I thought of this while reading the Do you believe there’s such a thing as a “bad seed”? thread.
This is about a girl who was my best friend for more than ten years. I’ll call her Gwen. Please excuse any typos or odd sentences. And sorry for the length. I needed to vent, and I don’t think there’s enough vitriol for the pit.
Gwen and I were practically sisters growing up. She went on vacations with my family, I went on vacations with hers. We were planning to get an apartment together after high school. BFF type of thing. That made it hard to watch her grow up the way she did. You know those kids that have total run of the household? The ones that scream and are abusive to their parents, and generally just little monsters? That’s Gwen.
When we were 13 or so, she figured out that sympathy and concern gets you things. The best way to accomplish this? Cutting. Her parents ground her for her shitty grades? Anna doesn’t want to go to the mall with her? Cut, cut. Her parents take her to see a psychologist? Gwen feeds her a line of bullshit and gloats about it. This behavior continues for three and a half years.
At 14, her parents divorce. Her mother starts drinking. Gwen also starts drinking.
Somewhere between the ages of 14 and 16, Gwen discovers the world of webcams and online dating. Her new schedule is :Wake up, scream at her mother or father for waking her up, ditch school (alternatively, go to school and spend all day in ISS, in school suspension), come home, and hop online. Her new pastime is making people she meets on chat rooms fall in love with her. Sometimes just for laughs, sometimes for profit. Some sends gifts, cds, clothes, just plain money. Then she disappears. Deletes the email, makes another, and moves to another chat for a few months. If she’s ever found out, she claims she was grounded or somehow lost internet access.
Age fifteen, comes to school on a delightful cocktail of cough syrup, vodka, and antidepressants. My (completely freaking awesome for unrelated reasons) English teacher notices, and Gwen is expelled. She does nothing in regards to school again. Most of her days are spent duping people on the internet, or begging/guilting/stealing from her friends.
She gets away with this because her mother is usually passed out, hungover, and just sick of trying to control her. Gwen refuses to live with her father because he’d have some control over her. Custody is always an issue.
Which brings us to age 16. This year features accusations of attempted rape, a drunken brawl with her equally drunk mother, more drama on the internet, and the end of the story.
Gwen starts hanging out at a store. She makes friends with the clerk, who (unfathomably) develops a crush on her. She gives her rides, buys her lunch, music, the works. Gwen gratefully accepts and returns the affection with making out… This is while she is dating a former classmate. Neither the classmate nor the clerk are aware of each other. Things go to hell when the clerk leaves a hickey and a bite mark on her neck. The solution? Say he was just a friend, and that he overpowered her in his car while giving her a ride home. That made his life fun.
I have no idea how Gwen and her mom got into a fight, just that her mother locked her out of the house that night.
The drama on the internet involves me. I met a boy (I’ll call him Harvey) on a chat room, and he asked me if we could try the internet relationship thing. I figured why not and say yes, and we figure it would fizzle out after three weeks of “lol, u r teh coolest~!!1!!eleven1!!11 <3<3<3 luv yew<333.” Fortunately, it didn’t. Unfortunately, Harvey decides he wants to know my best friend. You see where this is going? I did. So, unbeknown to me, Gwen starts working on Harvey. Lying about the music she listens to (his passion is music), stealing poetry and claiming it as her own, eventually confessing her love to him. Harvey hasn’t told me at this point because he doesn’t want to ruin my friend with Gwen, and he thinks she’s genuinely smitten with him, that it’s harmless and she’ll get over it. He does rebuff her, though, gently. (He doesn’t like hurting people’s feelings.) So, Gwen figures subtly and sweetness won’t work. She sends him nude photos in an email. Harvey turns her down again, and Gwen gives up.
(Harvey and I are still together, still long distance. He told me about the fiasco with Gwen later on. He hadn’t told me about it sooner because he was afraid Gwen would spin it so that he was the one pursuing a relationship with her, not the other way around. I wasn’t happy to hear any of that story, but I believe him. It fits Gwen to try to break up a relationship for the sport of it.)
Later that year, Gwen tests positive for opiates and is sent to something like a halfway house, which she runs away from with a month. She later contacts me through email asking for money. I manage to catch her on an instant messenger, and learn she’s doing or has done everything but prostitute herself. This was in late September of 2006. I haven’t heard from her since.
Her 17th birthday was about two weeks ago and I don’t even know if she’s alive or dead. It’s upsetting to watch your dearest friend grow up so different from you. 
She was such a nice girl. Friendly, outgoing, good grades. She just started going wrong. Child Protective Services was involved in the whole mess, for anyone wondering why they didn’t show up at some point. They did. Didn’t do a damn bit of good, though. Gwen delighted in bullshitting them like her therapist.
The whole damn thing just sucks. I wish I’d known how two-faced and conniving she was when she was still around. Maybe I would have been less of a doormat for her. And I’d give her a swift kick to the ovaries. God knows if anyone ever deserved it, it’s her. :mad:
