It's The Little Things That Kill
In 2011, I was working as a cook in a tiny restaurant in my home town. At the same time I was going to community college, working towards my liberal arts degree, which would help me get into a university. I had intended on getting into social work, psychology.. I wanted to be a counselor. People tend to trust me, alot like to confide in me, so I thought I could incorporate that into a job in that field. I've since realized I'm not the type of person to easily conform to a liberal arts or community college...
At the time, I was well on my way to becoming an alcoholic.. it was taking over my life, as a result I ended up dropping out of school.. During this time, I met a girl.
A lot of waitresses came and went in that restaurant in the time I was there, we had the same cooks almost the whole time, but the food service industry is pretty rough on wait staff, so the turnover was terrible.. have you ever seen what minimum wage for a waitress who receives tips is? It’s under $3/hour for many of them.
One day I walked into work, and there was this incredibly short girl walking around the kitchen.. she was just under 5 foot.. I'm 6ft 4, so it's easy to notice when you're that much bigger than someone.. you gotta watch out, they’re easy to step on.
She was a little goth girl, I remember the first time I layed eyes on her.. She had long brown hair, and bright green eyes.. she wore quite a bit of makeup, which I never understood, she seemed like the type that just had that natural beauty.. but for whatever reason, she was compelled to cover that up.
I didn't speak to her at first, because that's just how I am.. I usually wait for the other person to come to me.. and eventually she did.. I don't remember the circumstances in which we started talking.. but we did.
We hit it off pretty well to begin with, we liked alot of the same music, had some of the same interests, and were just very comfortable around eachother. We developed a banter that's rivaled any friend I've ever had. I always harbored feelings for her, but she had a boyfriend.. and I wasn't about to stir things up..
She had a name she chose for herself.. her real name sounded too much like another waiter's name, to avoid confusion when we called for a specific member of the waitstaff, she insisted on being called "****."
The restaurant where I worked also went through alot of dishwashers. One day a friend of mine, we'll call him Brian for the sake of the story.. he filled in the dishwasher position shortly after this girl started there, ironically enough.. right after she and I started to become friends..
He would mess with her all the time, it was obvious he was flirting with her. I got jealous but of course kept it to myself.. it's a reoccurring theme in my life, I never go for the things I want, I suffer in silence.. let it build up, then get pissed and just live with it..
One night Brian and a mutual friend of ours, were on our way to another bar, Brian asked me "do you mind if I steal ****? It's not gonna bother you is it?" To which I obviously said I didn't give a shit, but inside I was angry.. angry as fuck.. I felt like I missed my chance.. I honestly thought highly enough of her to think she'd never cheat on her boyfriend..
I always considered myself as someone who was not so great with women.. looking back I think it was more that my confidence had been smashed at that point.. I had gone from having my own place, a decent paying job, and all the basic amenities that anyone could want.. to losing it all, living in my sister's basement, and dropping out of school.. I just didn't have the confidence to say how I felt about anything.. low self-esteem, I consider myself even to this day to be hideous and undesirable.. I don't have people compliment me on anything, not very often anyways.. plus I'm not the type to chase after someone already in a relationship.. it's probably why I've spent a good majority of my life alone..
So Brian went on to tell me about how he was gonna steal her from her boyfriend.. and I sat there seething and replying with things like "dude, she has a boyfriend...” or “good luck with that." I just didn't wanna continue the conversation.. it was making me angrier and angrier.. I just wanted to get to the bar, and start getting alcohol in me, so I wouldn't feel things like this anymore.
Over the next few weeks, the friend I had made began to slip away from me.. like usual, I didn't protest at all.. They were becoming a couple, even though she had a boyfriend. I, for the most part, sat in silence.
A group of us, including the two of them, met at a bar one night a town over. Brian and **** were basically attached at that point..
We sat there sipping drinks, the group of us talking, and occasionally stepping outside to smoke a cigarette and some weed. I went and played some Cradle of Filth on the juke box, I knew she liked them, and at the time I did too.. I did get a comment out of her at one point about my excellent choice in music..
I don't remember much of that night at this point, I think I tried to block it out, it was just very uncomfortable for me, I do however.. remember at one point.. a friend of ****'s coming in to scoop her up out of our group. Almost like a mother who caught her daughter out after curfew.. it was pretty obvious there were some people out there keeping an eye on her.
There was a little bit of drama around the fact that someone showed up at the bar to take her away from us.. Brian came up to me the next day laughing, saying that the friend who picked her up, thought there was something going on between **** and I, not Brian and ****. The fact that she thought that, was absolutely hilarious to Brian.. I mean, "who would want you?" was the implication.
