cassandra (a last appearance).

you see, it was my problem. i was the one crying all morning because i forgot about rule number six and took myself too goddamn seriously. i was the one who finally snapped underneath all the stress and the pressure after the proverbial last straw of a bad test grade. it wasn't her business or most people's business for that matter. it was mine.

i suppose that being in the same room as a crying person is never comfortable, and most nice people at least try to provide some comfort. it's a natural reaction. but when you're on the other end of the scenario and you can't hear the words "are you okay?" without the tears starting up again, unstoppable, all you can think about is how much you hate being like this. vulnerable. weak. out of control. and you can't stand the thought of anyone seeing you at your worst besides the people who already have and still love you anyway.

the problem was not that cassandra tried. it wasn't that she made the usual promises that she would always be there for me, even though i pushed her away with repeated "i'm fine"s. it wasn't even that she offered me a hug (goodness knows i didn't want one from her). no, it was that after about ten minutes of silence, she looked up at me and said, "christie? you know, it's okay if you don't want to talk to me. i understand that. but you should at least talk to somebody, maybe somebody closer to you. i'm sure you didn't do anything bad; i know you're a good girl. but you need to talk to someone."

need? she was telling me that i needed to talk to someone? all i needed was for her to stop telling me what i should and shouldn't be doing, because right then i felt so goddamn vulnerable and and all i wanted was to regain my foothold on my life. this may have been my one moment of weakness, but she had no right to infringe on my power to make my own decisions. it didn't matter whether she was right or wrong. she had no right to me.

maybe i was overreacting. maybe that was too mean of me to think so harshly of her. i don't care. to place confidence in another person is to give that person power, and every ounce of sincerity i produce puts me at a greater degree of dependency because then i owe mutual human connection. that's how friendship works, right?

goodness knows that it's supposed to be beautiful. human connection is something that everybody is forever searching for in intertwined hands and intertwined lives, hoping to feel some transfer of empathy from heart to tangled heart. all i really wish is that she would see what i see, and what i see is that between the two of us, it doesn't matter how much she strives to make that connection. there will always be a short circuit somewhere, in some place where her memory in my cortex is meant to spark with the beating of my heart.