‘You are a glorified sex worker!’

As soon as the words left her lips she was sorry. The other woman turned purple with rage.

‘How dare you say anything so hurtful to me?!’

Before the offender had any chance to speak up she went on.

‘I am a married woman! I have a husband!’, her voice was now reaching unusual high pitched levels.

‘Yes, a husband you do not love! You married him for money, for status … ergo…’

‘Don’t you dare ergo me! I did what every woman does. Get married, have a family, take care of them … and son on! You are jealous! Admit it!’

‘Ha!’, of she was not jealous, the offender thought, she would never stoop so low.

The wife went on.

‘You burn with jealousy that you work in the same run down bookshop as you did when we were in college! Coooolllleegggeeeee!’ How old are you now? 42??? Ha indeed!’, she took a deep breath.

‘And you know what, leave my house! I will not stand here and be insulted in my own home!’

She felt like a movie star saying those words which she accompanied by a wide arm movement pointing to the door.

She needed to go, the offender knew it was for the best, so she stifled all her anger, muted all her words, and with her coat trailing on the floor she noisily left the dreaded house.

‘Good bye!’

The reply.

‘And good riddance!’

A few short words ending a friendship lasting more than thirty years.

As the door slammed behind her tears of frustration violently ran down across her face. She had made her do it! With all her lady of the manor airs, her interminable rambling about all the charity work she was doing, with her annoying details of luxurious vacations. Not being able to take the duplicity any longer she had just burst.

That was the moment when she understood that their true friendship, the one they had shared as girls, had turned into a demon they had grown accustomed to, that had been part of their lives for so long that they just tolerated its existence.

They had stopped sharing truthful things about themselves to each other years before. They just met out of habit, made insignificant small talk and gossiped about the fewer and fewer people they both knew.

That was now gone and she felt free, she felt like a huge burden had been taken away. She had no idea she felt so strongly, so negatively about what their friendship had become.

She would always treasure the years of kindness and support they had shared, all the long nights spent studying and talking about their dreams. That would always bond them. Now thought they had become two strangers keeping up a fake friendship for the sake of a long gone one.

Her house felt that bit darker when she got in, but she knew it was just a matter of time until her mood would lift.

That evening she got a long email from her former friend. It talked about all the good times, all the sad times, and it assured her that she can reach out for anything she might need, but that in light of the recent incident and the words spoken it would be best to not see each other.

‘Duhhh! Of course!’, she muttered to herself. ‘Not in a million years!’

And then the tears started to flow again. She was sorry. She was sorry for the words she had said, for the friendship she had lost, for the hurt she knew she had caused.

She was sorry because she knew her friend had been right. She was jealous for the stability and normality the other woman seemed to have.

‘Stop being such a baby!’, she scolded herself.

‘How old are you?!?’

‘42 …’

What Was Left