LJI 10 wk 2 -- That one friend
House of Cards
The house of cards that was my friendship with Emma crashed down around five years ago, when she told me she had gotten skin cancer (from too many sunbeds). And I flat-out didn't believe her.
*****
It began about a decade and a half before that, as all friendships do when you're 11 -- proximity, and to some extent, lack of other options. We'd both been odd-ducks and loners at primary school, but in different classes, so it wasn't until secondary school that two years of sitting together for English got us better acquainted. She was the only one to admire my really cool folder.
Wicked-funny and razor-sharp, she introduced me to new music and managed to pull a large circle of people around her in the early part of high school, which, to a still-loner like me, without many friends, made her really cool. Leader of the gang, by far. Though she did have the habit, every time she came to my house, of going through all of the cupboards to check that our food was still in date. It was only much later I realised that she was lonely, too; more acquaintances basically meant more politics, not more friendship. My mum didn't like her much.
Good reason for that. There were a few, shall we say, "incidents".
Once Emma and one other girl and I were out for a walk and ended up at The Dingle. A local beauty spot with a lake, a bit further afield than I usually strayed. Well, having been back as an adult, it's really more of a large pond than a lake. But, it was a lake when we were eleven. And I ended up in it. Emma didn't push me in -- she was far too smart for that. She pushed Liz, who careered into the back of me, and I overbalanced. Then Emma grabbed the back of Liz's shirt, and kept her dry. Emma maintained she tripped. Liz maintained she didn't. And Liz became one of my closest friends towards the end of high school and into early adulthood.
Similarly, when a large gang were harassing me -- culminating in our front window getting smashed -- Emma was very clearly and obviously standing at the end of the street, out of the way of direct accusation. But nobody doubted at the time that they were all working off her orders.
Later, I did. Could she have been hanging back to avoid getting involved in that vandalism? I don't know. That would make sense of her later telling me who it was that had done it, although in that case, God only knows who's idea it was, then. Who was my enemy that night? Not that Emma was entirely sweetness and light and just misunderstood. That folder I had in English, that she really liked? I told her where to get it from, thrilled with the idea of being the trend setter for once. Emma asked when I was going to stop using mine, because "[she did]n't want the same folder that the school freak ha[d]," and that kind of ribbing was de rigeur from her as well. But Emma's mum is the one who taught me to cross stitch.
*****
It was over a decade later we remade contact; Emma left the school after -- or towards the end of -- those two years. I think she had a nervous breakdown, and then moved to a much smaller school a way away. After I'd left university -- the local one -- I found out via facebook that Emma and I had a surprising mutual friend, someone I knew from the chapel. Emma had slotted into a flatshare with her as a random loner. Not much changes. There was one night we were messaging, and Emma just said, "I'm coming to pick you up, I'll be there in 20 minutes." Whilst Heather and her friends slept, Emma and I stayed up all night in that flat, talking, going over everything from the past, escaping at first light before the others woke up. She missed me. She made me laugh again, so I kinda missed her too, and she had no recollection at all about the front window incident.
Turns out that Emma had been seriously mentally ill for nearly all of her life -- I'm talking psychosis rather than depression, although there was probably that too. If I remember correctly, she was also schizophrenic. And had borderline personality disorder. And had circulation problems, meaning she was always very cold. And was anorexic/bulimic and addicted to exercise. To name a few, before we even get into the drugs, alcohol and cigarettes she was taking.
We re-established contact after that one night, meeting up to go to the cinema or to hobbycraft or just to hang out at hers (my Mum still didn't like her), and some of these things came out afterwards. I got to know her Dad a bit then, a dear old man who didn't know what to do for the best to look after Emma. They were both still grieving for Emma's mum (and probably always would be), but not together. Not really.
She was still just as funny as ever. I remember this one conversation -- for some reason we got to talking about beans.
E: I love [baked] beans, I do
Me: Urgh, I don't, I hate them.
E: No, I love them, and nothing you can say or do is going to ruin them for me.
...
...
Well, unless you wee'd on them, or something.
Me: I wouldn't do that!!! I'm a lady!!
E: I love your definition of class, Katie. 'Won't wee on beans.'
We both fell about laughing after that!!
There were some weird occasions, though, amongst the fun. Emma finding two random dudes who both ended up back at hers with us, she and them taking cocaine for hours, me mostly twiddling my thumbs (I had never been interested in taking any, but I didn't have anything better to do that evening, so I tagged along. Again, nothing ever changes). It's definitely one of those moments I look back on and think "...did that really happen?"
We spontaneously went on a cross-country trip once. Emma was travelling north to meet her friends from Newcastle Upon Tyne, and she invited me. Turns out, if you're friends with Emma, you CAN just up and go away for five days, because she'd booked a suite at the hotel anyway, and she always buys two train tickets because she was a snob and didn't want to sit next to a random person on the train. I forgot to mention that at this point, she was rich. Filthy, filthy rich. Well, kinda always had been, but I didn't know that when we were children, and she was even richer now with her own money to add to the family wealth. She drove a bright pink convertible sports car and copyrighted the paint colour. I don't know if she ever got the Swarovski crystals embedded round the steering wheel, though. And whilst we were in Newcastle Upon Tyne, she bought a flat. Outright. Just went for a jog one morning, came back and said, I've bought a flat. As you do.
