I woke up to a text from my friend Mug. I got up, peed, then called her. I could hear in her voice she was an emotional wreck. I listened and tried to console her and when I got off the phone, I felt pretty okay. But later that evening, my true feelings found a way out through alcohol.
Kim was always a whirlwind. She thrived on drama. She rescued dogs from cruel owners, she wore her heart on her sleeve, and she drank like she had a vendetta on her liver. I loved her like she was family. And she totally broke my heart.
I met Kim on Twitter in 2012. It was a volatile year for me. My dad died in May and I lost my job in August. I used Twitter as an escape into a male character I created: IdaClayer. Kim was PuddingBoobs, a funny account with a cute donkey avatar. We hit it off right away and I was reluctant to tell her I wasn't a dude. I felt like I had been tricking her into imagining me as a funny, flirty guy, but she thought it was awesome that a woman ran that account. We kept in touch everyday after that.
Kim was smart, funny, and a weirdly over/underachiever. She worked on getting her medical degree as a single mom, but she hated her fellowship position and missed the days she'd worked other jobs like realty underwriting and cutting hair. She wanted to be a real life House. But at the same time, she was horrible at diagnosing her own issues.
Some days she didn't get out of bed. Her friend Happy would check in on her to make sure she showered everyday. When she had a work-call-off-no-shower day, she was always wearing a shabby old bathrobe with snacks in the pockets. Sometimes there were tissues and dog treats in there when the cookies were gone.
There was a specific few weeks where Kim couldn't make herself get out of bed. She felt like she was going insane. She texted me and told me she had been crying in the aisle of the liquor store because she wasn't sure if one handle of vodka was enough. I remember kind of shaking my head when she told me she thought she needed electroshock therapy, that it was the only way to get back on track. Turns out though, she had a blood infection. Probably from when she'd been in a hot tub on a tweet-up telling her southern belle friend to make up with her husband because she and our friend Gary were only happy maybe 10% of the time as single folks. Maybe House was always shit at self-diagnosis, too, but she was pretty good at couples counseling.
She always tried to diagnose me, too. She was absolutely convinced that I needed treated for aplastic anemia. My blood tests confirmed that I did not in fact need a bone marrow transplant. She still stood by her assessment.
I saw her go through some pretty radical and spontaneous phases. She would use our shared love for Wranglers as a metaphor for her love life: They are gas hogs, expensive, can't haul shit in them, can't drive them above 95mph, and they rust like mad, but the accessories are fantastic. This is why I love pretty men. If he's pretty and he makes me laugh, then he can be broke, unemployed, an alcoholic, a weirdo, and on and on. She wasn't kidding.
The first time I met Kim in person, I drove to Baltimore because she'd hooked up with a Twitter guy who lied about coming back. Text after text, he cited excuse after excuse of why he couldn't make it back to the hotel. She called me crying and I told her to hold on, I'd be there. We snuggled up in that hotel room while she cried into my shoulder until she fell asleep. She sent me a clip from the Sex and the City movie where Carrie walks all the way to Miranda's house downtown so she doesn't have to spend New Year's Eve alone. "You're my Carrie," she'd tell me. "You always come to my rescue."
He was the first tragic Twitter hook-up, but not the last.
She'd been engaged to a man who cheated on her before I met her. It seemed ever since then, she looked for younger men. Pretty men. She slept with an absolute asshole the first time she stayed at my house. She'd met him on Twitter and invited him to my house. He made all the other guests nervous with his inappropriate talk of addiction to "tranny porn" and his story about how he got an STD from a waitress. Totally unfazed and undeterred, she fucked him on a mattress in the spare room. The mattress he soiled when he passed out drunk after.
She had a few long distance emotional affairs with the who's who of Twitter. They always ended in absolute disaster. The last one I knew of promised to marry her. His name was Josh. She brought him to my house for Thanksgiving one year. After he heard I didn't drink coffee, he bought a coffee maker to my house so he could keep up his 20 cups a day habit. We watched midget porn over turkey dinner among other things.
Would I design her wedding invitations? Sure, I told her. I never even started them. I knew it wasn't real. They'd only been around each other four or five times total. He didn't even buy her the cheap birthday gift she'd asked for: a turtle necklace. Instead, he had to make it up to her by renting a motel room with a hot tub that she gave him a foot job in. I'm sure he bought her dinner, too, but he just seemed a lot less into her than she was into him.
She traded her Wrangler (a neon green one named HulkSmash) for a boring blue Ford Fusion and she sold her house in preparation for her long drive to Illinois to live with her betrothed... that had never actually bought her a ring. The closer the date got, the more distant he became until he finally admitted that he hadn't yet kicked his roommate out. This was the same roommate that had brought bed bugs into his apartment, but Josh told her he must have brought them in himself from my house. Fuck you, Josh, by the way.
Eventually he fessed up to not wanting to marry her. On one hand, he could have told her earlier before she went to all those lengths, but on the other hand, why was she doing all of this for a man she barely knew in real life? She was a hot mess and when the fall out came, I was her crying shoulder (and not the only one, I'm sure) again.
