Categories > Original > Drama > Painful Friendship
Chapter 1
It's a something I've learned about myself and it's something I've actually tried to change but couldn't bring myself to do even after seeking outside help. I guess deep down I really didn't want it to change I can't say whether I love it or hate it but I have learned that I need it. In fact I can't live with out it. I need friends. Many would say well so dose everyone else and I'd have to agree we all need friends, the issue lies in the kind of friends I require.
My name is Hazenia and I actually have no lack of acquaintances. The people you talk to and joke around with in class, The neighbors and other people that visit you to hang out and play games or watch a movie, People you meet online in a chat room and end up still talking to years later, and I even have some of the ones that call you and want to talk on the phone for hours on end despite my extreme dislike of talking to anyone for any reason on the phone for even the smallest amount of time. But I can't say I really consider any of these people friends. Not a single one of them knows anything about me that really matters when you get right down to it. Not that this is their fault I shut them out the minute I see that they can't fill my needs. And it never takes that long to tell if they fit the bill or if there are just not cut out for the job. Not many people are. There are so many people that consider me their friend and are not shy at all about showering me with signs of friendship. People seeking me out, hugging me, laughing with me, eating with me, dragging me around, inviting me to their houses and some even granting me that honored position of best friend while I smile and go along with it. Truth be told out of all the people I have met there are only three that I consider to be friends the rest are either just aquatinters I'm on good terms with or self imposed one sided friendships. Sometimes I run into one person I think could let in and accept as a friend but it just never works out.
It doesn't bother me that I've only had three friends in my life. To me it actually makes sense in a way. There are three things I need to get from a friendship and there have only been three people that have been able to give it to me so far. Isolation. Protection. Pain. In order for me to feel secure I need those things and I count on my friends to provide me with all three. It was my first real friend that taught me, and it actually wasn't something I learned that long ago.
Her name is Christina and we met in 6th grade. It was our first day in middle school and we were in home room. The room was light, cheery and smelled like orange scented cleaning fluid. It's bright yellow walls were littered with informational posters on proper writing techniques and many rows of cream colored laminate desks filled most of the room giving way to more open space about six feet from the front wall that was only inhabited by the teaches desk to the right and a white dry-erase board that took up the entire front wall with the words "WELCOME TO MRS. BEASLY'S HOMEROOM!" scrawled across the middle in bold blue ink with little bees drawn all around it in black and yellow. Even though it was early in early in the morning to all of us student who were just returning to school from a lazy summer of sleeping in the classroom was buzzing with excited conversation. People were happily greeting old friends form elementary school as we'll as introducing themselves to the new faces that would be sharing their new environment with them.
I actually decided that she would be my friend before I even knew her name base entirely on her looks. She was taller than me and thin but not boney she had waist length grayish red hair, pale blue eyes and smelled like weed. Christina always wore black with a matching trench coat even in the summer, she never seemed to be hot it was like even the summer sun couldn't penetrate the ever present aura of coldness she seemed to possess. She looked dangerous and I liked it. I wanted to be as cold and cool as she was, not smiling at anyone and having the whole class to afraid to speak to her. So you can imagine my shock when I finally got up the nerve to speak to her and she grins at me with a smile so bright it would even warm the grim reapers heart.
"You know you're the first one to talk to me all day," she had said to me smile never failing, "I was beginning to wonder if there was a single person in this preppy ass little school that wasn't to stuck up to speak. Hey..."
"My name is Hazenia," I informed the floor because I was to nervous to look up.
"It's to long."
"What?" I questioned removing my attention from the ivory flecked tile of the classroom floor to her ghostly pale face.
"Your name, it's to long and it's hard to say."
"But your name is longer than mine..."
"Well I'm used to my name, yours I'm not and I don't like it. You got a nickname?"
"...not really, everyone just messes up my name until they can get the pronunciation down packed."
"You should have get a nickname."
"Then you should give me one. It's your idea."
"Then...well...fuck it, what was your name again?"
