lj idol four: the axe forgets; the tree remembers
Trigger warning for mentions of rape, sexual situations, abuse, and death of a family member. Nothing really detailed or anything. The story has a happy ending. It's about a friend of mine from college and the abusive relationships she was in.
My best friend in college and for several years after graduation was May. We had met on the first day of classes of our first year of college in English Composition. May had a tough home life, and she was not mature enough to cope with it. For starters, her parents were very strict and religious. She never had freedom before college. We had that in common. She came from a well-off family by northeastern Pennsylvania standards and was not responsible with money. However, she was deeply in love with her boyfriend Brad, who she had started dating freshman year of high school. She would ask me to drive her to the nearby Walmart in Reading almost every week, so she could buy cheap thongs for him. She would spoil him and buy him expensive chocolates and presents for every anniversary she could think of. Those anniversaries included their first kiss, the first time she gave him a blow job, the first time he said, “hello to her.” May was convinced that Brad was her soulmate even though it was apparent to everyone else that he was only with her to mooch money. Brad was the first of her awful boyfriends though he wasn’t the worst one.
After our senior year of college, May’s father died. It wasn’t unexpected. He had stage iv prostate cancer. May and her brother Steve inherited a lot of money in his will. As soon as May became wealthier, Brad proposed to her with the ugliest engagement ring I had ever seen. He wanted to rush the wedding, claiming that it was what May’s father would have wanted, but it was what Brad wanted, so he could use her for her money. I mentioned that May was very religious. She was saving her virginity for marriage. Brad thought that if he had sex with her, she would feel discarded and dirty and want to get married as soon as possible. So, he raped her at the party she had a few weeks after her father’s death. Luckily, it had the opposite effect on May, and she returned the ring and broke up with him.
However, May was brainwashed by her upbringing and thought she needed somebody to take care of her like her father did. This led to a string of highly toxic relationships. Ryan used her for sex and gaslighted her. Jon thought she was an easy lay. But they were nothing compared to Jimmy.
May met Jimmy at a dance class. She loved dancing. Jimmy seemed like the perfect boyfriend. He was a singer. He performed at fancy dinners and local theater productions. He would whisk May away on fairy-tale vacations. They flew to Paris, spent a few weeks in Italy, and took cruises to destinations like Alaska and Hawaii. Jimmy paid for everything; he was the opposite of Brad. But Jimmy also had a dark side that May didn’t see. He was controlling. He treated May like a doll and bought her expensive dresses and lingerie and expected her to only wear the things he wanted her to. He was controlling, emotionally abusive, and manipulative. He only wanted her to hang out with his friends. He didn’t want her to spend time near her family or friends because he was worried they would convince her to break up with him. He would cry and buy her expensive gifts after any fight they had. It wasn’t a healthy relationship. We all saw it, but May didn’t see it. Jimmy especially hated me because I was May’s best friend and knew she listened to me. So he saw me as an obstacle that he had to get rid of.
Before my twenty-seventh birthday, Jimmy and May broke up. I was really excited about my birthday. Jefferson, who was May’s cousin and best male friend, and he was also my ex-boyfriend turned best male friend, May, and I planned to go camping and wine-tasting in the finger lakes. Jefferson and I spent hours texting back and forth and talking on the phone, planning my birthday party. We found a cute cabin to rent. We couldn’t wait to sit around a campfire, drink hard cider, and pretend we could identify constellations in the sky. May was excited about refurbishing her wine supply and being single and having freedom for the first time in almost two years.
My twenty-seventh birthday was the last time May, and I spoke. U2 was touring that year, and May loved U2. I was meh about U2 and more excited about Muse, the opening band. But U2 seemed to be one of those bands you had to see at least once in concert, so we bought tickets to the NJ show.
Since U2 was so famous, the tickets were expensive. They were over a hundred dollars. I bought them both, and May told me she would pay me back. The concert was the first week of October, after my twenty-seventh birthday celebration. May was going to drive down to NJ and spend the weekend with me. But then U2 changed the date for some reason last minute, and the concert was suddenly on a Wednesday. May couldn’t go to the show anymore because she couldn’t take off from her job in the middle of the week without letting them know in advance. I told her it was fine, and I’d find somebody else to go with me.
