Jennifer came to visit me last night, all by herself. She broke up with Jason and needed to talk. She called me and sounded pretty upset, so I told her she could come over. I didn’t feel like it, having my own love troubles to deal with, but since I’d never told her about my breakup with Mandy, I couldn’t very well bring that up as an excuse.
So she arrived after dinner, a 6-pack of beer in one hand, a huge bag of chips in the other. There was something… drained about her. She looked really sad, and I was a bit surprised by that. I knew she liked Jason, but not THAT much. We’d talked a bit about him during the vacation in Mexico, and it was clear he was just a placeholder boyfriend.
So I invited her inside. We sat on the couch, drank, chatted, ate chips. She confessed that even since she’d gotten her upgrades (pointing at her generous breasts), she hadn’t attracted the right kind of guys. They were all hot hunks, and great lovers, but dumb as doorknobs. That had been the problem with Jason — all looks, no substance. She was wondering if getting big boobs had been the right call after it. She felt GREAT because she liked how they looked, but maybe they were sending the wrong message to the world. Plus, a lot of her old girl friends had changed their attitude since she’d gotten them. Most of them disapproved, telling her she looked just fine the way she was, the way God intended, and she shouldn’t mess with a good thing. That the procedure was medically dangerous, and it’d give her back pains, and she wouldn’t like them so much in 20 years, when they’d be sagging down to her knees.
Me, I was just munching chips and drinking beer in silence, nodding absentmindedly. Jennifer was rambling, getting things off her (ample) chest. I didn’t feel I needed to pay attention tothe details. Sometimes, you don’t need to really LISTEN to people, just act like you do. They just want to talk and don’t care about the interaction. What they want is get it out of their system, dump it on you, get their release, and walk away.
Not unlike cheap sex, I guess.
I noticed Jennifer had stopped talking and was looking at me with questioning eyes.
“Uh, what?”
“I said, are you okay? You’ve been zoning out since I got here. I don’t mean to pry, but is everything all right?”
And sometimes, there’s a true friend who really pays attention to your feelings, and cares enough to ask.
“I… broke up with Mandy. Been a few weeks, actually. I’m kind of getting over her, but hearing you talk about it is giving me the blues.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really sorry, I should have been there for you I had no idea… Why didn’t you tell me?”
That was a dangerous slope, and I didn’t want to start talking about the details, for fear of slipping up. I cared about Jenn and didn’t want her caught up in the middle of that faerie nightmare that is my life.
“Long story short: she cheated. I called it quits.”
“The bitch!” Jennifer said. Then she caught herself, covering her mouth. “Sorry! That just came out. But we hate her now, right?”
“Yeah, I guess we sort of do.”
There was a silence. Then I broke it.
“Sorry to have broken the mood. Why don’t you start again from the top, and slow down for the parts about your boobs?”
She laughed and slapped me on the shoulder.
“Idiot!”
Well, she got THAT part right.
–Jaycee
Next update: Saturday