Safe Haven

I need a safe haven. Somewhere I can stop thinking about work and school and all the drama and everything I dislike about my life right now.

Some people use drugs. Some people have a friend they can count on. Some people just take a fucking nap. But I can't do that shit anymore. Drugs aren't really my thing. My friends are slowly growing more and more distant. Fuck a best friend. I don't even know what that is anymore.

There's always something to worry about. Like how I'm most definitely going to fail Organic Chemistry. Or how I may just be fired from my job because I'm going to slap my freak of a manager one of these days. Or how I lost my best friend because all she's concerned about anymore is her boyfriend.

Let me tell you a little something about my "best friend." We have one of those really unhealthy relationships where I don't think either of us can really stand each other for very long but no matter how annoyed we get with each other, we're still going to be close. Which is okay, I guess.

But it's like I'm so annoyed that I don't spend a lot of time with her anymore but then when we finally do get to see each other, I just want to find any excuse to get the fuck out of there. And I don't really get it. I mean, I want to say that I could never even entertain the thought of breathing a bad word about her, but boy, can I. She's conceited and superficial and she thinks her shit don't stink.

It's exhausting having to inflate her ego all the time.

I love her, I always will. She's a loyal friend and you can't really ask for much more. But, God forbid, she's ever wrong. God forbid someone calls her out on something. God forbid some guy doesn't leave her his number on a tip slip. God forbid one person decides not to worship the ground she walks on.

Remember when I lost my virginity? When I said that I went through with it because I felt like that girl from the beach and David both liked me more than they liked my friend and my ego was so fragile that the feeling of being liked made me ready to hop on whatever chance I got?

It's the same feeling I got when I found out that my current crush doesn't like her at all.  And neither do his roommates.

My "best friend's" name is Melissa. She's a petite 5'2" with blonde hair, blue eyes, a big ass, big tits, and a flat stomach.  Boom - every guy's fantasy come to life.

One day, my crush, Dylan, invited me over so I could buy some weed from him. Usually, he just lets me in, I get the weed, give him the money, chat with his roommates for five minutes, and then I leave. But this time, Melissa came with me. And this time, he invited us in to smoke with them. Correlation? Beats me. You take a guess.

So we get in to Dylan's apartment and sit on his couches. His best friend, Tyler was sitting on the long couch when Melissa and I first walked in. I'm good friends with Tyler.  We get along easy because we're both easy to get along with. Also, we share a mutual love of the same two things - beer and football.  Their roommate, Sam, was also there sitting on the recliner.

I sit on the smaller couch and Dylan plops down beside me. Melissa takes a seat on the couch next to Tyler. Sam and Tyler are talking across the room to each other while Dylan and I have our heads bowed towards each other, conversing quietly.

The only one not really talking is Melissa. And another thing about Melissa is that she loves attention. And I mean, if she's not the center of it, she's uncomfortable. She likes to pride herself on being "one of the guys" and down to earth, but she doesn't see herself clearly because she is neither of those things.

I don't like to kid myself - I can be "one of the guys" and I can down to earth if the settings are right. If we're sitting around watching football, I'll be the loudest one there screaming at the TV. If you ask me how I'm going to decorate my apartment, I'll shrug and pick up some unmatched but clean furniture from a thrift store. I don't give a shit about those things.

But Melissa isn't like that. She flits around pretending that she likes football but I can see how disinterested she is by the end of the first quarter. She's a penny pincher so she'll give you slyly condescending comments whenever you splurge on that really cute shirt from that expensive boutique in the mall that you really can't afford. She always has to be the best, the brightest, and the greatest. And it kills me.

So apparently, what was killing her was that we were smoking out of a bong. Melissa only likes bowls. Me? As long as it has weed in it, pass it to me.

So every time it came to Melissa's turn to take a bong hit, she'd wave it off. And then the guys, being the gentleman they are, would ask her why she wasn't smoking. She told them that she only likes bowls and then whipped hers out asking them to pack it. So they did.

And then she started complaining that she wasn't high. I took three bongs rips and I was done. I was stoned out of my mind.

We stopped smoking for a while and we just listened to music and bummed around, talking. And when I say talking, I mean that I was talking to Dylan while Sam and Tyler talked to each other.

Melissa, once again, was uncomfortable because no one in that room was paying any mind to her. So when Sam asked me what I wanted to listen to, she jumped in before I could say anything.

