When a friendship ends: Monica

Maybe it would have been easier if she wasn’t so self aware.

She wondered, briefly, if it counted as hypocrisy to hate people who were not self aware while wishing that she was less so. It was not her weakness. It was her strength. She knew exactly what she was doing when she did it.

Which made it all the worse.

Kelsey had taken her off guard. Things between them had been bad for months, but she had thought that she could count on Kelsey to leave it be. The girl was her best friend. She knew her well enough to know that while she talked a big game in low stake situations, Kelsey was always the type to avoid major conflict.

She had underestimated her.

“You’re just an awful person, you know?” There was some kind of disconnect between her brain and her body. She could hear herself saying the words, but didn’t remember the conscious decision to form them. “I can’t tell you how much anxiety I’ve had over this. And you’re so concerned with yourself that you didn’t ever think to help out.”

The half truths flowed from her lips, completely unbidden. It had been like this all of her life. She could win any argument. A strange, eerie calm would take over her body and she would say whatever was necessary to be the most right. The winner.

Kelsey was holding back tears. Monica could see it in her deep, steadying breaths and her carefully chosen words, so unlike her own.

“I’m just confused.” Kelsey said slowly. “You always said that you would tell me if you were mad at me. It’s been three years. How is this only coming up now?”

Monica flipped her hair back from her shoulder. “You broke my trust, Kels.”

It was really too bad that she knew Kelsey so well. She couldn’t, in that moment, decide which was worse. Her intimate knowledge of Kelsey that made it so easy to beat her in an argument, or her own sense of self awareness that gave her clarity into exactly how she was leveraging that knowledge to win.

Either way she was throwing away that friendship.

“I just don’t understand, Monica.” Kelsey’s voice was getting higher and higher with each syllable. The breaking point was fast approaching. “What did I do? How did I break your trust?”

It was, Monica knew, a fair question. Kelsey had always been there for her. She had been her personal chauffeur whenever she was in need. She had made herself available when she was having a bad mental health day. She had come out to every one of her student stand up shows, sitting through all the dud comics just to support Monica. They had built forts by pushing the couches together in just the right way. They had shared each others secrets and she knew that Kelsey would never truly betray her.

“I hate your boyfriend.” Avoid the question. Good tactic. “And I’m pretty sure he hates me. He always talks to me in such a weird way. I hate it.”

Kelsey’s brow furrowed for a moment, as though trying to figure out how this comment fit logically into the structure of their conversation.

It didn’t.

“That’s just his sense of humour,” she said finally. “He just wants to bond with you. He’s just trying to make you laugh.”

“Well it’s weird and he makes me uncomfortable.”

This wasn’t a lie, although the context was questionable. She didn’t hate David because he spoke to her funny. This, she knew even without Kelsey’s insight, was just his way of trying to make friends with her.

But she still hated him.

Because he was taking Kelsey.

Kelsey was an awful roommate. That was an unavoidable truth. She rarely pulled her weight around the apartment and was incredibly forgetful. Monica could think of numerous times that she had had to ask Kelsey to complete simple tasks more than once. It really was a large source of anxiety in her life.

But Kelsey was a great friend. She was generous, and easy to talk to. She gave great advice, and genuinely thought that Monica was a good person, despite all the evidence to the contrary. She was kind to the people most important to her, and vicious to anyone who was mean to someone she loved. She gave so much of herself to her relationships, and Monica had come to count on her.

Until she had announced that David had been admitted to a PhD program across the country and she was going with him.

“You’re just not a good person, Kels. I’m honestly relieved that you’re leaving.”

That’s what did it. It was like watching the well overflow in slow motion. Kelsey tried to fight it, which only made the tears worse when they finally arrived.

Because Monica knew her so well, she knew that being someone Kelsey loved gave her incredible power to inflict pain. The part of her brain in charge of the autopilot attack watched on with vengeance. The rest of her searched frantically for something, anything to say.

“God, you are such an ugly crier.” she said, sitting back on the couch and crossing her arms. “Can’t you get through this conversation without crying? I don’t even want to look at you.”

Monica knew perfectly well that despite all of Kelsey’s faults, she was not a bad person. Between the two of them, she knew that title was another crown she had earned.

This is part two of a two part series. Part one can be read here.