just a lot of cake and then ditching; no, you're wrong. I meant it when I said eating ALL of the cake and then standing up and departing without another word.

That was the plan; this is what actually happened: I couldn't find the correct building number and ended up to the party fifteen minutes late, yet still managed to be the first one there. For real. Like, not even Ebony was there. She didn't come to her own baby shower until 2:30 p.m. and the party started at 2 p.m.... When she did come, she looked at me excitedly, which brightened my day, until her brown eyes darted to the large gift that was labeled to her in my hand writing.

Someone at the party had asked me about the ring on my finger, to which I had said that I'm engaged. That person had excitedly exclaimed for me and then turned to Ebony and had asked why she didn't mention this earlier. To which Ebony had coolly looked at me and said, "Oh, I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to speak to you, but congrats."

By this time, I was thinking that this cake better be fucking worth it!

I'm sad to say that after waiting for an hour and a half, I discovered that there wasn't any cake to be found. None, at all. T . T

So, I gave the mother-to-be a departing hug goodbye and left before they began to open the gifts and proceeded to have an amazing weekend.

I know that the ending of all this kind of makes me sound like a petty bitch, and perhaps I am... but please understand that Ebony has put me through so much heart break over and over again, and over and over again I have forgiven her and given her chances after chances to redeem herself. At some point, I just became so tired of this dance and wanted out of it.

Many other friends of mine, all who have been better friends than Ebony, have told me time and time again to give up on her and I never have until now. People have told me that they never could understand why I continued this friendship with such a toxic person... and for a time I never could understand it either. I do now...

Now that we're at the end of my sad story, let me tell you why I stayed in that friendship for so long: I always saw her as that amazing person that I befriended on the tennis team and stayed up to the dead of night making stupid puns with. I didn't want to say goodbye to that once in a lifetime friendship I thought we had and fought so hard to keep it alive... but what I didn't realize was that the Ebony I had once knew had long ago changed into someone completely different. I think that I realized this several times but refused to acknowledge it, choosing to keep my head buried in the sand.

I think that it's the same as losing someone in death; you have to mourn for their passing, but there are stages of grief that you tend to go through: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I've learned that this is a definite process that you have to go through to let go of a friend that really isn't a friend anymore. It sucks, and it hurts, but there is always a light at the end of it.

To end this, I want to say thank you so much for reading this post! You all have been so frikin amazing and I totally appreciate the lot of you!

Echo Cadence out!