"Well, I love Eminem. Could you play him?" she asked.  Sam gave me a look before slowly turning his head to Melissa.

"Sure," he said slowly. "Which song?"

"Well, my favorite is Lose Yourself. I can rap every word to that song," she professed like not every single one of us in that room could do the same thing.  We were all nineteen or twenty. That song came out when we were like eleven or twelve - the time when you ditch your parent's music and start listening to the "cool" shit on the radio.

And, usually, I'm not one to diss someone's music taste because it's not like mine is all that spectacular. It's actually one of my biggest pet peeves. I don't think you can judge someone solely on the music they listen to. But with Melissa, it just gets on my nerve. Like I shit you not, I told her once that one of my favorite lyrics ever were from a song called Clairvoyant by The Story So Far that goes, "This is your life, there's no way to run from it - the doubt in your brain or the pain in your stomach. I only have but one complaint at the moment - don't paint me black when I used to be golden." And she honestly says, "Yeah, I don't know how some musicians come up with that stuff. Like Taylor Swift. When she said, 'It's a love story, baby, just say "yes."' Like, how do you write something so relatable?"  Like, bitch, seriously? What the fuck. That's judgement material.

Anyway, Sam plays Lose Yourself. And she proceeds to rap every word like she's the shit while me, Tyler, Sam, and Dylan give each other looks when she's not looking. It was actually kind of hilarious.

After that, he plays another song by Eminem without really saying anything. While the opening music starts, Melissa says, "Oh, my God, this sounds like that one song by Eminem. Have you ever heard Mockingbird?"

Sam gives her a "no shit" look before saying, "Yeah, this is it."

It was all I could do not to laugh. She starts tumbling along the lyrics of Mockingbird, trying to save face which was just more funny.

After Mockingbird, Sam was understandably bored with the direction his music had been driven and started playing the kind of stuff that he had been playing before. So we all just went back to talking.

And then Melissa had no attention so she asked everyone if they had tattoos. Dylan, Tyler, and Sam all said no. And then there was an awkward silence where I think she expected them to reciprocate asking if she had any tattoos, which they obviously had no intention of doing. So she took it upon herself to say, "Well, I have one."

And then Tyler said a dismissive, "Cool," which also made me want to laugh but I held it together somehow.

Sam, however, took pity on the poor girl and asked, "What is it?"

Back in February, Melissa and I got the same tattoo. It's a small word in script with a bird flying off the end. So white girl. I'm not exactly proud of that tattoo, but hey, it's alright. The only difference is that Melissa got hers on her bikini line and I got mine under my left breast.

Given the opportunity she was seeking, Melissa said, "Here, I'll show you." She then proceeded to stand up off the couch and pull down the side of her jeans just enough to see the top of her "v" and her tattoo. Which, I mean, was kind of slutty. She has had a boyfriend for about six months at thing point. Don't go flashing your cooter to random guys you've only met once.

Anyway, they all saw it and said some variation of "That's cool."

Then Dylan said, "Hey, Isa has the same tattoo!" I'd shown him mine a few weeks back when we were hanging out on a smoke break.

Melissa did a dismissive wave and let the "Yeah..." that came out of her mouth just kind of trail off.

Then Tyler turned to me and asked me all sorts of questions about my tattoo: did it hurt? Was it expensive? Where did I get it? Every time I answered one of his questions, Melissa would give her variation of the answer to that same question. And every time she started talking, Tyler and I shared a look.

And I know that this story makes me sound like a terrible friend, but I just can't take her shit anymore. It's so nice to have someone who was born on this high horse be taken down a peg. And a few weeks later, although I didn't know this at the time, we wouldn't even be friends anymore. So what's the point in faking it?

Eventually, Melissa and I left Dylan's. She went back to her apartment and I went back to my dorm.

The next weekend, I was at work with Dylan when he invited me to come over on Sunday to watch football and kick back a few beers. We talked about it for a few minutes and hammered out some details. Finally, as the conversation was ending, he says, "Isa, can you just promise me one thing?"

I scrunched my eyebrows and gave him a confused look because I had no idea where he was going with that. Nevertheless, I said, "Sure."

He looked almost apologetic when he said, "Please just... don't bring Melissa."

But there was no need to look apologetic because my cheeks hurt from grinning so much when I said, "Promise."