“I know you’re sad, but you don’t have to be so selfish,” she said, demanding dating advice in the middle of my own mother’s wake.
This was my best friend of twenty years. A two-decade-long masterclass in being an emotional dumping ground for a world-class narcissist.
Every one of her minor inconveniences was a category five hurricane, while my actual, life-shattering tragedies were just static she had to talk over. I had swallowed my own grief and anger for years, chalking it up to loyalty and a shared history.
But standing there in a room full of mourners, her stunning lack of humanity was no longer a flaw I could ignore. It was a declaration of war.
She expected me to swallow my grief and cater to her as I always had, but she was about to become the star of a one-act play she never auditioned for, where my voice was the only thing on the script and the final scene was her own humiliation.
The Invisible Anchor: The Daily Tithe
The phone buzzes against the wood of my desk, a frantic vibration that can only mean one thing. Jessica. I glance at the caller ID, my stomach doing a slow, familiar clench. My cursor blinks in the middle of a budget projection spreadsheet that’s already threatening to give me a migraine.
I should let it go to voicemail. I really should. But the guilt is a pre-programmed response, a muscle memory trained over twenty years of friendship. I sigh, clicking the green icon. “Hey, Jess. What’s up?”
“Oh my god, Maria, you are not going to believe the day I’m having. It’s a total dumpster fire.” Her voice is a rapid-fire assault, leaving no room for a response. “So, first, the barista at Starbucks—the one with the stupid nose ring—completely messed up my order. I said *oat milk*, not almond. Does he not know I’m practically allergic? My whole system is going to be thrown off.”
I stare at a cell on my screen showing a thirty-thousand-dollar deficit. “That’s rough.”
“Rough? It’s just the beginning! Then I get to work and find out that Brenda from accounting copied my presentation idea. The one I told you about last week? The one about synergistic market integration? She just stole it. Can you believe the nerve? My boss is going to think she’s the genius, and I’m just… me.”
I close my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Jess, I’m really swamped right now. We have a quarterly review and…”
“I know, I know, you’re always busy,” she cuts in, the words a subtle jab. “But I just really needed to talk to my best friend. You’re the only one who gets it. David hasn’t texted me back since yesterday morning, and I’m starting to spiral. Do you think I should text him? Or is that too desperate? Maybe I should post a really hot story on Instagram so he sees what he’s missing…”
The drone of her voice fades into the background hum of the office. I think about my mother. About the call from the doctor this morning. The words “progressive decline” and “we need to discuss next steps” are a cold weight in my gut. I open my mouth to say something, to share even a fraction of this anchor dragging me down.
“Jess, listen, I got some news about my mom…”
“Oh my god, that reminds me!” she bulldozes on, seamless. “My mom called me this morning and spent twenty minutes complaining about her arthritis. It’s like, I have *real* problems, you know? A career, a dating life… I can’t just drop everything because her knee is acting up.”
I go silent. The space I tried to carve out for myself is gone, paved over and built upon in seconds. There’s no room for my mother’s illness in the towering skyscraper of Jessica’s daily grievances.
“Anyway,” she huffs, finally winding down. “I just needed to vent. I feel so much better. Thanks for listening, you’re the best. I gotta run, I have a spin class. Love you, bye!”
The line clicks dead. I’m left holding a silent phone, staring at a spreadsheet that suddenly feels insignificant. I didn’t say a single thing about my life. I was just a receptacle, a human voicemail box. And the worst part is, I feel a hundred pounds heavier than I did before I answered.
The Friendship Tax
Mark finds me staring into the refrigerator later that night, not seeing any of the food inside. He comes up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and resting his chin on my shoulder.
“Tough day?” he asks, his voice a low rumble.
“The usual,” I mumble. “And a Jessica download.”
He sighs, a sound of profound, weary understanding. “Let me guess. A work catastrophe, a dating inconvenience, and a minor consumer complaint, all treated with the gravity of a UN Security Council meeting.”
I can’t help the small, bitter laugh that escapes me. “You forgot the part where she’s the victim in every scenario.”
“Ah, yes. My mistake.” He kisses my temple. “Did you get a chance to tell her about your mom?”
I pull a carton of milk out and shut the fridge door, turning to face him. “I tried. The topic of my ailing mother reminded her of her own mother’s annoying arthritis.”
Mark’s expression hardens just a little. He’s never been a fan of the dynamic. He calls it the “Jessica Tax”—the emotional price of admission I have to pay just to keep her in my life. He remembers the last time she had a “real crisis.” It was three years ago, when she decided to move apartments on a whim. She’d called me in a panic at six in the morning on a Saturday, sobbing because her movers had canceled.
Of course, I’d spent my entire weekend packing her mismatched kitchenware and hauling dusty boxes down three flights of stairs, all while she directed traffic from a stool, complaining about a chipped nail. Mark and our son, Leo, had ended up helping, too. At the end of it all, she’d thanked us by ordering a single pizza and then complaining that pepperoni made her bloated. She never once asked about the big work project I’d had to postpone to help her.
“Maria,” Mark says softly, pulling me from the memory. “This has been going on for years. It’s not a friendship. It’s a service you provide.”
“She’s just… a lot,” I say, the excuse sounding flimsy even to my own ears. “She’s been my friend since we were in our twenties. There’s history there.”
“History isn’t a blank check for bad behavior,” he counters. “Twenty years of taking doesn’t entitle her to a twenty-first.”
I know he’s right. Deep down, in the quiet place I rarely visit, I know this friendship is a hollowed-out shell. But cutting it off feels like an amputation. It feels like admitting failure. So I just lean into his chest, letting him hold the weight of it, and say nothing.
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