Exposed

Betrayal

be·tray·al bəˈtrāəl,bēˈtrāəl/noun 

the action of betraying one's country, a group, or a person; treachery.

synonyms:

disloyalty, treachery, bad faith, faithlessness, falseness, duplicity, deception, double-dealing

Such a simple definition doesn't quite capture the meaning at all.  Betrayal can take many forms and most often comes from a source you least expect. Although there are times you see it coming and try as you might you are unable to stop it from happening or the after effects that ripple through your life like a shock wave from an explosion. 

I have been betrayed more than once in my life. But it has not stopped me from trusting although it has made me more cautious. 

The first time was my best friend of 10 years who was turned against me when a mutual friend started paying people to say that I was saying terrible things behind her back. 

No matter how I protested that I would never, she did not believe me. Even when the truth was discovered, our friendship did not survive. 

My friend, chose to distance herself from me. In a way, I was betrayed twice, but it was my best friend's betrayal that hurt far more and had a lasting effect. 

The second time it happened was my senior year of high school. I discovered the man my best friend fell in love with got engaged to someone else. I had her called down to the guidance councilor's office and my councilor had me tell her the news, thinking she would take the information better from me. 

She didn't. When I told her she completely shut down. Her eyes became vacant and I feared for her life. This was my first suicide watch. My councilor drove her home and we had to wait with her until her parents came home to continue the watch over her as we fully expected if she were left alone she would try and take her own life. 

A few weeks went by. It looked like things were going to be okay. Until a mutual friend of us both whose life was pretty miserable as her parents had recently divorced and she had been dealing with some serious medical issues decided when she came back to school to take her anger out on all of her friends. 

She hurt them in the worst possible way one by one. I was the one person she couldn't get to. So, she went after my friend using a picture of the couple together, the girl showing off her engagement ring, that she obtained at Christmas. Turns out she was friends with this girl. She gave it to another student who dropped it in class and asked my friend to pick it up. It set my friend off again. And when I found out what happened, I confronted the girl who dropped the picture. She told me who was behind it all. 

I tracked her down and asked, "Why would you do such a thing?" She looked at me, stone faced and said, "I had nothing better to do."

It was the first time I ever seriously wanted to physically hurt someone. In fact, I lunged for her. Thankfully, I wasn't alone and the girl who was with me stepped between us. The troublemaker backed up terrified, trying to make herself part of our school's lockers. I gave her a warning and by the look on her face I knew she believed me when I said if she were ever so foolish to mess with my friend again, she'd quickly regret it.