Time went on, and I was always the 3rd wheel, or 5th wheel in these groups.. it seems that people around me always pair up.. there were times that Brian, **** and I would be sittin at the bar together.. one night in particular I made a rather crude joke involving the 2 of them, and **** exploded at me.. she literally screamed at me and told me to shut the fuck up.. there were other times that Brian made fun of me, one time in particular.. Brian made a fat joke about me.. asked **** if she was a chubby chaser, chasing after fat guys like me.. she didn't quite stand up for me in the fashion that she stood up for Brian, as a matter of fact.. She didn't acknowledge it at all.. and actually laughed with him..
Over time Brian did exactly what he always does.. he's a player.. and he played her.. I don't know to what extent their relationship went, but I do know that at one point she temporarily moved away from her boyfriend, to a much bigger city, for work related to her college degree.. Brian was moving to Florida, and on his way to the airport.. he came to visit her, she said alot of alcohol was consumed.. she didn't quite know what had happened. I obviously didn't want to know any of this stuff.. I had feelings for her, and I hated hearing it.. but I cared enough to listen to her when she needed someone to listen to her..
At the same time Brian came to me to talk about ****, he seemed to be annoyed by her. I guess the novelty had worn off pretty quick. I remember telling him he brought this on himself. I pointed out that he told me exactly what he was gonna do, "steal her from her boyfriend." He replied by saying "I didn't know she was gonna fall in love with me." In a sort of defense of her on my part, I said "what did you think was gonna happen?"
He had no response.
It was winter by the time she came back from her time away from everyone. Brian had quit, and moved out of state. I had crumbled and went into the hospital and told them I was an alcoholic. They kept me for 3 days, to make sure I wasn't gonna die from the withdrawl.. they were also trying to discourage me from falling right back in with the alcoholic friends I had. Which kinda worked.
I kept the job as a cook, and just a few days after I got outta the hospital, she returned to work at the restaurant.. She seemed pretty heartbroken being ditched by a guy, who I guess.. was very sweet to her in the beginning.
Up to this point, I had been staying and getting wasted every day after work.. but now that I wasn't drinking anymore.. I found it best to go home. I had lost my license the end of that summer, so I had been walking home from work every night. When **** came back, I needed a ride home from work most nights, it gets freezing ass cold here in the winter.. and she needed someone to talk to. Between the 2 of us, someone usually had a little weed to smoke, and we'd take one of the many long ways to my place to get high and talk.
All the hurt and anger she felt towards Brian came out in these adventures. She obviously wasn't gonna tell her boyfriend that she was heartbroken because a guy she almost left him for, had effectively dumped her. So I became the outlet for her feelings. It wasn't easy, believe me.
I needed someone to talk to as well, seeing as how I was just getting sober, didn't have many friends to begin with, we kinda started relying on eachother in that way. Or maybe I'm romanticizing the past, and how I interpreted things. It's very possible I was one of many guys she did this to.
Now, I see it as her cheating on her boyfriend all over again.. but only emotionally. The things we talked about.. in retrospect, should be reserved for a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. At the time I didn't know what it was, I just really liked spending time with her, though it always seemed she was in such a rush to get rid of me.
One night in particular, we decided to take an extra long drive after work.. We had planned it out ahead of time.. brought plenty of weed, and set off to find an old cemetery I used to go to with my friends when I was a teenager.
I had my phone with me, with the GPS.. I had been to this place dozens of times.. yet somehow the GPS got us lost and we didn't make it to the cemetery. The whole way there and back though.. I got the impression that she was in a huge hurry, like she had somewhere better to be, which I'm sure was the case.. and she was just trying to cram a long "adventure" into the smallest amount of time possible.. I got the feeling she thought I got us lost on purpose, to spend more time with her.. she developed a bit of a pissy tone with her words as we found our way back
It was very forced.. like it was no longer about being friends, and enjoying eachothers company.. it was about her feeling obligated to spend time with me for some reason.. I just really think she wanted to be somewhere else, and for whatever reason, forced herself to be around me.
Whenever she needed to talk to someone, I was there.. over time we spent less time together, but would text quite often. It seemed like the time we spent together talking, had been replaced by texting instead.. very impersonal, but I went along with it.
The response to my texts became fewer and fewer and shorter and shorter over time.. I met the psycho from my "Little Red Flags" post, and dated that thing for some time, but it went sour after several months. The following events take place right after my first breakup with her, and before the reconciliation.
When I finally broke up with this girl, I was in terrible shape.. I felt like I had nobody, I tried texting **** several times over a few weeks, I really just needed someone to talk to.. and **** wasn't there.
A few months went by with no response, I blocked her phone number in my phone, blocked her from any other way of communicating.. I was hurt, I had been there EVERY time she needed someone, but when I needed someone.. she was nowhere to be found, for what was about 3 months.
