People are basically dumb and selfish. And if you wait long enough you can get anything out of them.
Case in point: Janine. Yeah, we were friends back in the day. Pretty good friends, too. But girlfriend was fucked up. I knew that right away. I mean, how many 12 year olds can get away with smoking and drinking in their parents’ house on a daily basis? Yet we got away with it because Janine’s mom worked two full time jobs trying to keep a roof over their head. A dirty, disgusting, roach-infested roof.
I never saw roaches so I take that back.
But honest to god, this place they lived in? This place they called home? Fucking nasty is what I called it. I’d go over there after school and I couldn’t get to Janine’s room, just off the back porch entrance to the house and kitchen, without stepping on something. Anything: cat shit or food, plates, cups, forks, food, paper, plastic, aluminum foil, big containers, cans, boxes...
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| from doing a google search. click for source. |
How I didn’t puke helping her clean- since she wasn’t allowed to leave until it was clean- I don’t know. How I never caught any kind of AIDS or anything, I don’t know.
And that was just the kitchen! I never, in the year we hung out, saw any other part of her house other than the kitchen, her bedroom, and the bathroom which was so gross I could vomit just thinking about it now.
We hung out though because we could smoke and drink alcohol. Usually Southern Comfort. I didn’t ask where she got any of the stuff from; I just helped her enjoy it.
After my family moved, I thought I had seen the last of Janine and her disgusting house. I knew my brother Matthew had the hots for her, but I just never dreamed he’d keep in contact with her since we moved an hour away and since he didn’t really hang out with us much when we lived closer. Seven years later when Matthew was away at college, I found out he dropped out of school and was moving back north, they got married, were having a baby, and she already had a four year old boy from some other dude.
When Matthew and his new little clan made their way into an apartment near my folks, I started hanging out with them. At first it was kind of weird since Janine and I used to hang out a lifetime prior. But soon, it was like no time had passed at all; it was like Janine and I were 12 years old again. Hell, we even continued drinking and smoking-- only now we were doing it out of the house rather than in. And soon enough, she was telling me her darkest secrets in life: How she was raped by her cousin, how she had an abortion, how her oldest was supposed to be given up for adoption.
Why she was telling me all this, I don’t know. But she made me promise not to tell anyone.
So I didn’t.
Not entirely at least.
Instead, I manipulated her and my brother’s relationship in a way that made them divorce; I sat by and helped her cheat on him. Janine and I would go out to the bars to see local bands perform and I wasn’t blind; I could see the flirting between her and a friend was escalating. And I didn’t do a damn thing about it. Instead, I kept inviting her out and she kept coming while Matthew and Janine’s mom stayed home with the kids. It was like they all wanted this to go down.
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| from doing a google search. click for source. |
I don’t know for sure she cheated on Matthew, but knowing her history, her secrets… her… I had my suspicions. And when she finally told Matthew she loved him like a brother but didn’t want to be married anymore? I wasn’t shocked at all. I was, however, shocked when she left both Jake and Annie with Matthew especially since Jake wasn’t even his.
But that’s who Janine was. And that’s why it was so easy to fuck with her life like that.
