REGRET

“I regret’’ byCAROLYN WASIK

“The Friend I Never Let Go”

A Story of Unlikely Bonds and Lifelong Eccentricity

I can make excuses all day long, but the reality is that I let her down. I let her down at the most crucial moment of her life. She was dying.

We had known each other since our college years. We lived across the dormitory hall from each other. I did not like my roommates and she didn’t like hers, so we gravitated to each other. I was a country bumkin from Upstate New York and she lived on the outskirts of Boston, very different worlds. After meeting and commiserating about our roommates, we found that at least we had something in common, that was our family’s business, heavy construction. I know that sounds weird, but it is the truth. I certainly had nothing in common with the rich local girls from the Metropolitan area. Granted she was more the rah college type with the matching sweater sets and penny loafers. I was the blossoming 60s freak. I bought my clothes in the Village and sported long kinky hair. My skirts were ultra short, and my boots came up over my knees. I had discovered NYCity while she would go home to her boyfriend and the New England way of life. Again, if it hadn’t been for such creepy roommates we might never have hooked up.

She was that friend who drove you crazy with her incessant talking and her need to always be right and have the last word. There were times she was certifiable, her stories were so beyond belief, and yet I never wrote her off. There was something about her. If I thought about the friend you would call at three in the morning if you were in trouble I always thought she would be the one.

After college we went to Europe for the first time together along with a couple of other women. That summer before the trip I stayed at her parent’s home and we both worked two jobs to subsidize the trip. It was lots of fun going to the beach on the Cape and drinking. Me drinking not her, she never indulged in any drugs. I seemed to be doing a whole lot more. When we returned from Europe after a few months I decided to get a job and live in Boston. I always said you either like New York City or Boston. I was a New York City girl and moved after about a year. We didn’t see each other much after that but from time to time she would show up. Always with a story.

She was a braggart, reminding you of her superior intelligence going so far as to say she was in Mensa society. Who would ever checkup, not me. I don’t think I knew what Mensa society actually was. She would start to tell stories which contained a bit of the truth and then they would spin out of control. Once while I was driving and licking on an ice cream cone she wouldn’t shut up. I reached over and smashed my ice cream into her face. I was aiming for her mouth but missed. Yes, I know it was immature of me but at the moment it was the only way I could shut her up. She looked at me, startled with a questioning expression on her face that was now dripping with chocolate ice cream. “Sorry” was all I could muster up. She did shut up after that though.

Again, like I said we drifted apart. Once she came to visit when I was living with my now husband. He had never met her, and she proceeded to recount where she had been traveling during the last few years. As usual the stories started out benign but then slowly started to amp up. Her voice becoming louder and her speech faster. She said she had been somewhere in Africa and was near some river. I think she said it was the Nile. She was being chased by someone, terrorists or guerrillas or monkeys I don’t remember but as she started to cross the river an alligator appeared. Are there alligators in Africa, I didn’t know. I just sat and nodded my head. My future husband looked at me and then yelled, stop. He started to question her about details, but she just went on. He got up and told her he couldn’t listen to such bullshit and walked out. She started to cry. I was shocked I never saw her cry before. She packed her bags and said she couldn’t be around someone like him. She couldn’t believe he doubted her. I must add I had given him the heads up on some of her stories.

I can make excuses all day long, but the reality is that I let her down. I let her down at the most crucial moment of her life. She was dying.

We had known each other since our college years. We lived across the dormitory hall from each other. I did not like my roommates and she didn’t like hers, so we gravitated to each other. I was a country bumkin from Upstate New York and she lived on the outskirts of Boston, very different worlds. After meeting and commiserating about our roommates, we found that at least we had something in common, that was our family’s business, heavy construction. I know that sounds weird, but it is the truth. I certainly had nothing in common with the rich local girls from the Metropolitan area. Granted she was more the rah college type with the matching sweater sets and penny loafers. I was the blossoming 60, s freak. I bought my clothes in the Village and sported long kinky hair. My skirts were ultra short, and my boots came up over my knees. I had discovered NYCity while she would go home to her boyfriend and the New England way of life. Again, if it hadn’t been for such creepy roommates we might never have hooked up.

