As far as I could throw him

It was the early September. I had just gotten off the boat from Mexico. Abraham was still only sending me witty text messages and not meeting up with me in person. Schmoozer called.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Cleaning my apartment."

"Can I come over?"

I sighed. I didn't want to entertain. "I'm cleaning my apartment, and then I'm meeting up with friends to watch football."

"I'm in the city. I want to come over."

"You would literally be sitting on my couch while I clean my apartment," I tried.

"That's okay!"

"Fine," I huffed.

"Okay, so Guy and I will be there in a few minutes," he said quickly.

"Wait a minute!" I cut him off. "You didn't say anything about Guy."

"Well, we're out drinking together."

Guy was one of Schmoozer's co-workers that I met when Schmoozer's BF and I tried to pick him up from Guy Night. Guy was the reason I left abruptly. He kept asking me if I had a drug connection and what kind of drugs I could get him. He first asked me for weed. When I said I didn't do drugs, he responded, "Well what about Oxycontin then?" Who makes the leap from weed to oxy? They are nowhere near the same class of drugs. It unsettled me further.

"No way," I said. "I don't like Guy. He makes me uncomfortable, and I don't want him in my home."

"He'll be good. I'll talk to him."

"No," I said. Since S, I have very strong feelings of feeling safe in my home. Guy does not make me feel safe. He makes me feel the opposite.

It was the first time I had ever stuck up for myself in that capacity. Putting my emotional needs in front of my need to be accommodating.

I said no. Schmoozer pushed. Schmoozer told me I was making too much of a deal of not liking his friend. He told me to lighten up. He pushed and pushed my boundaries until I relented. Until I doubted myself. How bad could this guy really be? Maybe I was being sensitive.

I called Schmoozer's BF and told him what happened. He said that Guy is "a royal dickhead," but he's not a harmful person. He said if anything happened to call him and he would come over.

Schmoozer and Guy appeared at my front door. By the look on Guy's face, I could tell that Schmoozer told him I didn't like him, which really made me feel worse.

I tried to regale the boys with stories from my cruise, but they were too drunk to follow along. Schmoozer, with his position at work becoming an uncertainty, had been drinking a lot lately. And when I say someone is drinking a lot, it means he was drinking to the point of passing out in bars multiple times a week. Schmoozer's BF and I had been having concerned conversations about Schmoozer's drinking.

The time had come for me to leave to go meet up with my friends to watch the football game. I changed into my football jersey and a skirt. The boys said they would come with me. We stepped into my parking garage. I immediately began walking toward my car.

"No, let's take my car," said Guy.

"I live in the city. How am I going to get home if I go in your car?" I asked.

"I'll make sure you get home," Guy said.

"I think we should take my car. I'm driving," I reiterated.

"No, I really want to take my car."

Once again, I was uneasy. Guy was drunk, and he'd only get drunker as the afternoon turned into night. If I took them in my car, they could return to my building and get their car at the end of the night. But once again I was pushed and I relented.

Halfway to the bar Guy wanted to stop and buy cigarettes. I would miss kickoff, but I stopped. As he ran into the store, I picked up my phone and saw a message from Lawyered. The original bar we were going to was so full that it couldn't seat us for an hour and a half. He changed the location to a smaller bar.

Guy returned to the car. "Change of plans," I said. "We're going to another bar now."

"No," said Guy. "I want to go to the original bar."

I pulled out of the grocery store parking lot and started driving down the road. "Okay, just let me get to where I am going and you can take the car to the original bar."

"No. Either you drive to the original bar or I want my keys back now."

"Just let me get to where my friends are, and you can do whatever you want," I pleaded.

"No," Guy spoke sternly. "I want my keys now."

And this is the thing: I was driving Guy's car at his request. Legally, I couldn't take him anywhere in his car against his will. It's called kidnapping, although it would have been highly unprosecutable. But Guy was drunk and belligerent. He wanted possession of his car, and I didn't know what he was capable of.

I pulled over to the side of the road and left the keys in the ignition. I wasn't going to get back in the car with him though. He was too drunk to drive. Hell, he was drinking while driving.

Guy left me on the side of the road.

I called Lawyered and told him my location. He dispatched his friend to come and get me. I began walking back to the grocery store.

I began to cry. I didn't want this. I didn't want any of it. I didn't want Schmoozer to come to my place, and I let him after he pushed. And then he sprung Guy on me, which he did manipulatively because he knew I didn't like Guy, and I relented again when I was pushed. I wanted to drive my own car to ensure my safety, and I relented when I was pushed. I did my best to be accommodating, and I was left on the side of the road.

Guy's car reappeared. Schmoozer got out of the car. "Don't be mad, Sarah," he slurred. I was fuming. He grabbed my arms. "I like you, Sarah," he paused. "Not like that, but I like you as a person. I came back for you. You can't be mad." Schmoozer was falling over himself.

"Congratulations on not being the worst person in the world," I spat at him.

He kept grabbing at my arms, and I kept shrugging him off and walking to the grocery store. I was so angry that I didn't want to talk to him. I didn't want to look at him in his stupid, drunk face. For the first time I wanted the safety of my kickball friends. Through tears I sorted through my phone to see when my friend would arrive. Schmoozer grabbed a hold of me and told me I was "ruining [his] night with [my] emotions."

I was livid. I went out of my way all day for him and he had the gall to say that to me.

Lawyered's BF pulled up, and I got into the car. Schmoozer climbed in the back seat. "I was going to pull up to you on the side of the road and ask how much, but I didn't know you were this upset," Lawyered's BF said when he saw my tear-stained face. We drove to the bar in silence.

Schmoozer got in trouble for trying to bring a beer into the bar. Then he sat down at the table and tried to tease Lawyered's fiancée. She shot him down hard. Lawyered warned Schmoozer to cool it. Schmoozer then fell asleep at the table.

I was embarrassed that Schmoozer followed me to the bar. I wished he would have stayed with Guy. I was ashamed that people had to leave the bar and come get me on the side of the road. I was ashamed that I had a puffy face from crying at a bar during football season. Per the norm, Lawyered and his friend teased me. They referred to me as "Drama."

We lost the football game.

Lawyered's BF drove me home. "I'm not full of drama," I said quietly.

***

The next day my mother called and asked how my night was. I burst into tears and told her everything.

"I'm so ashamed of myself," I bawled. "I didn't learn anything from S. I knew I wasn't comfortable having this guy in my home, and I went along with it. Look what happened! It was the first test and I failed!" I sobbed into the phone.

I cried hard. I thought I was fixed. I got out of the relationship and did a year of therapy and moved on. I was supposed to be all better, not repeating the same mistakes. I had broken my own heart by allowing that to happen to me.

My mother tried to calm me down. "The only thing you did wrong was letting them talk you into not taking your car," she said.

She said I shouldn't be so hard on myself. She said me knowing this guy was not a safe person was proof that I had grown and learned from S. She said I had grown in that I knew for certainty that this wouldn't happen again.

***

I put serious distance between myself and Schmoozer after that night. Schmoozer has always been a dominant personality, but this was too much. I told him that his friend made me uncomfortable, and he pushed me until he got his way. That is not the behavior of a safe person. And maybe it was an off night for Schmoozer, justifiable by being blackout drunk, but I've already lived through that story with S.

Schmoozer was supposed to be my friend. I trusted him, and he took advantage of that. Between this incident and me finding out that he lied and purposefully told me his friends weren't attracted to me, the trust was now broken.

He continued to hang out with Guy and drink until he was passing out in bars. I spent more and more time with Schmoozer's BF instead. And then Abraham properly appeared.

That's why I don't write about Schmoozer much anymore.