My friend Marie ended up going with me. We tailgated in the parking lot and drank pomegranate margaritas. Muse was amazing. To this day, the bootleg video I took of them performing “Uprising” has the most views on my YouTube page. U2 was great too. Bruce Springsteen was in the audience, and Bono called him onstage to perform a cover of “She’s the One.”
After May canceled on me for the concert, she stopped talking to me. I tried calling her, texting her, and even emailing her but got nothing but radio silence. I asked Jefferson why she wasn’t talking to me. I didn’t understand. We had been best friends for so many years, and she blocked me from her life without an explanation. He told me that May wasn’t really telling him anything either. He said she was pissed because I owed her money for the U2 ticket since she hadn’t gone, but that was bullshit since I had paid for both tickets on my credit card.
But the axe forgets; the tree remembers. So this is what really happened.
About a day before my birthday party, Jimmy called May. He repeatedly apologized for their breakup and blamed it on himself. He said he wanted her to give him another chance because they had something magical and irreplaceable. He wanted to make it up to her and promised he would change. May, who never knew how to be alone and needed somebody to take care of her, agreed.
Suddenly the plans for my birthday party changed. May was no longer going to stay with Jefferson and me in the cabin. Jimmy reserved a room for them in a fancy bed and breakfast. She wouldn’t be riding with us to the finger lakes. Instead, he would drive them up. This meant my plans for car karaoke were ruined. May and I loved listening to Broadway show tunes, classic rock, 90s pop, rock, and alternative. We put on a two-person concert the entire four-hour drive to Ithaca. Also, May and Jimmy would be joining us on Saturday instead of Friday because he made plans for them at a fancy restaurant in Scranton.
I tried to talk May out of getting back with Jimmy. I reminded her about how he belittled her and gaslighted her constantly. Finally, she just said she was sure he had changed. I even tried playing the birthday card and told how I just wanted it to be Jefferson, her, and me. She said Jimmy would be on good behavior, and my birthday would still be amazing. But unfortunately, she was so blinded by his wealth and status that she couldn’t see what was evident to everyone else, that her relationship was unhealthy. Even Jefferson told her what an asshole he was, but she wouldn’t listen to him. She insisted that we didn’t know him like she did, and he was a great guy.
Jefferson and I were determined to still have a fantastic weekend together. We left Friday night like we originally planned and checked into our cabin. We lit a fire outside, toasted marshmallows, and drank cider under the starlit sky. We didn’t stay up too late because we wanted to be at the first winery right as it opened. The following day, we woke up, shared s’more pop tarts, and were about to leave for the first winery when my cell phone rang. It was May. She and Jimmy had gotten a late start because he cooked her a romantic breakfast in bed and seduced her. She apologized and said they were two hours away. She encouraged us to start without her, and once they got closer to the wineries, she would touch base, and we could meet up.
I was upset, but Jefferson didn’t want me to let them ruin my birthday. So we decided to start on the east side of the lake. We always had a good time together. Although our relationship didn’t work out because he was a player, we were good friends. We spent a lot of time with each other. Jimmy dominated any free time that she had. May was prone to making plans with me, but then canceling last-minute because of a so-called romantic surprise Jimmy had planned for her after I had already driven almost four hours to see her. So instead of spending time with May, I spent my weekends with Jefferson. I crashed in his old waterbed. We watched a lot of lousy Vh1 and MTV reality shows like Viva La Bam and Rock of Love. He would make me burgers and steak, we’d drink wine together, and sit in front of his fireplace talking. I spent more time with Jefferson than May.
Since it was my birthday weekend, Jefferson made sure we had a good time. He paid for all my wine tastings, and we were both very happy drunks. After a while, I even forgot that May and Jimmy were supposed to be joining us. Around noon, she finally called me. She said they would meet us at this fancy restaurant called The Castle for lunch.
The Castle wasn’t a place that Jefferson or I would usually venture to. It had expensive appetizers like foie grass, oyster shooters, crab legs, and seafood towers. The main entrees were lobster, other market price seafood, and expensive cuts of steak. The cheapest entrée was thirty dollars, and the most costly was seventy. It was not a place I would’ve picked for myself, let alone for my birthday celebration. My idea of a fancy meal was taco bell, followed by Coldstone creamery ice cream. May and Jimmy were already seated at a table outside when we got there. He had ordered a bottle of expensive wine for them and several appetizers.
