Sometimes the Bad Guys Win

In the almost two years that we have been friends Audrey and I have exchanged roughly 7,000 emails.  I am not making that up.  A vast majority of these emails center around her fiancee Dennis and his fucked up sociopathic behavior.

Over the course of this 7,000 count email volley I have used absolutely every empathetic, intuitive, encouraging, occasionally raging, amateur psychological, intellectual, emotional, motivational, sales-driven Jedi Mind Trick in my vast arsenal to empower her, to help her find a way to find her own two feet and steady them firmly underneath her so that she may stand strong and rid herself of the Dark Forces at work in the monster we know as Dennis.

But Dennis is the Puppet Master and he is seductive in ways I am loathe to imagine.  She is like Lucy to his Count Dracula and it seems she has made herself unwilling to leave his clutches.  And after 7,000 emails in the face of this ravenous maw that giggles wickedly and drools with the anticipation of swallowing her whole...I have run out of things to say.

She is walking into the abyss and I can't read one more word about it.  Because it makes me physically sick when she tells me how he grabbed her crotch like a six pack of beer on their nightly walk.  Or how he reached across the front seat and grabbed her breast as if he were honking a clown nose even though she's told him 50 times how much she hates that.  Or how he accuses her of having a boyfriend on the side.  Or how rudely he speaks to her 8 year old child.  Or how he tried to bully her into buying a house she didn't really want and that whole episode gave her a dibilitating panic attack. 

It makes me sick because I can't help her.  I can't fix it.  I can't kidnap her or give her refuge because HE moved into HER house and he just won't leave.  And she won't make him go.  And she keeps saying she thinks she might want him to stay.  Forever and ever.  And I just don't understand what he's like when he's not being mean and pressureful about eloping to Vegas getting married and putting a baby in her belly having children and wiping out her savings buying his their Stepford dream house. 

And then all I can do is dig furiously in the dirt or walk a few miles really, really fast because if I don't then I'm certain my heart will burst into flame and I'm not a doctor or anything but I bet that's probably bad for me.

But I do love her and want to keep being her friend, so the next 7,000 emails won't mention Dennis at all.  We'll talk about Real Housewives and kids and people we mutually stalk know.  And I won't even get to go to her birthday party this Friday.  And I'm really going to miss being there but I know it's for the best that I don't go because if I do go then I will reduce Dennis to tears with a full frontal verbal assault at the first shitty comment to escape his lips which means within 15 minutes of starting, the party will devolve into a complete chaotic mess and it's going to be at a really nice place that I kind of would rather not get kicked out of and god fucking forbid the cops get involved because they HATE me and I don't like them too much either but it wouldn't even be worth it because Audrey and Dennis wouldn't break up after that and they would probably band together and make me a mutual enemy because of Stockholm Syndrome or something and then I'll know for sure I should have killed him months ago when I first suggested it but she wouldn't let me and I really don't want to know what prison is like because even though it would be a really good idea and a noble thing to do I'm pretty sure that killing an emotionally abusive sociopath on behalf of a dear friend is still illegal although I could maybe claim insanity but then they'd seize my computer and between 7,000 emails and some pretty surprising Google searches they would have no other option than to go with pre-meditated and that would probably get me the death penalty and even though I'm not afraid of dying I'm just not quite ready for that yet.

But fingers crossed Audrey and I will get to have dinner on Wednesday night and celebrate her birthday a little early so I won't miss the Friday night thing too, too very much.  But ohmygod do I want a chance to give Dennis a big fat whatfor.  Because I hate bullies who push my friends around and give them heart attacks and panic attacks and brainwash them into believing Bizarro World is real. 

But Audrey is grown and she can do what she wants.  I know for good and all that me being another bossy voice in her head isn't helping.  Dennis, I surrender.