Sprinkling Fling ?

09.

Her sociopathic behavior couldn't handle it. She started gaslighting me even more because of that.

No one took her bullshit but me—I was too weak to fight it.

All that was wrong was always my fault.

In college, she took a different approach which led to the final stage of our friendship—thank god for that—she behaved like the popular mean girl. She pushed me aside. She made new connections. She used the way I was submissive to her, only to gain more of a following.

She had been planning all along to end our friendship.

I had been a practice object for her during our whole childhood. She used me to learn how to rule over people when she got to the real world. It was a mental game.

She wanted to dominate.

I was just a pawn in her game for her rise to popularity. I had never been more than that to her—when I wasn't convenient to her anymore, she dropped me.

But she didn't just end our friendship. She made sure to humiliate me while doing it.

As soon as she had it all and was close to making Del her boyfriend, she betrayed me. Despite me, having always stayed loyal to her in every situation.

She gave me the cold shoulder, along with all the new friends she had made, who I might have considered to be my friends once too. I could've realized it earlier. She had been building an army, that would have her back when she erased me. When I approached Tamara that day, she looked once over before bumping my shoulder rather harshly and just moving along.

After that, I started to be afraid of being in social situations. At the moment of it happening, she had already made so many friends, and her network was huge—filled with popular connections—who knows what she had said about me.

I didn't know what I had done to her. I still don't, but I don't care anymore. I know it wasn't me. It has always been her.

I know now that there is just something wrong with her, something I can't fix.

I am so thankful our friendship ended. I now have friends who actually care for me. I know how friends should behave. And thanks to my roommates, I was able to see how she controlled me.

It took me a while to accept it.

I wanted to beg for her forgiveness for whatever I had done to her. However, when I came back crying to my dorm and explained it to my roommates, they didn't allow me. They knew how toxic she was, but they also knew they couldn't have done anything about it when I was still her minion because I wouldn't see it. But right there, that moment, they finally had a chance to break through, and they did.

They made me re-evaluate my friendship with her. They made me see all the things that I couldn't see during my friendship with her.

The only thing they couldn't help me with was restoring my self-esteem. Tamara had torn all the confidence I still had left down. And it is still not back. I still have many insecurities and trust issues, especially when it comes to new people.

But I'm working on it, I'm forcing myself to get out of my comfort zone. Step by step I try to restore a part of me that is broken—but not unfixable.

I'm broken out of thought when Del opens his mouth to speak again.

"Look Kiya, I know I fucked up earlier." Del finally speaks up. "If you must know I just got jealous, Taylor is a bit of a flirt and I know girls often fall for him." He speaks out about his insecurities.

I'm happy he talked first. I couldn't deal with sitting in this silence any longer. I also needed to get my mind off Tamara. I don't like thinking back to our friendship and guessing answers I will never actually get.