Wealth and (my) poverty aside, though, we didn't have much in common. We felt it was important to connect because of the past, and I pitied her, and she did make me laugh. And she didn't have any other friends, really (nothing ever changes), so I kind of felt obliged to be her friend, which I'd do a lot less of these days, but I did at the time. I've since studied Myers-Briggs Personality Theory quite a bit since then, and I don't think we were similar on that scale, so we found it pretty hard to relate to each other, and we weren't natural companions.
I was growing tired of the friendship, but how do you say that when you're staying friends out of pity, or because of the past? We never had much to say when we spoke on the phone, nor even after she sent me train tickets for another visit up north, which I think terminated early. And over the two, three years since the all-nighter at the university, every time I'd seen Emma, she talked about something else being wrong with her. I discussed the situation with a couple of other friends and I became quite strongly convinced I was being manipulated for the attention, amongst other things. Not that I knew what to do about it, really.
Until she said she had cancer. And I flat-out didn't believe her.
*****
I have to admit, I was a coward. I didn't speak to her, I just dodged her calls. I dodged her calls for four months. I dodged half a dozen or more phone calls a day, in the end. I'm not proud of that, but that's what happened. I never intended it to be that, I only intended to dodge them for a few days until I could figure out what to say. A few days, a few days, a few days... four months. I then ended up texting her, saying, "I've sent you an email." Turns out, I got her email address wrong. I never re-sent it when she texted me the correct one.
*****
And that was the end of Emma and Katie.
I heard through the grapevine that Barrie, that dear old man, had sold his house and moved up to Newcastle Upon Tyne to be nearer to Emma. That dear old man who had lived all his married life and part of his widowhood in the one house. Who would have, given the opportunity, have died there, of that I am sure. He sold up, because his only daughter, his only child, his only family, would not move back down here. And I do get that. She had friends and opportunities -- and property -- up there, and only bad memories from living just around the corner from the high school. I don't blame her for that, but I do feel sad for him.
And I still think about her, sometimes. And I think about my cowardice. And I wonder, what did happen, and what might have? And I think, is Emma still alive, or is she dead? Was she lying, or did she tell the truth?
And I'll have to live with not knowing.
-----------------------------------------------------
As always, concrit appreciated, and thanks for reading if you made it this far. Poll details here: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/956559.html
The house of cards that was my friendship with Emma crashed down around five years ago, when she told me she had gotten skin cancer (from too many sunbeds). And I flat-out didn't believe her.
*****
It began about a decade and a half before that, as all friendships do when you're 11 -- proximity, and to some extent, lack of other options. We'd both been odd-ducks and loners at primary school, but in different classes, so it wasn't until secondary school that two years of sitting together for English got us better acquainted. She was the only one to admire my really cool folder.
Wicked-funny and razor-sharp, she introduced me to new music and managed to pull a large circle of people around her in the early part of high school, which, to a still-loner like me, without many friends, made her really cool. Leader of the gang, by far. Though she did have the habit, every time she came to my house, of going through all of the cupboards to check that our food was still in date. It was only much later I realised that she was lonely, too; more acquaintances basically meant more politics, not more friendship. My mum didn't like her much.
Good reason for that. There were a few, shall we say, "incidents".
Once Emma and one other girl and I were out for a walk and ended up at The Dingle. A local beauty spot with a lake, a bit further afield than I usually strayed. Well, having been back as an adult, it's really more of a large pond than a lake. But, it was a lake when we were eleven. And I ended up in it. Emma didn't push me in -- she was far too smart for that. She pushed Liz, who careered into the back of me, and I overbalanced. Then Emma grabbed the back of Liz's shirt, and kept her dry. Emma maintained she tripped. Liz maintained she didn't. And Liz became one of my closest friends towards the end of high school and into early adulthood.
Similarly, when a large gang were harassing me -- culminating in our front window getting smashed -- Emma was very clearly and obviously standing at the end of the street, out of the way of direct accusation. But nobody doubted at the time that they were all working off her orders.
Later, I did. Could she have been hanging back to avoid getting involved in that vandalism? I don't know. That would make sense of her later telling me who it was that had done it, although in that case, God only knows who's idea it was, then. Who was my enemy that night? Not that Emma was entirely sweetness and light and just misunderstood. That folder I had in English, that she really liked? I told her where to get it from, thrilled with the idea of being the trend setter for once. Emma asked when I was going to stop using mine, because "[she did]n't want the same folder that the school freak ha[d]," and that kind of ribbing was de rigeur from her as well. But Emma's mum is the one who taught me to cross stitch.
