The other day I received an email (who obtained it from this blog) from someone who Ah fale much oblaaahhged to call out on this hare blog. I had not spoken to him in more than ten years, and I don't really appreciate his Google-stalking -- because I loathe him. I will not drop the name, but I feel like it would be a cathartic excercise for me to discuss the incident here. It makes for a fairly good story, too, I guess.
My life has been rather.... strange.
Also, before I begin this story I want to say to the guy that there is absolutely nothing you can say or do that would redeem yourself or cause me to forgive you.
Alright...
I spent most of my teen years in Michigan, but when I was 18 my family moved to North Carolina. At around that time my father and mother grew apart. She started to secretly date her old high school boyfriend (this occured before Facebook). He was married with children, as well. Obviously it didn't matter. One week when my father was out of town she invited him into the house. They made out in the living room, and I witnessed it as I descended the stairs. Say what you will about getting older and more mature-- there is something hideously disgusting and even traumatic about such a sight. And anyway, I was a baby. Maybe I was old enough to handle it better than an elementary school student, but the suddenness and hideousness of it struck me like a jackhammer to the heart.
So I did what any mature 18-year-old kid would do... I freaked out. I yelled at him; I called my father and other relatives to settle them down; etc. It was pointless. The marriage ended that night. So I had to get away. Suddenly I felt as if I was getting gang-raped in the prison that was North Carolina. So I made a plan: I almost never drove at that age and had maybe 20 hours of driving time total under my belt, so I thought it would be brilliant to drive 700 miles to Michigan THAT NIGHT and meet with my friends. Even more brilliant: I lost my glasses two days prior, so I was going to drive nearly blind... in my father's new Ford Taurus... with no cash, only a checkbook, which made paying for gas and begging the attendants to accept an out-of-state check so much fun. Obviously it was a moment of despair and desperation.
...But I don't regret it even slightly. I do regret that I decided to contact the guy who emailed me the other day when I realized that he was the only person I could reach. Of my two other great friends one had returned to Alabama, and I couldn't get ahold of the other guy. I was too embarassed to call people who I considered "marginal friends." So I thought that this guy could bail me out.
Heh.
I literally drove all night, and when I arrived at his/his mom's house sometime around noon I didn't expect a welcoming committee... But I also didn't expect what I encountered. I walked into an ominously quiet, solemn house-- expect for his sister, who laughed jeeringly at me. I was assured that I could stay a few nights-- which is really the only thing that I wanted at the time, a break from my disastrous life. I was exhausted, but I didn't sleep. I talked for a while then went with him to a bar. Sometime around the bar party he called his mother then spoke to her at length in a closed room...out of earshot... where I could overhear nothing.
It was decided that I needed to leave immediately.
I wasn't a psychology major at the time, but even then when he claimed that his mother had rendered that verdict and he could do nothing about it I could see the bullshit stretch from here to eternity in his eyes. He himself felt uncomfortable with my situation and my presence.
So, my "great friend," why exactly did you think that I ever believed that I wanted to ever speak with you again? Did you think that as I exhaustedly re-entered the state of Ohio literally for the second time that day I thought about what great fun I had with you? Did you think that as the rain fell in northern Ohio, the sludge from the roads accumulated on the windshield, and I couldn't wipe it away even with rags as I continued to drive without glasses and a smear of a roadway in front of me that I had warm feelings about what had happened hours earlier? When the car slammed into my dad's new car as I unknowlingly changed lanes (150% my fault) do you think I wanted to party with you?
Get. Fucked.
One somewhat cool thing occured, though: on top of everything else-- the huge dent in the side of the car, low visibility, zero experience, etc..... one of the headlights went out. And somewhere in West Virginia a song came on the radio, "We can drive it home... with one headlight." And that's exactly what I did.. and I get chills when I hear that song to this day.
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