"Hazenia it's pronounced Ha-Zen-E-a and it's nice to meet you," And that was the end of our first conversation and the beginning of a kind of friendship that was very new to me.
Christina was like a very tall, demanding shadow. I was the first friend she made in middle school so by her reasoning that made me her best friend, and she always had to have her best friend around her because that's how best friends were supposed to be. We had all the same classes and sat beside each other in any class where seats weren't assigned. Even in the one class where they were she would get out of her seat and come sit on the floor by mine when ever the teacher wasn't looking. After a while that teacher got sick of it and just moved her to the table beside my desk in the back of the room because it was easier than writing her up every day. It seemed like every week that went by we got closer and closer and Christina got worse and about having me close. Just walking between classes was becoming a close contact event as the school year went on. We started with just walking along to the next room with the rest of the class chatting with everyone, then she decided that we needed to wait till everyone else was out of the room to leave so we could walk by ourselves. After a while we held hands, then because we weren't close enough like that we walked every where with her arm draped across my shoulders. And finally we ended up settling into the way we walked every where for the next five years her pressed up against my back with her arms wrapped around my waist or draped across my hip and my chest while she rested her head on my shoulder so she could talk right into my ear. After a while no one else even tried to talk to us in the halls or at lunch and if they did she'd glare them into oblivion. Isolation. I was being cut off from all the people I used to call friends and it suited me just fine. She had succeeded in convincing me that I needed no one else. What she started I finished shutting out my friends in my neighborhood in favor of talking to her on the phone, and rejecting all of my family avoiding communicating with them or even being around them anymore than I had to by staying in my room all day telling myself no one understood me but Christina. Talking to anyone else was just a waste of breath.
When we got to high school and were only in two of the same classes with each other Christina some how managed to become even more possessive. Her clinginess had kept to many other people from talking to me in middle school but now she wasn't there with me for two whole periods of the day and in high school there were more people that dressed like her and had her same seemingly cold impenetrable aura in my classes where she wasn't around so I decided to hang out with them when my best friend wasn't available. I was sure they were the type of people she could get along with. Wrong. When I introduced her to them in the halls between campus she was openly hostel and told them in a few choice words we didn't need any other friends. After that she waited for me after ever class to walk me to the next one. Protection. She was like a guard dog attacking any one that got to close. In P.E. one of the two classes we had together we didn't play because she didn't want to participate with the others. The only points we got in the class were from dressing out and that's just because she loved to shower together, the rest of the time we sat leaned against the wall or I sat while she stretched out with her head in my lap and slept. No one could talk to me, and after a while no one tried. But it was ok, she was doing what was best for me. She knew how horrible people could be deep down inside, she was just keeping me safe.
Our last year together was my sophomore year. She found out she was going to have to move as soon as school let out for the summer. We were both really upset but I took it much better than she did. Christina didn't want to go and there wasn't anything she could do to change the fact she had to move. The situation was frustrating to her, and she told me to many times to count she didn't want to loose her best friend. Even after assuring her we could call each other or write she wasn't happy. After a while she came up with her own way to deal with it, her solution has marking. Pain. Any time she came near me she hurt me. Starting with pinching and poking, and progressing to biting, sowing with ink, then cutting.
"Would you stop moving?!"
"Sorry...it hurts"
"It's not that bad. Now stay still you'll make me mess up!"
"I'm trying but I'm telling you it hurts!...What are you cutting anyway?"
"My name, so you won't forget me."
"I told you I won't"
"I'm just making sure. There! It's done now you'll never forget."
It was the first name I ever had cut into my skin. It was painful, but it was a sign that she loved me. Everything she did to me, every bite, every bruise, every cut was a another sign of her love. She was my friend my only friend and I needed that pain. I was dieing to receive every sign of affection that she could give me. "CHRISTINA," was scared into the skin on my left arm for a year after she moved away from me before the dark brown of my completion was able reclaimed the pale letters. After she moved we never spoke again but she was the one who set the guidelines for my ideal friendship, the kind I need to be happy. The only kind I am willing to accept.