It was a beautiful fall day, and the staff was busy setting up for a wedding that night. I ordered a bowl of French onion soup because it was the cheapest thing on the menu. After about forty-five minutes of awkward and forced conversations, our food still hadn’t come. Finally, Jefferson and I decided to tell the waiter that we had to go because we were wasting valuable drinking time. The Castle was too rich for our tastes. We weren’t mad about it at all. They were extremely busy with the wedding setup, and it was fine. Jefferson and I figured we could stop by our favorite sports bar in town later.
However, Jimmy didn’t have it. He found a waiter and demanded to speak to a manager. The manager came to our table, and Jimmy just let him have it. He told the manager how it was my birthday party, and I was his girlfriend’s best friend, and how dare they ruin this lovely occasion with their negligence. May looked at him with hearts in her eyes, as if he was her hero. The May I was friends with before Jimmy waltzed into the picture would’ve been happy with a curly fries and a milkshake at Arby’s.
I was so embarrassed. Everyone seated in the restaurant area could hear him. Furthermore, it was a crock of shit. I never would’ve picked The Castle had I been given a choice, and he could care less about ruining my birthday. Instead, he used his so-called heroic behavior to manipulate May. The manager comped us with our entire meal and gave us free dessert. I’m not going to lie and say the chocolate peanut butter mousse pie wasn’t delicious. Still, the whole time we were eating there, I just wanted to crawl under the table and hide. From Jefferson’s eyes, I could tell he felt the same way.
By the time we left The Castle, it was almost four. Most of the wineries closed at five. The Castle wasn’t near any of the wineries. It was on the north side of the lake, surrounded by expensive houses, overpriced hotels, and bed and breakfasts. It would take anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes to get to the wineries that we usually went to, which meant we could only fit one more in.
May hadn’t gotten to any of the wineries yet, and she wanted to go to a specific one. It wasn’t one of my preferred wineries. In fact, it sold champagne, not wine. However, neither Jefferson nor I wanted to deny her request since it was the only one she would get to go to today, so we agreed. We had driven in separate cars since we arrived separately, and we said we would meet them in the winery’s parking lot.
We beat them there. We thought about going in without them since there was so little time left to drink. Still, We felt guilty about starting without them, mainly because May hadn’t been to a single tasting today. Finally, after about twenty minutes, Jimmy’s Mercedes pulled up next to Jefferson’s jeep. Jefferson and I got out of the car, but they didn’t. A quick glance in the windows showed us that they were arguing.
After a few minutes, May came out of the car. She looked down at the ground awkwardly and seemed very uncomfortable. She told me that Jimmy was mad at me, and I embarrassed them with how I acted in the restaurant. He thought I was immature and held May back from success and adulthood. Excuse me? I wasn’t the one who threw a temper tantrum because the food was taking too long. She said that Jimmy tried so hard to make my birthday lunch special, and he thought I didn’t appreciate it. She said she wouldn’t go into the winery with us because she agreed with him. Jefferson and I were dumbfounded.
That was the last time I spoke to May in years. It was obvious what happened. Jimmy made her choose between him and me. She chose him. She chose a gaslighting abuser over her best friend. After my birthday, she dropped me from her life. She didn’t answer my phone calls, text messages, or emails. She even blocked me on social media.
Luckily, her story has a happy ending. Sometime between my 27th birthday and 2012, she reached out to me. She was in a long-distance relationship and knew I had been in one for years. It seemed she had kept tabs on my life even after she stopped talking to me. Our friendship was never the same before she met Jimmy, but we grew close again. She was even a bridesmaid at my wedding, and that’s where I met Drew for the first time. May and Drew got married in 2018, on my birthday, ironically. I went to her wedding and was thrilled to see her looking so radiant. She had her first child in 2019, a girl named Evelyn, who they called Evie. Last summer, she gave birthday twins Emily and Finn. Drew seems like a good guy, and May deserves one after all the shitty relationships she went through.
