Pocket Full of Posies

Chapter Thirty-Four

Katie Newberry was a total and complete selfish bitch.

It was a fact acknowledged by both myself and my former friend, Joanna. She was just that type of woman that if you even remotely wronged her (and I mean as broad as looking at her wrong just one time for two seconds) she wrote you off just like that. It didn't matter how long she'd known you or how profusely apologized, you were absolutely dead to her.

When you were on her good side, she was the best ally. She was super caring and threw herself into helping others in whatever work she could. Honestly, she was a completely different person. For the longest time she was like a second mom to me. She herself came from a broken family and there were times I found myself abler to talk to her about my troubles than my aunt, and felt completely understood. There was nothing she wouldn't have done for me and Joanna. She adored us. Often times she hung out with us and we were totally cool with it.

But then we grew up and wanted to do things on our own. We had our own driver's licenses and jobs so we had money to go out and do things by ourselves. It wasn't that we left Katie forgotten, it was just part of growing up. We still hung out with her, but we didn't really need her for rides or money.

And that flipped Katie out.

I think it was a little of her being hurt we didn't hang out with her as much, but I honestly believe it had more to do over the loss of control.

Because Katie loved being in control.

Joanna was a timid person by nature. She aimed to do her best and to please people. Her mother was number one on her list of people to please. So when we weren't together, Katie would pounce on Katie and start trying to ground her over stupid stuff just so she couldn't hang out with me. It was absolutely ridiculous. Before long, her mom all out turned on me.

There was this one time me, Joanna, Isaac, and a couple of his friends decided to go to Wizard World (Nashville Comic Con, in essence) and Joanna had already gotten permission to borrow her mom's suburban. Well, the day before the con, Katie flips the fuck out and says she never recalls ever making these plans and that she needs the suburban and basically calls her daughter a liar for having made up this elaborate story. Whatever. We worked our way around it with no fuss (to her face).

I had spent a month making this gorgeous costume of Yuna from Final Fantasy and I looked fantastic. However, the costume was more revealing than clothes I'd normally wear. I felt confident in it, though. It was a costume, not who I was. So we go to pick up Joanna and Katie literally tells her loud enough for me to hear, "What is Marley wearing? She looks like a whore."

It. Broke. My. Heart.

I spent the entire ride acting like everything was fine and just trying to forget it. The second we were in the building, though, I started feeling really insecure and had to excuse myself to go cry in the bathroom. It was miserable. And it was ridiculous to have let it ruin my entire day, but this was the woman whom I had confided in half my life. It felt like she raised me. She felt like my friend half the time. She'd understood a part of me no one else did. And she called me a whore. In front of everyone.

After that it just spiraled. She was constantly doing stuff to get Joanna to turn against me. She changed so much in my eyes. The woman I had once admired and looked up to was now a manipulative psychopath who wanted control of every aspect of her daughter's life.

When Joanna and Isaac ran away together and got married, Katie could not have been more thrilled. She was not happy they decided to move states away, but she thought they were "the perfect couple." I remember, during my Facebook stalking addiction, she had posted one of their wedding pictures and praised them for being "absolutely meant for eachother. Soulmates. I'm so happy you found eachother and get to spend the rest of your lives together."