It's a something I've learned about myself and it's something I've actually tried to change but couldn't bring myself to do even after seeking outside help. I guess deep down I really didn't want it to change I can't say whether I love it or hate it but I have learned that I need it. In fact I can't live with out it. I need friends. Many would say well so dose everyone else and I'd have to agree we all need friends, the issue lies in the kind of friends I require.
My name is Hazenia and I actually have no lack of acquaintances. The people you talk to and joke around with in class, The neighbors and other people that visit you to hang out and play games or watch a movie, People you meet online in a chat room and end up still talking to years later, and I even have some of the ones that call you and want to talk on the phone for hours on end despite my extreme dislike of talking to anyone for any reason on the phone for even the smallest amount of time. But I can't say I really consider any of these people friends. Not a single one of them knows anything about me that really matters when you get right down to it. Not that this is their fault I shut them out the minute I see that they can't fill my needs. And it never takes that long to tell if they fit the bill or if there are just not cut out for the job. Not many people are. There are so many people that consider me their friend and are not shy at all about showering me with signs of friendship. People seeking me out, hugging me, laughing with me, eating with me, dragging me around, inviting me to their houses and some even granting me that honored position of best friend while I smile and go along with it. Truth be told out of all the people I have met there are only three that I consider to be friends the rest are either just aquatinters I'm on good terms with or self imposed one sided friendships. Sometimes I run into one person I think could let in and accept as a friend but it just never works out.
It doesn't bother me that I've only had three friends in my life. To me it actually makes sense in a way. There are three things I need to get from a friendship and there have only been three people that have been able to give it to me so far. Isolation. Protection. Pain. In order for me to feel secure I need those things and I count on my friends to provide me with all three. It was my first real friend that taught me, and it actually wasn't something I learned that long ago.
Her name is Christina and we met in 6th grade. It was our first day in middle school and we were in home room. The room was light, cheery and smelled like orange scented cleaning fluid. It's bright yellow walls were littered with informational posters on proper writing techniques and many rows of cream colored laminate desks filled most of the room giving way to more open space about six feet from the front wall that was only inhabited by the teaches desk to the right and a white dry-erase board that took up the entire front wall with the words "WELCOME TO MRS. BEASLY'S HOMEROOM!" scrawled across the middle in bold blue ink with little bees drawn all around it in black and yellow. Even though it was early in early in the morning to all of us student who were just returning to school from a lazy summer of sleeping in the classroom was buzzing with excited conversation. People were happily greeting old friends form elementary school as we'll as introducing themselves to the new faces that would be sharing their new environment with them.
I actually decided that she would be my friend before I even knew her name base entirely on her looks. She was taller than me and thin but not boney she had waist length grayish red hair, pale blue eyes and smelled like weed. Christina always wore black with a matching trench coat even in the summer, she never seemed to be hot it was like even the summer sun couldn't penetrate the ever present aura of coldness she seemed to possess. She looked dangerous and I liked it. I wanted to be as cold and cool as she was, not smiling at anyone and having the whole class to afraid to speak to her. So you can imagine my shock when I finally got up the nerve to speak to her and she grins at me with a smile so bright it would even warm the grim reapers heart.
"You know you're the first one to talk to me all day," she had said to me smile never failing, "I was beginning to wonder if there was a single person in this preppy ass little school that wasn't to stuck up to speak. Hey..."
"My name is Hazenia," I informed the floor because I was to nervous to look up.
"It's to long."
"What?" I questioned removing my attention from the ivory flecked tile of the classroom floor to her ghostly pale face.
"Your name, it's to long and it's hard to say."
"But your name is longer than mine..."
"Well I'm used to my name, yours I'm not and I don't like it. You got a nickname?"
"...not really, everyone just messes up my name until they can get the pronunciation down packed."
"You should have get a nickname."
"Then you should give me one. It's your idea."
"Then...well...fuck it, what was your name again?"
