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As they arrived at the college, Stephanie grabbed her backpack and started to get out, but hesitated. Turning in her seat, she looked at Charlotte for a moment, searching for the right words to adequately express her gratitude for her best friends never-ending kindness. “Thank you so much for helping me out. I had no idea what I was going to do without my car. My professors say I can’t miss anymore classes or I’ll be dropped.” She said with tears pooling in her eyes for the third time that day. “It’s nice to know there’s at least one person I can always count on.”
Although she volunteered to pick Stephanie up for a while, Charlotte secretly hoped it wouldn’t be for very long. They were best friends, had been for years, but it was beginning to feel more like a mother-daughter relationship. It was to the point Charlotte couldn’t even remember how many times she’d had to bail her friend out of one predicament or another. The cycle was taxing her patience, not to mention causing tension with her husband who had to deal with her constant complaining.
When the pair first met, Stephanie was temporarily staying at a shelter where Charlotte used to work part time. Now she had her own place and wanted to get her degree to make a better life for her three young sons. Charlotte lent her money for bills and let her come over to do laundry every weekend, so in her opinion, she was more then fulfilling her Christian duties.
The phone rang; it was Stephanie crying again. “What is it this time?” Charlotte said under her breath with a roll of her eyes as she plopped back down on the sofa with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s.
“He’s going to take the boys from me! He already has a lawyer!” This was becoming a weekly routine: Scott would get drunk, fight with his new wife, and then call Stephanie to take it out on her. Charlotte had heard the scenario many times before and ‘CSI’ was down to the last ten minutes, so she only half listened, mindlessly interjecting the usual “It’ll be okay” comments she always did. If she had paid more attention, she would have heard the genuine hopelessness in Stephanie’s voice. This wasn’t the same fight they always had. Scott had said horrible things and Stephanie was at her breaking point.
About a month later, he ended up following through with his threats, leaving Stephanie devastated. Faced with the incomprehensible prospect of life with out her children and the endless stack of bills piled on her flea-market dinette set, she sunk further into the depression that had shrouded her all her life.
Heartbroken, she sat in the middle of her kitchen, a picture of her sons in one hand and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in the other. Stumbling to her feet, Stephanie made her way back to her own room and falling across the bed, noticed the postcard leaning against her bedside lamp. The pristine Caribbean water and bright blue sky looked beautiful as she turned it over and reread the words hastily written by her mother while on yet another cruise: “Wish you were here!” If only she could believe those simple words! Stephanie had not truly felt loved since long before she ran away from home at seventeen.
“I wish I was there too mom!” Stephanie screamed at the postcard as sobs shook her too thin frame. “I wish I was any where but here! You were never there for me. Always running off with one of your boyfriends! What about me, mom! Why weren’t you there when I needed you? Why aren’t you here now!”
A small voice whispered in her ear, reminding her of the gun she kept in the same nightstand where she had found her mom’s postcard. “You could be somewhere else, somewhere better,” it hissed. “You don’t have to put up with this anymore…you could be happier… if you just give the trigger a little squeeze…you’d never have to hear Scott call you unfit again… or tell another debt collector lies about checks being in the mail. Just do it!”
Stephanie looked at the postcard longingly. The water looked so pretty, so inviting, as she slumped over with the thought “Anywhere, but here…”
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