Another month or so went by, I just moved on with my life.. I of course thought about her.. but I figured that was it. We had a few short months where we were very close and it all just faded away.. honestly I eventually would have likely gotten over all this had she left it alone for long enough, but I don't think she was done torturing me just yet.
At that point I was working at a Gas station, it had a motel connected to it, in my other posts I’ve mentioned this situation.. so if you’ve read my blogs, you have an idea of what was going on then..
One day I was working through a rather long line of people, it was extremely busy.. and all the sudden there’s ****, next in line. I started scanning the stuff she was buying as she was questioning me about why I wasn’t responding to her texts, and why I blocked her on Facebook, and why, why, why..
She caught me off guard.. it was extremely shitty to put me on the spot like that, and she knew why.. I took the time, whenever she needed me.. but apparently she was too busy when I needed someone.. and then to come into my place of work.. demanding answers.. causing that kind of a scene in front of other customers.. I was pissed.. it was not cool.
I made up some excuse, and got her outta my face for the time being.. I was so pissed off, my anxiety went through the fucking roof. I was visibly tremoring after this.. so as soon as the line cleared up, I had to go outside to let off some steam. I unblocked her number and told her to leave me alone, told her to never come back into my work again..
Leave it to her to turn my feelings into a civil rights violation.. She said something to the effect of “I have every right to go in there, you can’t tell me I can’t come in there, it’s a free country, cigarettes and gas are cheaper there.”
When in reality it was public property, I was the manager.. what she did actually constitutes harassment, and I was justified in telling her not to come in. If I wanted to make a big deal out of it I could have, my boss would have sided with me.. I didn’t push though.
I calmed down and explained to her that I wasn’t about to waste my time on people who I have one sided relationships with, if I’m the only one putting in effort, it isn’t fair to me to do what’s expected without getting any respect in return. Not wanting her to come in there was for my own sanity, and her disrespecting my wishes was a pretty crappy thing to do after everything else..
I left it at that..
The whole time we were friends, she made it seem as if our friendship was something special. She said she was a witch (no kidding) and could will certain things to happen.. We would see eachother at weird times.. she said she thought of me one day.. and happen to see me walking by.. yet I wasn't important enough to approach... I, of course being the sane, logical person that I am.. never believed in that shit. I will say though.. there were a few times it seemed like it was more than a coincidence.. looking back, it was all just part of her game.. the goal of which still remains a mystery to me.
She came into my work despite my demand, it was less often than it could have been... if she had any respect for me, or for how I felt, she could have gone to the other gas station in town.. or at the very least, not come in while I was working. I set a boundary and she just kept breaking it..
In this time, my family had basically fallen apart. My niece and nephew who I helped raise.. I was no longer aloud to see them. My brother had said some horrible things about me, to the rest of the family.. and I was just done with family drama. I distanced myself from almost all of them.
Christmas day, 2014.. I was scheduled to work with a kid who never showed up.. So I ended up working from 11am to 7pm by myself, in that time my brother stopped in with a christmas gift, trying to buy his way back into my life.. I accepted the gift, and he left.. I went outside to smoke a cigarette when nobody was in there.. I was just stressed to the max.. it was a terrible day.. I went back to work, and about an hour later, in walks ****.
Something just kinda snapped in my brain, and I needed to feel something.. I needed fun, I needed the senseless banter that only a few people in my life over the years have been able to provide.. she just happened to walk in at the right time.
She walked down the aisle to the cooler and grabbed an energy drink. I knew what kind of cigarettes she smoked, and grabbed a pack of those.. and grabbed a pack of these Marlboro cigarettes that are tiny little half cigarettes.. seeing as how the banter between her and I almost always included jokes about her height.. I couldn’t resist..
I kept the sullen "I don't give a fuck" look on my face that I always displayed when she was in there.. she kept the same indifferent sad face herself.. She could have easily avoided all of this unpleasantness if she would have listened to me. I know she was doing this on purpose, because I had feelings for her. By that time, she was too smart not to know.. so she just kept throwing herself right in my face.
She came up to the counter and I scanned her energy drink, and with a dead look on her face she ordered her usual pack of cigarettes. I grabbed the shorty cigarettes.. held them up with a totally straight face and said something to the effect of “wouldn’t these be more appropriate for someone of your size?”
It was like she did a double take, and then got this HUGE smile on her face.. I rang up her regular cigarettes and sent her on her way.. smiling like an idiot..
It’s the little moments like those that I can look back on with certain people, and it makes me feel good. I had a lot of those moments with her.. times at work, when she’d have snuck up behind me.. and just stood there silently, and I’d turn around to get something and walk right into her.. Times when I took the milk crate she used to reach things on the top shelf, and hid it so she had to ask for help..
the little things..