"Hazenia it's pronounced Ha-Zen-E-a and it's nice to meet you," And that was the end of our first conversation and the beginning of a kind of friendship that was very new to me.
Christina was like a very tall, demanding shadow. I was the first friend she made in middle school so by her reasoning that made me her best friend, and she always had to have her best friend around her because that's how best friends were supposed to be. We had all the same classes and sat beside each other in any class where seats weren't assigned. Even in the one class where they were she would get out of her seat and come sit on the floor by mine when ever the teacher wasn't looking. After a while that teacher got sick of it and just moved her to the table beside my desk in the back of the room because it was easier than writing her up every day. It seemed like every week that went by we got closer and closer and Christina got worse and about having me close. Just walking between classes was becoming a close contact event as the school year went on. We started with just walking along to the next room with the rest of the class chatting with everyone, then she decided that we needed to wait till everyone else was out of the room to leave so we could walk by ourselves. After a while we held hands, then because we weren't close enough like that we walked every where with her arm draped across my shoulders. And finally we ended up settling into the way we walked every where for the next five years her pressed up against my back with her arms wrapped around my waist or draped across my hip and my chest while she rested her head on my shoulder so she could talk right into my ear. After a while no one else even tried to talk to us in the halls or at lunch and if they did she'd glare them into oblivion. Isolation. I was being cut off from all the people I used to call friends and it suited me just fine. She had succeeded in convincing me that I needed no one else. What she started I finished shutting out my friends in my neighborhood in favor of talking to her on the phone, and rejecting all of my family avoiding communicating with them or even being around them anymore than I had to by staying in my room all day telling myself no one understood me but Christina. Talking to anyone else was just a waste of breath.
When we got to high school and were only in two of the same classes with each other Christina some how managed to become even more possessive. Her clinginess had kept to many other people from talking to me in middle school but now she wasn't there with me for two whole periods of the day and in high school there were more people that dressed like her and had her same seemingly cold impenetrable aura in my classes where she wasn't around so I decided to hang out with them when my best friend wasn't available. I was sure they were the type of people she could get along with. Wrong. When I introduced her to them in the halls between campus she was openly hostel and told them in a few choice words we didn't need any other friends. After that she waited for me after ever class to walk me to the next one. Protection. She was like a guard dog attacking any one that got to close. In P.E. one of the two classes we had together we didn't play because she didn't want to participate with the others. The only points we got in the class were from dressing out and that's just because she loved to shower together, the rest of the time we sat leaned against the wall or I sat while she stretched out with her head in my lap and slept. No one could talk to me, and after a while no one tried. But it was ok, she was doing what was best for me. She knew how horrible people could be deep down inside, she was just keeping me safe.
Our last year together was my sophomore year. She found out she was going to have to move as soon as school let out for the summer. We were both really upset but I took it much better than she did. Christina didn't want to go and there wasn't anything she could do to change the fact she had to move. The situation was frustrating to her, and she told me to many times to count she didn't want to loose her best friend. Even after assuring her we could call each other or write she wasn't happy. After a while she came up with her own way to deal with it, her solution has marking. Pain. Any time she came near me she hurt me. Starting with pinching and poking, and progressing to biting, sowing with ink, then cutting.
"Would you stop moving?!"
"Sorry...it hurts"
"It's not that bad. Now stay still you'll make me mess up!"
"I'm trying but I'm telling you it hurts!...What are you cutting anyway?"
"My name, so you won't forget me."
"I told you I won't"
"I'm just making sure. There! It's done now you'll never forget."
It was the first name I ever had cut into my skin. It was painful, but it was a sign that she loved me. Everything she did to me, every bite, every bruise, every cut was a another sign of her love. She was my friend my only friend and I needed that pain. I was dieing to receive every sign of affection that she could give me. "CHRISTINA," was scared into the skin on my left arm for a year after she moved away from me before the dark brown of my completion was able reclaimed the pale letters. After she moved we never spoke again but she was the one who set the guidelines for my ideal friendship, the kind I need to be happy. The only kind I am willing to accept.
Sign up to rate and review this story