We still haven’t talked about why we stopped being friends after my twenty-seventh birthday. It doesn’t matter anymore. But the axe forgets; the tree remembers.
My best friend in college and for several years after graduation was May. We had met on the first day of classes of our first year of college in English Composition. May had a tough home life, and she was not mature enough to cope with it. For starters, her parents were very strict and religious. She never had freedom before college. We had that in common. She came from a well-off family by northeastern Pennsylvania standards and was not responsible with money. However, she was deeply in love with her boyfriend Brad, who she had started dating freshman year of high school. She would ask me to drive her to the nearby Walmart in Reading almost every week, so she could buy cheap thongs for him. She would spoil him and buy him expensive chocolates and presents for every anniversary she could think of. Those anniversaries included their first kiss, the first time she gave him a blow job, the first time he said, “hello to her.” May was convinced that Brad was her soulmate even though it was apparent to everyone else that he was only with her to mooch money. Brad was the first of her awful boyfriends though he wasn’t the worst one.
After our senior year of college, May’s father died. It wasn’t unexpected. He had stage iv prostate cancer. May and her brother Steve inherited a lot of money in his will. As soon as May became wealthier, Brad proposed to her with the ugliest engagement ring I had ever seen. He wanted to rush the wedding, claiming that it was what May’s father would have wanted, but it was what Brad wanted, so he could use her for her money. I mentioned that May was very religious. She was saving her virginity for marriage. Brad thought that if he had sex with her, she would feel discarded and dirty and want to get married as soon as possible. So, he raped her at the party she had a few weeks after her father’s death. Luckily, it had the opposite effect on May, and she returned the ring and broke up with him.
However, May was brainwashed by her upbringing and thought she needed somebody to take care of her like her father did. This led to a string of highly toxic relationships. Ryan used her for sex and gaslighted her. Jon thought she was an easy lay. But they were nothing compared to Jimmy.
May met Jimmy at a dance class. She loved dancing. Jimmy seemed like the perfect boyfriend. He was a singer. He performed at fancy dinners and local theater productions. He would whisk May away on fairy-tale vacations. They flew to Paris, spent a few weeks in Italy, and took cruises to destinations like Alaska and Hawaii. Jimmy paid for everything; he was the opposite of Brad. But Jimmy also had a dark side that May didn’t see. He was controlling. He treated May like a doll and bought her expensive dresses and lingerie and expected her to only wear the things he wanted her to. He was controlling, emotionally abusive, and manipulative. He only wanted her to hang out with his friends. He didn’t want her to spend time near her family or friends because he was worried they would convince her to break up with him. He would cry and buy her expensive gifts after any fight they had. It wasn’t a healthy relationship. We all saw it, but May didn’t see it. Jimmy especially hated me because I was May’s best friend and knew she listened to me. So he saw me as an obstacle that he had to get rid of.
Before my twenty-seventh birthday, Jimmy and May broke up. I was really excited about my birthday. Jefferson, who was May’s cousin and best male friend, and he was also my ex-boyfriend turned best male friend, May, and I planned to go camping and wine-tasting in the finger lakes. Jefferson and I spent hours texting back and forth and talking on the phone, planning my birthday party. We found a cute cabin to rent. We couldn’t wait to sit around a campfire, drink hard cider, and pretend we could identify constellations in the sky. May was excited about refurbishing her wine supply and being single and having freedom for the first time in almost two years.
My twenty-seventh birthday was the last time May, and I spoke. U2 was touring that year, and May loved U2. I was meh about U2 and more excited about Muse, the opening band. But U2 seemed to be one of those bands you had to see at least once in concert, so we bought tickets to the NJ show.
Since U2 was so famous, the tickets were expensive. They were over a hundred dollars. I bought them both, and May told me she would pay me back. The concert was the first week of October, after my twenty-seventh birthday celebration. May was going to drive down to NJ and spend the weekend with me. But then U2 changed the date for some reason last minute, and the concert was suddenly on a Wednesday. May couldn’t go to the show anymore because she couldn’t take off from her job in the middle of the week without letting them know in advance. I told her it was fine, and I’d find somebody else to go with me.
