Some Friendships Weren’t Always Meant To Last
As we get older, we become more aware of the limited time we have. We no longer have the time or energy to waste on nonsense, especially when it comes to the people we let in our lives. It could be relatives, partners, or friends. Now it seems like friends would be the ‘least’ difficult relationship to lose compared to our relatives or lovers, but it’s simply untrue. These are people we particularly chose to let in our lives and show them our most real selves. Sharing things we are too afraid to tell others without judgment. For some, cutting a friend out is not an easy task to do, even if they are the most toxic individual out there. Just ask our friend, “Victor.” He had known his friend, “Beatrice” for almost a decade. They first connected by their shared passion for the entertainment industry; he was an aspiring writer, while she was a “self-proclaimed actress, writer, and producer.”
Over the years, she had slowly shown her true colors, but it was one specific incident that made him cut her out of his life for good. He finally realized how entitled she was as a person, how manipulative she was in the industry, and how toxic she was as a friend. Their expiration date as friends came, but she wasn’t going without a fight.
~
Who Was Beatrice?
Just to add to the list, Beatrice was also a disappointment of a mother. She had two children, “Lily”, her 15-year-old daughter, who was your typical teenager and stayed in her room most of the time. Then there was eight-year-old, “Ethan.” Now, this was the child that clearly showed how horrible her parenting skills were. He rarely listened to anyone and was always up to trouble. And of course, Beatrice would either ignore it or make up an excuse. One time, while Victor was at their house, Ethan thought it would be a “funny” prank if he took Victor’s flip phone and ran with it. Ignoring Victor’s demands to give it back, he instead chucked it in the air, cracking one side of it. As Ethan was laughing about the whole ordeal, that was when Beatrice walked into the room.
Beatrice: “What’s going on?”
Victor: “Ethan just grabbed and threw my phone!”
Her once concerned face went straight to a more relaxed facial expression.
Beatrice: “Oh, he was just playing.”
Of course, she would play it off. Typical.
Victor: “Playing?! He cracked my phone!”
Beatrice (flippantly): “It’s an old phone. Aren’t you due for an upgrade anyway? Look at mine.”
She pulled out the latest model of the smartphone, showing it off to him.
Victor, passive-aggressively: “Must be nice having a husband who pays for everything so you don’t have to work. You are unemployed, right?”
That comment obviously hit a nerve in Beatrice because she then asked him to leave her home, which Victor happily obliged. This happened often. When she didn’t want to hear the truth or when she didn’t want to admit she or her children were wrong, she would ignore it. Well, ignore it until the person was nowhere near then start blasting their answering machine with vile messages. That day, Victor had a “series of missed calls and voicemails of her calling him every name in the book.” Typical Beatrice.
It wasn’t beneath her to use things he told her in confidence to blackmail him or file them away to use as weapons later on. This made him recall the time she outed him to his father. She never admitted it, but he was almost 100% confident it was her. How you might ask? Well, this was the time when Victor still lived with his parents, sharing one of those massive computer set-ups and log-in. So nothing on there was private, especially not his MSN/ Yahoo messenger chats.
Since Beatrice rarely booked any acting gigs, she would normally stay at home and message Victor throughout the day. Irritated that he would never reply to her in a timely fashion, she would sometimes send him nasty messages. Unforunately, that was a daily occurrence since he actually worked and had a job.
He would come home to dozens of unread messages, just sitting there on his desktop, waiting for anyone to read. She knew that. She knew how easily someone could open one of those messages, accidental or not, and see what was behold in those chats. A chat that held private information that only a closeted man wanted to share with his friend, and was not ready to share with his parents. But surprisingly, that wasn’t the incident that made him ghost her.
It would come later on.
~
September 2011
It was August 2011 when Victor discovered terrible news about his father; he was losing his six-month battle with lung cancer. He was first diagnosed earlier that year, just two days after his birthday. Since he was in stage three, the chemo treatment only bought him more time, but ultimately the doctors had no hope for him. They gave him only three months to live.
Not only was Victor losing a father he had known his whole life of 30 years, but his mother would also be losing her partner of 40 years. They both would be losing a huge part of them in only three months. No one could possibly understand what they were going through unless you’ve firsthand experienced a father’s death. Victor shared his father with four siblings but felt like he was alone in this. He had no contact with any of his siblings, not even his fraternal twin. They all had their own troubles with the law, yet because Victor was different, he was treated the worst. Yet again, he was by himself.
As he was dealing with the tragedy that would come in the next few months, Beatrice kept up with her ‘multiple phone calls’ ritual. Since she moved out of state, that was all she could do, but Victor already made it crystal clear to her that he didn’t want to speak with her. He also told her in their previous conversation about his terminally ill father’s situation, so he wasn’t sure what part she wasn’t getting. He needed time with his family and for himself, and not for her irrelevant life drama. She didn’t like it, but she left him alone for a record high of a full month.
Then came September 8, 2011; a day Victor would remember forever. It was right before seven in the morning when he received the call from his mother that his father passed away. As soon as she dropped the call, in pure desperation, he dialed the one phone number he wouldn’t in a million years think he would be calling.
Beatrice: “Hello?”
He needed a friend with who he could share his thoughts and feelings. Someone who would be there for him.
Victor: “I have some news for you.”
Beatrice: “He died, didn’t he?”
Victor: “Yeah.”
Beatrice: “Are you okay?”
Victor: “No.”
He said no, but he was feeling more than that. He took a moment to reflect on how he could put into words how he truly felt. Even though he and his father didn’t have the best relationship, Victor unconditionally loved him and only wanted him to be proud of him as is. However, his father was now gone forever. Before Victor could express all this to Beatrice, she once again started babbling about herself.
