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[A blurb concerning a previously discussed topic]

It's never an easy thing to do when you realize what must be done to save yourself. All through school you've had the same friends, because that's just how it is with women. Everything is BFF and there's nothing you can do to change it. But sometimes, times like this, you must.
My best friend for the past several years, I realize now, has been draining me dry. I tend to come across as a very upbeat person, optimistic to the point of childishness. And I now realize that it's doubtful I'll ever meet anyone who has become such a polar opposite to that. The early years I was friendly and, like today, I sucked friends toward me like a wormhole. She suffered from low self-worth and needed someone to overpower. I was nice, so I let her. She always used to punch my arm when I did or said something she didn't like, but that didn't come up often because we seemed to think the same way. I'll never know if that was real or not now.
We were inseparable, up until high school when we were put into different classes. There, I met Sonya. She was very sweet and genuinely seemed to have the same interests as me, but I remember we got into a disagreement within the first week and I stopped talking to her, much like my best friend would do so often to me. But the next Monday I was ashamed at how immature I had acted and made up with her, accepting her opinion like a friend should.
The following year my old friend joined our class, whining about how much she had missed me, never mind that we'd already been spending breaks, lunches, and after-school time together. And she managed to make me feel horribly guilty because I was having too much fun with Sonya to care.
I remember we got into several arguments the first month back together because I had changed and she didn't like it. Apparently she hadn't made any new friends the previous year and wanted her flunky back. My arm was black and blue before she became friends with Sonya, realizing that I wasn't going to let her go. In fact, it was through me that she met all the friends she had by our second last year of high school. By then, I was old enough and aware enough to realize things were going sour.
She matured much too fast. Several people agreed with me in that she was acting like a 40-year-old stuck in a 17-year-old's body. Her parents were in dire financial straits and her sister, who had twisted her ankle a dozen times because she refused to let it heal before returning to her gymnastic classes, would now have to walk with crutches the rest of her life and had also turned out to have diabetes. All sorts of pressure were put on her and her dreams of becoming a pediatrician, and I understand that that would affect a person, but there was no excuse for mothering everyone the way she did. It was so bad that I started turning down get-togethers, because she always acted as though she was on a baby-sitting job. Oh, the stories I could tell. There I was just acting my age and she never seemed to have the decency to let me. One shining example (I was trying not to tell stories, but this is to good to pass), we were once walking by a creek near her house, and it was terribly hot and she was terribly boring, so I'd started walking in the mud to hear my sneakers splurp. She started shouting at me, forced me down on a bench, and proceeded to clean off the mud with an evergreen branch. I was horrified, and it would be my last visit.
She also became horribly pessimistic. I'd try desperately to find a silver lining in whatever situation she was complaining about, but she refused to listen until I wanted nothing more than to wrap my hands around her neck and squeeze. She was getting into fights with all our friends, and go home with a 'stomach ache' when either Sonya or I stood up for one of them (we'd taken to making cash bets on how many classes she'd stay for every Friday, as those were the days she usually developed the ailment). She'd stop speaking to us over things she'll forever believe she was right about because her being wrong is simply not possible (if you wonder why I sound bitter, remind me to write about 'The Wagner Debate', which stretched well over a year and she's probably still fuming about because she refuses to accept the fact that she only has her opinion and I have solid facts). She'd complain we were leaving her out of conversations when she'd stand around refusing to join them, she'd whine about being left behind for ice cream when the person shouting out the invitation to us was not only in ear shot but standing right next to her, in short she was driving everyone crazy.
Then came the last straw, The Fight. The one significant enough to be capitalized. Sonya's ex-boyfriend (who will not be named because though he did act like a jerk at the time he is still very much on speaking terms with me) had pulled a 'wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am' on her and another mutual friend, Brian, had made a comment on this to my soon-to-be-ex best friend. Now, Brian had only been on speaking terms with her for about 5 weeks because she'd stopped speaking to him after an disagreement in 7th grade (I wish I was making this up), and apparently she had accepted him back into her fold reluctantly because she'd immediately turned on him and anyone who stood by him, accusing him of comparing herself and Sonya's ex. This is how she stopped talking to Brian, Sonya, and the thirteen or so other people in our circle. But this she could deal with because she immediately came running to me, swearing at what horrible taste in friends we have. Then I, not having a clue what was going on, asked what had happened. She gave me her story, and knowing damn well what she was like by that point, went off to find Brian. He and the other people who had been there told me what was said, and I returned to my friend about to try and amend the situation as a misunderstanding (this was usually my role, she got mad and I tried to make sure she didn't stay mad for too long). Only it didn't work out that way.
