The Girl Without A Face

I’m a firm believer that our dreams send messages to us from our subconscious. Intricate stories that have to be considered metaphorically in order to understand the meaning in our reality. I’ve had powerful dreams where I wake up feeling the same feelings I was experiencing when I was asleep, usually the negative ones. Anxiety, fear, sometimes I even wake up with my heart pounding. On rare occasions, I could probably count them on one hand, I’ve had dreams that I haven’t wanted to wake up from they were so wonderful. Sometimes, like last night, they are just vivid. With characters that let me know I need to consider the meaning. That something is there maybe I’m not seeing, maybe I’m still burying. It’s something I haven’t really thought about even while I’ve been healing.

It makes sense this is coming up now as I’m thinking of the betrayal of friends. Last week I was feeling settled in the fact I really did have more than one good one. Maybe this showed my subconscious I was ready to tackle the friendships lost I’m still holding onto. I’ve had many betrayals over the course of my life, I experienced the feeling first in 8th grade. My best friend at the time started dating the boy I broke up with (well he broke up with me) behind my back. I found out another way. When I confronted her she was nasty about it. We were never friends again. They ended up actually dating for a few years. The metallic after taste of betrayal was like no other feeling. From a friend, someone I had picked and vetted, especially. It was one thing to be tormented and harassed by my family, but to be stabbed in the back by someone I called a best friend hurt like nothing else I had experienced before.

This wouldn’t be my first betrayal by a long shot, but betrayals look different. They come in many different shapes and sizes. For many different reasons. All of them not personal, though of course I couldn’t understand that at the time. In high school, I was best friends with another girl, she’s the one that came in my dream last night. The dream was me out with a younger crowd, and for some reason I knew she would be there. I asked the person I was with, she said yes. That old friend walked in. She looked over at us, I looked away with wide eyes, “Is she staring”, I said to the girl I was with. “She is”, she replied. We were in some sort of multi-level Dave and Busters setup, maybe for a type of work event, but the girl I was talking to knew all the gossip about this old friend. “She broke up with her long time partner, she’s been out a lot since then. She seems cool, what happened between the two of you.” Before I could start the story, our table got called. I found myself at the front of the line, rushing up the stairs to get away from the inevitable confrontation. Someone behind me said something along the lines of, “What’s the rush, give the waitress a little time. They’re setting up our table now. Chill out.” I wanted to reply, “You don’t understand”, I felt panic rise. I needed to get to a safe place. No one, not even my old friend, seemed to be phased. Then I woke up.

You may be asking yourself, “What does this dream have to do with anything”, but I found it incredibly interesting. Especially with the theme of old friends, letting go, healing, being vulnerable. I realized I need to admit she has had a lifelong impact. When we were in high school her and I were close, so close in fact that when I got my car I would pick her up for school in the morning. Like a lot of my other friends, something tragic touched her life. She lived with her grandparents, her mom was too sick to care for her. I believe her dad died. Or may as well have been dead. We were so close in fact, that when my mom left for one of her weekends with her boyfriend when I was in 9th grade, 14 years old, and my dad was too busy “getting the driveway paved” or something, I stayed with her and her grandparents for the long weekend. By the time we started senior year, my other guy friend lost his mind and had to leave (that’s a whole other story in itself), many of the boys left to go to Iraq or get their GEDs, some of the girls dropped out or already graduated. The group was dwindling. I was taking her to school in the morning, but one morning I was late. She had a reputation for beating people up, but I never thought she’d come after me. I never held that against her, or asked her why she did that. I guess part of me knew why, or maybe part of me was afraid to ask. The whole way to school she was so angry with me for being late, as we got out of my car I told her, “That’s it. I’m not bringing you to school anymore. I’m late every day and it’s going to stay that way. If you don’t like it get your own ride.” We started walking the 15 minutes into school, the parking lot comically far away from the entrance. She could’ve jumped me anytime on that walk but chose not to, I thought about that a lot. As soon as we entered the doors, the security guard sitting right in front of us, she jumped at me from behind. He got her right away. That was that. Friendship over. Over the course of the following week, I know I antagonized her with words. I was angry. I knew I had a class with her right at 7 in the morning. I went down to my counselor and I said, “She’s going to jump me in that class. It’s only a matter of time. She needs to be removed. She’s fought so many people. Why won’t you do something.” But they didnt. A week later, half asleep in Forensics class of all places, I was sitting in my seat, messy bun on top of my head, talking to a girl in front of me before class. I didn’t see anything coming but I saw her face change from a smile to absolute horror and then I felt a hand grab my bun and another start punching. I’m extremely loud, so I turned around, she still had hold of my hair. I tried to swing but the position I was in I couldn’t connect with anything. She tried kicking me but I was moving all over screaming obscenities at her. It was quite the scene at 7 something in the morning let me tell you. Other classrooms of kids started coming out in the hallways, we had danced our way out to the hallway as well. Security came and broke it up and it was over. She left that day and rumor was she tried to harm herself with her keys, that was the story I got at least. She never came back to school. But she was able to attend senior prom, the senior outing. I chose not to go. I was furious she was allowed after what she did. It further ruined my experience which was already a complete show. She of course fought a girl right before the senior trip, and I felt a sick satisfaction in that. “Told you so, idiots”, I thought. I never saw her again, was never friends with her on Facebook or Instagram. I’ve only heard updates from other people, like the guy that lived with me for a few months who of course somewhat stays in touch with her.

The thing that I realized after waking up from my dream last night is there were many emotions involved in that experience for me. Of course at home I was only getting screamed at, so now as I’m healing myself properly, I can finally quietly try to understand the impact of what happened to me. There was betrayal there, yes of course. She was my friend for years and then crossed a line you can never return from. There was also injustice, not being heard or taken seriously by the school administration. I knew based on my experience what was coming for me and I felt completely unprotected. When I look a bit deeper though, I see a bit of self-harm in there. It’s very hard to see, but if you look closely you can see it. I knew what I was getting myself into, at the time I told myself I was the exception. That I could change the behavior. That I was special. In reality, that was my own brokenness welcoming the abuse from others. We were just all troubled kids drawn to one another. Like we could see eachothers holes and understood how it felt to be broken. Even though each of us had been broken differently, the result inside was the same. A hole to fill, each one of us finding different ways to fill the pain. The kids with happy homes or a supportive parent could never understand. We were the outsiders, the misfits, the kids outside at the path.

Maybe part of me wanted to play victim in this story for all these years. She was the perpetrator, I was sitting in class minding my own business. But the truth is, if I’d learned nothing else in my home, if I wanted to play with fire I was going to get burned. Maybe the truth that I’ve been hiding from myself all these years is that I found the pain of betrayal somewhat comforting after awhile. Or pain in general. It was like an old friend. When I felt it I knew I could get through it. Without it, I felt nothing at all. Maybe, just maybe, all these years I’ve been betraying myself after all.