Victor (disgusted): “You just couldn’t resist, could you?”
Beatrice: “What? I was just trying to distract you.”
Victor: “You’re so full of it. Newsflash, I don’t care. I need some time to myself. I need time without you invading my life with tales of woe, concerning your broke behind, your husband, your kids, or of your self-made pathetic existence. My mom just lost her husband of forty years and I need to help her get through this. Relatives are going to be ringing the phone off the hook and I don’t need you adding to it, too.”
She tried to get the last word in, but he hung up on her before she could. Unforunately, that wasn’t going to be the last of her.
~
He Snapped
When it comes to a death of a loved one, we’re all aware of the mental and emotional despair it brings to one, but no one ever imagines the physical preparation of the event. His father’s wish was to be cremated which involved a trip to the funeral home. When Victor finally arrived home that day, he noticed his mother was a bit off. It was apparent she found the bottle she had hidden, hoping to get rid of the pain and the constant ringing of the landline. In his own way to clear his head, he took off, leaving his cell phone behind. He wasn’t in the mood to talk with any more out-of-state relatives or “her.”
After hours of taking in this new life of his, he returned home to several missed calls and voicemails from the one person he hoped it wasn’t. He had no desire to listen to any of her voicemails, but rather the voicemail recording itself. It was still in his father’s voice. He thought maybe he would change it to his own but then the phone rang.
He answered, “Hel-“
Beatrice immediately cut him off and started chatting away. He thought she got the hint from earlier that he didn’t want to talk or listen to her rubbish. This was the moment he finally snapped.
Victor: “Shut up! What part of my father died today don’t you understand? What is your malfunction?”
She huffed then said the cruelest phrase that could be said to a grieving son, “Well, you two never got along anyway!”
He was already feeling down about his father’s death, but to be reminded of their broken relationship was a hit below the belt. Without hesitation, he lashed back out to her and called her the b-word, and no it wasn’t her name. Then he hung up. Not even a second, she called again and again on both his cell phone and landline. This time, Victor wasn’t going to brush off what she said like he usually did. He didn’t care what she else had to say, even if for once she was to apologize. The damage was already done. Their friendship was over.
And for what? Because she couldn’t respect Victor’s wishes and only wanted to vent about her own self-destructive life. It wasn’t until later he found out through a mutual friend what her whole spiel was about, which upset him even more.
~
Life Updates
Beatrice wasn’t calling because she had an ounce of concern for him, but merely for herself. As anyone who knew her, she had this insane theory that she was the “second coming of Meryl Streep.” And let’s just say, as a person who witnessed her acting, Victor would disagree. The only reason she made it so far in her “acting career” was because of her constant lies about who she was and her manipulative tactics toward the people around her. She used her connection through Victor’s friend, “Juan” to get ahold of a director in New Jersey. “In a desperately pathetic attempt to get him to hire her, Beatrice kept spamming him with her highly-embellished, typo-filled résumé and overly filtered headshot.”
Juan later told Victor that the New Jersey director thought Beatrice was a scam artist and blocked her. And that was the sole reason why she wanted to chat with Victor; either to connive him into reaching out to the director himself or just so she could lie about the whole situation to make herself feel better. Either way, he wasn’t having it anymore. With almost a decade of her shenanigans, he felt no remorse on what he said to her or for cutting her out, he actually felt free. Like he just got rid of a blood-sucking leech that had caused only harm to his life.
He blocked her on all his social media accounts and changed his cell phone number. Getting the “undeliverable” message is one way for someone to get the hint.
Even though Victor made no attempts to contact her, he still heard life updates through Juan that made him happy. No, she wasn’t living her best life, it was the opposite.
In 2017, Beatrice’s monster-in-law, “Louise” moved into the family home and immediately made it known she didn’t like Beatrice. Like Victor, she saw right through Beatrice’s ill intentions of taking advantage of innocent people, for example, her son/ Beatrice’s husband. She would make comments about how Beatrice ruined her son’s life. Apparently, Louise had to move in because she needed better care and since Beatrice was unemployed, she was Louise’s new nursemaid. Not only did she have to constantly listen to the nagging, but now had to take in commands from her. She was living the nightmare.
In the most recent update, Juan said Beatrice was back to her old ways. She set up multiple Twitter accounts and tried to scam people into giving her money. Then she launched two GoFundMe pages to trick people into giving her money to “help” take care of her mother-in-law. Both pages were unsuccessful and deactivated because she blatantly put in the description that she wasn’t working. Not the smartest strategy, but Victor wasn’t appalled since he already knew she was too lazy to ever hold a job down.
He was curious why she needed the money; maybe acting lessons to her non-existent acting career? Who knew, he was just glad he didn’t have to deal with any more of her shenanigans. She was out of his life for good.
~
Thoughts From The Author
After reading this story, I’m shocked that Victor was ever friends with Beatrice for that long. Even in the beginning with Ethan, she wasn’t willing to see Victor’s point of view of the situation. It didn’t matter if Victor was due for an upgrade, still, that gave no right for Ethan to deliberately damage his cell phone. She didn’t want to listen just like when Victor requested her to leave him alone during his father’s death. He gave her the benefit of the doubt on their first call, but she ruined it all because she wanted to only talk about herself. Read the room, lady, that wasn’t the right time. He needed a friend to be there and listen, not to derail the conversation to her own “issues.”
It’s sucks that she now has to live with her mother-in-law who hates her, but in some way, she deserves it. Now she will feel the wrath she put on people, especially Victor. Also to have no support system since she lost all friends because she was the most entitled, manipulative, and narcissistic person to all the people around her.
I think overall this is a great reminder to people that it’s okay to cut people off if they’re only bringing more chaos to your life. Friend or not.
~