She was that friend who drove you crazy with her incessant talking and her need to always be right and have the last word. There were times she was certifiable, her stories were so beyond belief, and yet I never wrote her off. There was something about her. If I thought about the friend, you would call at three in the morning if you were in trouble I always thought she would be the one.

After college we went to Europe for the first time together along with a couple of other women. That summer before the trip I stayed at her parent’s home and we both worked two jobs to subsidize the trip. It was lots of fun going to the beach on the Cape and drinking. Me drinking not her, she never indulged in any drugs. I seemed to be doing a whole lot more. When we returned from Europe after a few months I decided to get a job and live in Boston. I always said you either like New York City or Boston. I was a New York City girl and moved after about a year. We didn’t see each other much after that but from time to time she would show up. Always with a story.

She was a braggart, reminding you of her superior intelligence going so far as to say she was in Mensa society. Who would ever checkup, not me. I don’t think I knew what Mensa society actually was. She would start to tell stories which contained a bit of the truth and then they would spin out of control. Once while I was driving and licking on an ice cream cone she wouldn’t shut up. I reached over and smashed my ice cream into her face. I was aiming for her mouth but missed. Yes, I know it was immature of me but at the moment it was the only way I could shut her up. She looked at me, startled with a questioning expression on her face that was now dripping with chocolate ice cream. “Sorry” was all I could muster up. She did shut up after that though.

Again, like I said we drifted apart. Once she came to visit when I was living with my now husband. He had never met her, and she proceeded to recount where she had been traveling during the last few years. As usual the stories started out benign but then slowly started to amp up. Her voice becoming louder and her speech faster. She said she had been somewhere in Africa and was near some river. I think she said it was the Nile. She was being chased by someone, terrorists or guerrillas or monkeys I don’t remember but as she started to cross the river an alligator appeared. Are there alligators in Africa, I didn’t know. I just sat and nodded my head. My future husband looked at me and then yelled, stop. He started to question her about details, but she just went on. He got up and told her he couldn’t listen to such bullshit and walked out. She started to cry. I was shocked I never saw her cry before. She packed her bags and said she couldn’t be around someone like him. She couldn’t believe he doubted her. I must add I had given him the heads up on some of her stories.

She entered our lives a couple of years later. She was in love with a famous football player and so she drove to where he was practicing. She had the nerve to tell us he wasn’t answering her phone calls. What a surprise, so she decided to surprise him. The surprise is she was lucky she wasn’t arrested. She broke into the house he was staying in and jumped into bed with him. After a little sex he hit a button by the bed and one of his bodyguards barged into the room grabbed her and threw her out. I couldn’t believe she even told us this one. She spent the next couple of years stalking him before giving up somewhere out West.

Again, she went underground and only the occasional story reached me. There was her involvement in the C.I.A. or F.B.I. or some government agency which entailed her use of her “Glock”. Of course, she was the best shot in the agency. At this point I finally had to face the fact that she was nuttier than a bag of peanuts; It took me years, my husband one afternoon. What you overlook for friendship.

Out West she took up photography and I would get the occasional postcard of how she was putting on this show or another. Even though I never knew her to be artistic her work was good.

I’m afraid most of her stories left me in doubt but I never questioned it, that was our relationship and by this time I guess I didn’t care. She was just my nutty friend.

In time she returned to the East Coast and moved down South near her family. The next time I heard from her she told me she had cancer. She was going from doctor to doctor because of course none of them knew what to do despite the fact she told them what she needed. I never saw her this whole time as I had personally a lot on my plate. Towards the end she called to tell me she wasn’t good she had lost her ability to self-heal. She told me she was one of only four people in this world who could go inside their bodies, find the problem and heal it by her mind. I just couldn’t take her seriously. A few months passed and the next call I received was that she said she was dying. I made light of it saying no shit I’m dying too. She got really pissed and our phone call ended soon afterward.

Not long after that call, I received a call from her family telling me she had died.

This was the person I had said I could call at three in the morning if I was ever in trouble.

This I truly regret.

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