I took some serious stock of my life. Was I lying every time I told her I loved her or did I need to step up and help my best friend. I honestly thought it was a bad idea, but the right thing to do, if that makes sense. I offered to let her move in with me. She packed up her dog, Butters, her shit she couldn't live without and she drove from St. Paul, MN to Fairmont, WV in the Ford Fusion she despised.
It was an adjustment for both of us. Still reeling from her breakup, and now living in WV with a woman that only made 40k a year, Kim fought with depression and struggled to get out of the ditch in this highway of life. We were both struggling in that respect. I could barely afford the bills as it was and now I was responsible for another person. Pretty soon, my meager savings were completely drained and I was in the red. My anxiety kept me worried about an emergency that I wouldn't be able to recover from. Appliance breaks, car breaks, anything. I wasn't going to be able to fix anything if it broke. I couldn't even afford to fix the broken dishwasher or the leaking pipes under the sink.
To make matters worse, I had started dating a man Kim despised. He and his wife separated two years prior and lived in different houses, but it wasn't good enough for Kim. She saw it as morally wrong. "He's. Married." We went out for my birthday and she wouldn't engage. She sat at the bar and stared at the shelves. When Michael went to the restroom, I turned to her and said calmly but firmly, "Can't you at least pretend to be having fun? It's my birthday." Instantly, she burst into tears. She went outside to smoke a cigarette and pull herself together. Not long after, I got a text from her friend, Johnny. He wanted to know why I made Kim cry, why I yelled at her.
This became the dynamic from then on. Kim never told me anything was bothering her. She'd text her friends, usually Johnny, and he'd demand to know why I was doing what I was doing to upset her. Why are you throwing it in her face by practically having sex with your boyfriend in front of her? We were just watching Archer on the TV in the living room. Not even touching. What did you do now? She's crying again. Nothing, just asked if maybe she could put money toward the bills since she's got a job now.
It wasn't long until the passive aggressive measures became more visible. Making plans with me, then ditching me for new ones. Lying to me, telling me I had fungus on my toenails to make me feel gross. Making dinner for only herself. Leaving the juicer in the sink a mess under a swarm of fruit flies when I told her I couldn't afford the extra $200 a week in groceries it was costing to juice twice a day. It got to the point that I hated coming home. Something I promised myself I'd never have to do again.
I had tried to tell her honestly how I was feeling about things, but she always took it as me criticizing her unfairly. Every conversation ended with her in tears. I tried to tell her I really needed help with the bills and she only heard that she was a burden. I tried to tell her she made Michael feel unwelcome in my house but she only heard that I loved him more than her. And when I told her my new birth control was causing me to bleed so much I could barely function and I needed extra help, she heard that she didn't do enough around the house.
I used to think she was my ride or die, but I watched her become someone who hated my guts. She couldn't understand why I would sabotage her attempt at weight loss by not throwing money in on fresh produce every week. Her credit score was dismal and she made payments on everything she owned. I didn't want to sink into that. I stood fast at saving what money I could so that if there was an emergency, I could afford to take out a loan and wasn't ruining my life by getting trapped in endless debt. She didn't care about those things.
One day she announced she was moving out the next week on Thursday. She'd gotten her old boss to give her back her job at the real estate office. 75k a year. I didn't realize she was so ready to go. It was never a conversation previous to that. She moved out a few days early so she didn't have to give me the third and final $250 she promised me every two weeks.
I hugged her and cried and watched her drive away. Michael dumped me not long after and my gyno told me I seriously needed to be tested for cervical cancer after my last pap. I texted Kim and told her Michael had left and I felt so alone and I was afraid of the future. She told me I got what I deserved because he was married and what did I expect? It wasn't like I wouldn't be dating someone in two weeks from now anyway. It was the last time I ever heard from her.
I realized I didn't have a Carrie. I didn't have a Miranda either. I was alone and terrified. If I had cancer, could I afford it? Was I going to lose my job? Michael didn't care. Kim didn't care. Even Johnny popped by in text to tell me Kim was right and I got what I deserved. A man who paid to go down on hookers was scolding me about life choices. A woman who upturned her entire life for a man she barely knew but planned to marry was telling me to reap what I sowed.
I saw some online friends shrink away. I knew what was happening and I decided I was done with all of it. No more would I look to Twitter to connect with people. I got out, I met the man I would marry, I found out I was cancer-free, and I blocked Kim on every platform I could so I wasn't letting her in in any form. I stopped thinking about the hurt until that text that she was dead. Suddenly, I had all the proof I'd ever need that she was never sorry, that she would never reach out and try to mend our relationship, that she got what she needed from me and didn't need me anymore. And it's tough. It's tough to see all the condolences and platitudes. It's hard to remember the good times after a betrayal. And it's hard to accept that she's gone forever. I think I'll always love her just as much as I'll hold onto the grudge that she wasn't who I thought she was.
She was a deeply broken person and self-centered, shallow, weak, and cruel. And she was kind and loving and brave somewhere in there, too. But that's harder to believe and it's harder to remember. Maybe some day I'll forgive her. But not today. Rest in peace, Kim.