Love on Wheelz

Things did change after I transferred high schools. Pedro tried to integrate me into his circle of friends. They were okay, but we didn’t quite mesh. I hung out with them and all, but never really considered them my friends. I guess it was because I never chilled with them just one-on-one. If Pedro wasn’t there, I didn’t see them. We didn’t have meaningful conversations or a lot in common. They were his friends, not mine. He was my window to the normal world. So I shadowed him around like a lost little boy. I was a lost little boy. I pestered him every day. I always waited for him at lunch. He would come by after 15 or so minutes and hang out.
Pedro and I spent a lot of time together – almost every weekend and during the week too. He had problems with his parents and when he couldn’t stay at his parents’ house anymore, he ran away and my family took him in. Eventually, my parents let him live with us. They fed him and even gave him my sister’s old room. He became family. He spent Christmas with us. My parents bought him presents and treated him like a son.
He hosted parties at the house that twice ended with me driving in circles, pissing myself and then passing out. We had good times together. We were brothers.
Then something weird happened. Maybe he got tired of us, I don’t know. I never really found out. The reason he gave me afterwards was ridiculous. It involved the Mexican mob threatening him, but I didn’t believe him. I suspect that he was (and is) bipolar. It’s the only explanation I can come up with.
He started to become distant. Increasingly, he slept over at other peoples’ houses for extended periods of time. Then his parents called. They wanted to reconcile. They invited him back to the house for a few days. He was supposed to come back after that, but every time I asked him when he was coming back he always dodged the question. I started to doubt whether he was coming back at all. I was right.
He avoided phone calls, avoided me and gradually cut-off contact. I noticed it and did the same. By graduation we lost all contact.
That was the summer I had my scoliosis surgery. He knew how big the surgery was and how nervous I was about it. But he never visited. He never checked with anyone else to see whether, you know, I survived the surgery. If Rodrigo could fly down from Mexico and spend his whole summer here to help out my family then I don’t see why he couldn’t have picked up the phone and asked how I was doing. A bad friend would have at least done that.
I got out of the hospital and started college in September. He re-appeared in October and that’s when he dropped that ridiculous Mexican mob excuse as to why he disappeared. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and another chance. I was stupid. I thought that I would have my friend back. I had been lonely for too long. Rodrigo is my best friend, but he doesn’t live here.
I gave him another chance and I got burned again. He disappeared and re-re-appeared once more this time with a new crazy excuse. He’d broken up with his girlfriend and gone on a three month binge where he fucked at least three models. Then he disappeared again for six months. He came a final time, and this time just admitted he’d been a bad friend. I was ready to accept the apology until he said that he wasn’t a homophobe or racist, he just hated obnoxious niggers and fags. I couldn’t be friends with him after that and I told him so.
And so, with a whimper and after nearly a decade, a friend was gone. Friendships come and go in life, bending and changing to circumstances in and out of our control. Yet, the one constant that should always remain is trust. Along with trust comes honesty, and Pedro failed me on both these counts in the end. He’d not only lied to me and disappeared when it mattered, but he was no longer the same person that I’d known growing up.
In the long run, I think it was a good idea to cut ties with him. I had been using him as a crutch and excuse not to meet new people. Maybe now I can work up the courage to make new friends. It wasn’t healthy, that relationship. I wish him the best in life, but our paths no longer intersect. Perhaps they will in the future, but I’m not forcing it anymore. I realize now that friendship is a two way street.

This entry was posted on April 30, 2009 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Blog. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.