She saw me coming and, knowing I had probably been speaking with Brian, started trash talking him and his word. Now I had known Brian almost as long as I'd known her, he had been the second friend I'd met in middle school, and all the times he'd helped me out when she'd been off who knows where led me to think I knew a little about how good his word was by that point (on several occasions it'd been proven to me that if someone pushes me down, she would go push that other person down right away, while Brian would help me up first and check if I was alright). So for the first time in a long time, I didn't try and calm her down, instead I stuck up for my friend. I wasn't gentle, and I'm sure that surprised her, because she looked horrified and promptly was driven home in tears about two classes early.
She didn't speak to anyone that summer, and we weren't going out of our way to do so because we wanted our appologies, damn-it! (some of us are still waiting)
The last year of high school I fought my way back onto speaking terms with her, because I can't stand having people angry with me. She ignored Sonya and Brian and their close friends and she stuck with the people who thought Brian was being a jerk (ironically, one of these new friends of hers was the ex- she'd been so insulted about being compared to), and I flitted back and forth between the two huddles like the social butterfly I've never pretended to be. There were those who flitted with me, but they eventually were led to Brian's group because they'd make the mistake of saying the wrong name around HER and had been ostracized. Flitting wasn't hard, there was an extended picture window on the second floor of our school where the groups ate lunch and no one thought The Fight was serious enough to give it up.
Eventually it was these groups that really gave me an interesting perspective on the evolution of human nature. On the the left was HER group. The ones that wore dark clothes and chains and made each other uncomfortable because they were all leaders whose followers had decided to lead themselves. They kept their heads down and seemed desperate to try and show each other that they were the top of their closed circle food chain, where they could only eat each other. And no one ever smiled. On the right there was nothing but smiles and laughter and music. Brian had his guitar and Sonya would sing. There were brightly colored suspenders and striped socks, mangas being passed around and even the occasional impromptu political debates were fully enjoyed and participated in. This was the side where the teachers would come to enjoy the music and add their two cents; this was where everyone was welcome if they weren't pushing opinions. These were the ones who had evolved, and these were the ones who would survive. Darwin would be proud, or at least mildly intrigued.
But the school year pressed on and so did her need for attention. She passed me notes blaming me for everything from suicidal urges to why she'd cried herself to sleep every night in kindergarden. The last phone call we shared she had been putting down my big news about my new higher-paying-than-hers job when I brought up Sonya's name just to get her to shut up. She made a flip comment about not knowing any Sonya, to which I promptly called her immature and hung up in her face. I didn't pick up when she called back.
The last movie I went to see with her she talked through-out and didn't stop until she got into a very loud argument with me over something in the movie (to which I was not only bringing up proof from both the movie and the book it was based on, but also the over-all theory of the space-time continuum) and she'd stopped talking to me for the rest of the night. I realized it was long time to end our relationship when I could dredge up no apologies in myself and instead decided that I should have done that much earlier on in the film.
But we graduated, and I never got to end anything. She went to university to become a pediatrician (if I find out that pessimist's treating my children I'll be taking my business elsewhere, thank you) and I stayed behind with my cushy, high-paying, airline job. I ordered her a leather bound copy of the Bronte sister's greatest works for Christmas, but canceled it when I discovered she'd been bad-mouthing Sonya on her blog and instead spent the money on the Complete Works of William Shakespeare for my own guilty pleasures. But then I ran into her the other week and she gushed about how, since I'd been accepted to a nearby university, we could hit the bars for her 19th birthday together. She left no room for argument so I didn't change her mind, though I did change universities. But even though I'll be a province or two away from her now I know she'll get to me again someday, because people like that just don't let go of bad relationships, especially if they're the problem. After all, we're BFF.
I have to cut her off, this just isn't healthy. Next time I see her, it's over.
I just have to word it carefully in case she hits me or runs home crying. I'll bet five bucks it's the latter.