My friend Marie ended up going with me. We tailgated in the parking lot and drank pomegranate margaritas. Muse was amazing. To this day, the bootleg video I took of them performing “Uprising” has the most views on my YouTube page. U2 was great too. Bruce Springsteen was in the audience, and Bono called him onstage to perform a cover of “She’s the One.”
After May canceled on me for the concert, she stopped talking to me. I tried calling her, texting her, and even emailing her but got nothing but radio silence. I asked Jefferson why she wasn’t talking to me. I didn’t understand. We had been best friends for so many years, and she blocked me from her life without an explanation. He told me that May wasn’t really telling him anything either. He said she was pissed because I owed her money for the U2 ticket since she hadn’t gone, but that was bullshit since I had paid for both tickets on my credit card.
But the axe forgets; the tree remembers. So this is what really happened.
About a day before my birthday party, Jimmy called May. He repeatedly apologized for their breakup and blamed it on himself. He said he wanted her to give him another chance because they had something magical and irreplaceable. He wanted to make it up to her and promised he would change. May, who never knew how to be alone and needed somebody to take care of her, agreed.
Suddenly the plans for my birthday party changed. May was no longer going to stay with Jefferson and me in the cabin. Jimmy reserved a room for them in a fancy bed and breakfast. She wouldn’t be riding with us to the finger lakes. Instead, he would drive them up. This meant my plans for car karaoke were ruined. May and I loved listening to Broadway show tunes, classic rock, 90s pop, rock, and alternative. We put on a two-person concert the entire four-hour drive to Ithaca. Also, May and Jimmy would be joining us on Saturday instead of Friday because he made plans for them at a fancy restaurant in Scranton.
I tried to talk May out of getting back with Jimmy. I reminded her about how he belittled her and gaslighted her constantly. Finally, she just said she was sure he had changed. I even tried playing the birthday card and told how I just wanted it to be Jefferson, her, and me. She said Jimmy would be on good behavior, and my birthday would still be amazing. But unfortunately, she was so blinded by his wealth and status that she couldn’t see what was evident to everyone else, that her relationship was unhealthy. Even Jefferson told her what an asshole he was, but she wouldn’t listen to him. She insisted that we didn’t know him like she did, and he was a great guy.
Jefferson and I were determined to still have a fantastic weekend together. We left Friday night like we originally planned and checked into our cabin. We lit a fire outside, toasted marshmallows, and drank cider under the starlit sky. We didn’t stay up too late because we wanted to be at the first winery right as it opened. The following day, we woke up, shared s’more pop tarts, and were about to leave for the first winery when my cell phone rang. It was May. She and Jimmy had gotten a late start because he cooked her a romantic breakfast in bed and seduced her. She apologized and said they were two hours away. She encouraged us to start without her, and once they got closer to the wineries, she would touch base, and we could meet up.
I was upset, but Jefferson didn’t want me to let them ruin my birthday. So we decided to start on the east side of the lake. We always had a good time together. Although our relationship didn’t work out because he was a player, we were good friends. We spent a lot of time with each other. Jimmy dominated any free time that she had. May was prone to making plans with me, but then canceling last-minute because of a so-called romantic surprise Jimmy had planned for her after I had already driven almost four hours to see her. So instead of spending time with May, I spent my weekends with Jefferson. I crashed in his old waterbed. We watched a lot of lousy Vh1 and MTV reality shows like Viva La Bam and Rock of Love. He would make me burgers and steak, we’d drink wine together, and sit in front of his fireplace talking. I spent more time with Jefferson than May.
Since it was my birthday weekend, Jefferson made sure we had a good time. He paid for all my wine tastings, and we were both very happy drunks. After a while, I even forgot that May and Jimmy were supposed to be joining us. Around noon, she finally called me. She said they would meet us at this fancy restaurant called The Castle for lunch.
The Castle wasn’t a place that Jefferson or I would usually venture to. It had expensive appetizers like foie grass, oyster shooters, crab legs, and seafood towers. The main entrees were lobster, other market price seafood, and expensive cuts of steak. The cheapest entrée was thirty dollars, and the most costly was seventy. It was not a place I would’ve picked for myself, let alone for my birthday celebration. My idea of a fancy meal was taco bell, followed by Coldstone creamery ice cream. May and Jimmy were already seated at a table outside when we got there. He had ordered a bottle of expensive wine for them and several appetizers.