*****
It was over a decade later we remade contact; Emma left the school after -- or towards the end of -- those two years. I think she had a nervous breakdown, and then moved to a much smaller school a way away. After I'd left university -- the local one -- I found out via facebook that Emma and I had a surprising mutual friend, someone I knew from the chapel. Emma had slotted into a flatshare with her as a random loner. Not much changes. There was one night we were messaging, and Emma just said, "I'm coming to pick you up, I'll be there in 20 minutes." Whilst Heather and her friends slept, Emma and I stayed up all night in that flat, talking, going over everything from the past, escaping at first light before the others woke up. She missed me. She made me laugh again, so I kinda missed her too, and she had no recollection at all about the front window incident.
Turns out that Emma had been seriously mentally ill for nearly all of her life -- I'm talking psychosis rather than depression, although there was probably that too. If I remember correctly, she was also schizophrenic. And had borderline personality disorder. And had circulation problems, meaning she was always very cold. And was anorexic/bulimic and addicted to exercise. To name a few, before we even get into the drugs, alcohol and cigarettes she was taking.
We re-established contact after that one night, meeting up to go to the cinema or to hobbycraft or just to hang out at hers (my Mum still didn't like her), and some of these things came out afterwards. I got to know her Dad a bit then, a dear old man who didn't know what to do for the best to look after Emma. They were both still grieving for Emma's mum (and probably always would be), but not together. Not really.
She was still just as funny as ever. I remember this one conversation -- for some reason we got to talking about beans.
E: I love [baked] beans, I do
Me: Urgh, I don't, I hate them.
E: No, I love them, and nothing you can say or do is going to ruin them for me.
...
...
Well, unless you wee'd on them, or something.
Me: I wouldn't do that!!! I'm a lady!!
E: I love your definition of class, Katie. 'Won't wee on beans.'
We both fell about laughing after that!!
There were some weird occasions, though, amongst the fun. Emma finding two random dudes who both ended up back at hers with us, she and them taking cocaine for hours, me mostly twiddling my thumbs (I had never been interested in taking any, but I didn't have anything better to do that evening, so I tagged along. Again, nothing ever changes). It's definitely one of those moments I look back on and think "...did that really happen?"
We spontaneously went on a cross-country trip once. Emma was travelling north to meet her friends from Newcastle Upon Tyne, and she invited me. Turns out, if you're friends with Emma, you CAN just up and go away for five days, because she'd booked a suite at the hotel anyway, and she always buys two train tickets because she was a snob and didn't want to sit next to a random person on the train. I forgot to mention that at this point, she was rich. Filthy, filthy rich. Well, kinda always had been, but I didn't know that when we were children, and she was even richer now with her own money to add to the family wealth. She drove a bright pink convertible sports car and copyrighted the paint colour. I don't know if she ever got the Swarovski crystals embedded round the steering wheel, though. And whilst we were in Newcastle Upon Tyne, she bought a flat. Outright. Just went for a jog one morning, came back and said, I've bought a flat. As you do.
Wealth and (my) poverty aside, though, we didn't have much in common. We felt it was important to connect because of the past, and I pitied her, and she did make me laugh. And she didn't have any other friends, really (nothing ever changes), so I kind of felt obliged to be her friend, which I'd do a lot less of these days, but I did at the time. I've since studied Myers-Briggs Personality Theory quite a bit since then, and I don't think we were similar on that scale, so we found it pretty hard to relate to each other, and we weren't natural companions.
I was growing tired of the friendship, but how do you say that when you're staying friends out of pity, or because of the past? We never had much to say when we spoke on the phone, nor even after she sent me train tickets for another visit up north, which I think terminated early. And over the two, three years since the all-nighter at the university, every time I'd seen Emma, she talked about something else being wrong with her. I discussed the situation with a couple of other friends and I became quite strongly convinced I was being manipulated for the attention, amongst other things. Not that I knew what to do about it, really.
Until she said she had cancer. And I flat-out didn't believe her.
*****
I have to admit, I was a coward. I didn't speak to her, I just dodged her calls. I dodged her calls for four months. I dodged half a dozen or more phone calls a day, in the end. I'm not proud of that, but that's what happened. I never intended it to be that, I only intended to dodge them for a few days until I could figure out what to say. A few days, a few days, a few days... four months. I then ended up texting her, saying, "I've sent you an email." Turns out, I got her email address wrong. I never re-sent it when she texted me the correct one.
*****
And that was the end of Emma and Katie.
I heard through the grapevine that Barrie, that dear old man, had sold his house and moved up to Newcastle Upon Tyne to be nearer to Emma. That dear old man who had lived all his married life and part of his widowhood in the one house. Who would have, given the opportunity, have died there, of that I am sure. He sold up, because his only daughter, his only child, his only family, would not move back down here. And I do get that. She had friends and opportunities -- and property -- up there, and only bad memories from living just around the corner from the high school. I don't blame her for that, but I do feel sad for him.
And I still think about her, sometimes. And I think about my cowardice. And I wonder, what did happen, and what might have? And I think, is Emma still alive, or is she dead? Was she lying, or did she tell the truth?
And I'll have to live with not knowing.
-----------------------------------------------------
As always, concrit appreciated, and thanks for reading if you made it this far. Poll details here: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/956559.html