Walking Away
K and I became friends in high school, somewhere around the beginning of senior year. I'd known her since we were freshmen, but we hadn't really moved in the same circles. We had a study hall that year (along with the aforementioned object of my affection, Ben Thompson) and we started talking and hanging out.
It was an odd match from the beginning, but it worked for a while. She got into drinking and other related stuff earlier than I did- I was pretty much a goody-goody about that stuff in high school- and her drinking led to our first fight, at a house party near the end of that school year. The next day she called and said, "Please don't be mad at me." It was something I would hear many more times as the years went by.
When we went away to college, it didn't go so well for K. Granted, plenty of people had issues in college, including me- but for some reason she was never equipped to cope with what went on during her freshman year. She eventually dropped out and moved home, and self-medicated with alcohol and marijuana.
Spending time with her meant one thing for sure- she would likely get drunk and would inevitably end the night either in tears or belligerent. Her decisions led to a lot of negative consequences, including a DUI arrest. Others in our circle gave up long before I did, and it was strained for a while, trying to keep up with them and her. When I lived in Virginia I gave up on her for a little while too...we both just sort of stopped calling each other, and I thought that maybe it was one of those things, that we'd just grown apart.
When I moved back to New England, our relationship started back up. For a while it wasn't all that bad...I knew what to expect when we went places, and I became adept at taking her keys away and making sure she got home safely. Her parents always seemed happy to see her going places with me, as though they could stop worrying for that night.
Last summer she joined my mother and me for a day of shopping, because she and I needed to get a wedding gift for a friend. She was erratic and strange that day, but my mom and I weren't sure if it was out of the ordinary or just her usual quirkiness. Later that week I got a call from her dad telling me that she'd left Boston that day, driven to New Hampshire, and forgotten where she was or how to get home. She ended up in the psych unit at a hospital near her home.
After she was released she was on medication for a while, but hated all of it and frequently railed against doctors and meds during our phone conversations. She eventually gave up taking anything, and claimed to have told her psychiatrist she had stopped, but I was never sure what to believe. We went together to our 10-year high school reunion last Thanksgiving. I drove, because I didn't want to deal with the inevitable key-taking scene at the end of the night. She talked about only having one or two drinks. She had many more, of course...and someone came and got me and said, "You need to go to the bathroom, K is in there and she is a mess. She said to come get you."
I got her father to come pick her up. I felt bad, but I didn't want to leave because of her behavior. A classmate told me I was being a good friend by getting her a ride home.
Over the past couple of months I'd been taking longer and longer to call her back. Spending time with her had ceased to be fun, because it always ended the same way. I would try to encourage activities that didn't involve drinking, but she'd push and push and insist she'd only have one or two, and I'd relent. I got to the point where I felt that she was an adult and had to make her own choices...but at the end of the night I'd be the one taking the keys again.
I'd received a couple calls from her in the past two weeks, and since Tiff would be out of town this weekend and I was free Friday night, I invited her to visit. I figured we could order in and watch a movie, or go out for dinner and then come back to the apartment. She planned to drive home at the end of the evening, due to the whole overnight parking issue here in Brookline, so I wanted to avoid any problems.
After dinner she asked if there was anywhere we could go for a drink. I said there was, but we also could go grab some beer and go back to my apartment, because after all, it'd be cheaper...but of course we ended up going out. And for a while the evening was just fine...we were having just two drinks and she was pacing herself. We struck up a conversation with a nice guy sitting next to us. But then...she was offered another drink, and another, and another, and didn't say no. By the end of the night, she was talking to two new guys and was clearly drunk. When I took the keys she argued as usual...she followed me outside and yelled at me, saying she would call the police and tell them I stole her car. She grabbed my arm...and I lost it. And I was yelling at my friend on the sidewalk, my drunk, damaged friend, because I was out of patience. And I finally handed her the keys, told her to figure it out herself, and I walked away.
I felt awful, because I felt that I should have done more. After all, I'm always telling students that good friends don't desert each other when there's been drinking going on, and here I was, deserting her and walking home alone. But I was wondering...HAD been wondering, for a long time...at what point does helping out make you an enabler instead of a good friend? At what point do you have to say, figure it out yourself?
She's almost thirty, and no one tells her she might need to change. Getting arrested, losing friends, and suffering a variety of physical consequences hasn't been enough to make her say, "Hmmm, maybe I should do things differently." I just...didn't know what to do anymore. I didn't want anything bad to happen to her last night, and it's safe to say that if anything had I would have felt indescribable guilt. But I felt that the best thing I could do for her was walk away. And may I be struck by lightning for saying so, but I was just DONE.
She has been calling me all morning. I've been letting it ring. I've deleted the messages without listening. I am not ready, and may never be, for what she has to say...it might be a tirade about what a heartless, horrible bitch I am for leaving her. It might be, "Please don't be mad at me." But either way, I don't want to hear it right now. If that makes me a bad person...I guess I am. But I can't deal with this anymore.