argh

It’s one thing when your best friend, the one you live with for years after college, the one who you introduce to everyone by saying “this is my best friend _______” or when you tell stories about her you say “my best friend _______” as if her first name is four words long, who you think of as your sister but better because you chose each other…  it’s one thing when she starts hanging out with your ex-boyfriend and you can’t breathe because the three of you all work together and you and she are still living together and sure enough she dates him and it’s a mess and you both move out and move on.

It’s another thing when a few years later she writes a memoir about her life and sends you an email that several chapters deal with your friendship and she changed your name and though she’s never said it in person, or even on the phone, now in this email she says “sorry” and also she’s turning in the manuscript to the publisher in a week.

It’s another thing when the book comes out and gets great reviews and mentioned in Oprah’s magazine and one of the Oprah book club questions is about you (and you even hate the pseudonym she chose for you).

It’s another thing when she organizes reunions and shows so she can sell her books in the lobby afterwards, this memoir which you know she got a six figure advance for.

But it’s this one last thing that sticks in your craw, festering like last night’s rotten popcorn kernels jammed in your back teeth: you have written her two emails, asking her to donate to this, and she doesn’t reply and she doesn’t donate and you just want to tell her to fuck off, a million times over, to please fuck off forever and ever amen.