It was a beautiful fall day, and the staff was busy setting up for a wedding that night. I ordered a bowl of French onion soup because it was the cheapest thing on the menu. After about forty-five minutes of awkward and forced conversations, our food still hadn’t come. Finally, Jefferson and I decided to tell the waiter that we had to go because we were wasting valuable drinking time. The Castle was too rich for our tastes. We weren’t mad about it at all. They were extremely busy with the wedding setup, and it was fine. Jefferson and I figured we could stop by our favorite sports bar in town later.
However, Jimmy didn’t have it. He found a waiter and demanded to speak to a manager. The manager came to our table, and Jimmy just let him have it. He told the manager how it was my birthday party, and I was his girlfriend’s best friend, and how dare they ruin this lovely occasion with their negligence. May looked at him with hearts in her eyes, as if he was her hero. The May I was friends with before Jimmy waltzed into the picture would’ve been happy with a curly fries and a milkshake at Arby’s.
I was so embarrassed. Everyone seated in the restaurant area could hear him. Furthermore, it was a crock of shit. I never would’ve picked The Castle had I been given a choice, and he could care less about ruining my birthday. Instead, he used his so-called heroic behavior to manipulate May. The manager comped us with our entire meal and gave us free dessert. I’m not going to lie and say the chocolate peanut butter mousse pie wasn’t delicious. Still, the whole time we were eating there, I just wanted to crawl under the table and hide. From Jefferson’s eyes, I could tell he felt the same way.
By the time we left The Castle, it was almost four. Most of the wineries closed at five. The Castle wasn’t near any of the wineries. It was on the north side of the lake, surrounded by expensive houses, overpriced hotels, and bed and breakfasts. It would take anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes to get to the wineries that we usually went to, which meant we could only fit one more in.
May hadn’t gotten to any of the wineries yet, and she wanted to go to a specific one. It wasn’t one of my preferred wineries. In fact, it sold champagne, not wine. However, neither Jefferson nor I wanted to deny her request since it was the only one she would get to go to today, so we agreed. We had driven in separate cars since we arrived separately, and we said we would meet them in the winery’s parking lot.
We beat them there. We thought about going in without them since there was so little time left to drink. Still, We felt guilty about starting without them, mainly because May hadn’t been to a single tasting today. Finally, after about twenty minutes, Jimmy’s Mercedes pulled up next to Jefferson’s jeep. Jefferson and I got out of the car, but they didn’t. A quick glance in the windows showed us that they were arguing.
After a few minutes, May came out of the car. She looked down at the ground awkwardly and seemed very uncomfortable. She told me that Jimmy was mad at me, and I embarrassed them with how I acted in the restaurant. He thought I was immature and held May back from success and adulthood. Excuse me? I wasn’t the one who threw a temper tantrum because the food was taking too long. She said that Jimmy tried so hard to make my birthday lunch special, and he thought I didn’t appreciate it. She said she wouldn’t go into the winery with us because she agreed with him. Jefferson and I were dumbfounded.
That was the last time I spoke to May in years. It was obvious what happened. Jimmy made her choose between him and me. She chose him. She chose a gaslighting abuser over her best friend. After my birthday, she dropped me from her life. She didn’t answer my phone calls, text messages, or emails. She even blocked me on social media.
Luckily, her story has a happy ending. Sometime between my 27th birthday and 2012, she reached out to me. She was in a long-distance relationship and knew I had been in one for years. It seemed she had kept tabs on my life even after she stopped talking to me. Our friendship was never the same before she met Jimmy, but we grew close again. She was even a bridesmaid at my wedding, and that’s where I met Drew for the first time. May and Drew got married in 2018, on my birthday, ironically. I went to her wedding and was thrilled to see her looking so radiant. She had her first child in 2019, a girl named Evelyn, who they called Evie. Last summer, she gave birthday twins Emily and Finn. Drew seems like a good guy, and May deserves one after all the shitty relationships she went through.
We still haven’t talked about why we stopped being friends after my twenty-seventh birthday. It doesn’t matter anymore. But the axe forgets; the tree remembers.