“What do you mean, you’re not a bad person?” My voice was unfamiliar. I was asking only for an old friend; i knew she meant it, but the hurt ten year old in me, was only repeating the defense more so than asking anything.

“I did nothing wrong, all i did was talk. They’re the fools for having something for us to talk about,” Debbie’s volume went up in pitch as she dribbled out her testimony, almost the same way youd voice a question. “ No! What don’t you get, my friend came to me for advice! He gave no names! None! All i knew was the story about how he caught a guy potentially cheating. He just wanted advice on what to do with the information!” My voice scraped across her face, like claws. “All i did was repeat the story to you, it was all hearsay and there were NO NAMES! How many times did i have to tell you that? And you still went and made this story real!” Little drops eroded paths down my cheek and neck, carving streams, wondering if i cried long enough would they become valleys? I did feel like stone after all.

My mind switched around like a dealer shuffling cards. -How could she, she was my mentor! The woman who was my second mother, the home I’d run to when my birth mom was under the influence of her illness. Debbie taught me how to get away and stay away. How to become uninvolved and not feel responsible for making others feel uncomfortable if i left, because they first made me uncomfortable. -

I squeezed tears out of my eyes, “I’m not a bad person, it’s not my fault it got around,” her voice was so self convinced, i was jealous of her in that moment. “No, Debbie, you and i are to blame. First it’s me, i was the only one who knew, then comes you. I told you and some how you know this person who’s incriminated in this! What the duck are those odds? Shoot, the one defining fact i had was that this cheater in question was a red head who works at a jail… shit, you took that and practically got this guys social security with it!” I cry hopelessly, “and once you found out a possible subject, you wanted to go in for the kill. I told you to shut up, and mind your business. I only told you this story so i could run by the advice i gave my friend, who MAY have caught this ginge cheating. I told you it was all hearsay, and made you promise not to tell a soul. And you told everyone.” More canyons were being v carved into my cheeks.

“What’s the worst is you told this about someone, not even knowing if it was them! It made its whole way back around! And i got my friend in trouble! All he wanted was advice, and now I’m the one whos to blame and I only told one person, but by proxy i must’ve blabbed to ten dif people because of you and who you told! You hurt people! You hurt everyone! You’re a 60 year old woman and recognized this suspect might be your nephew? What’s wrong with you?! Your nephew was the guilty one of this is true! Why?! You’ve always said I’m family that you chose but you went behind me and you went after your own blood? For what? A laugh? The serendipity of how you found out? Why did you have to be so proud that you knew something?”

“I didn’t tell anyone. It’s my son in laws fault.”

“Who told your son in-law? Bettie, it wasn’t me and i was the only one who knew, i told you and that’s it. Are you saying i was really talking to your son-in-law who’s so far removed, or are you confessing to your part in the dominoes after you?”

I could hear her cheeks click as she swallowed her dry mouth, “Uh, i didn’t tell any one but him. He told other people, but it’s fine. These people can’t blame us for their failing relationship,” her town interchanged between lower case to upper case. “It’s our fault. I know my part, and you need to know yours. I’m responsible for what you did so at the end of the day, none of this matters for you. You’re not bothered that you spread unproven rumors and that’s your piece. I just can’t imagine what your sister thinks about what you did to her son, if it wasn’t for me, and not to ignore him and look the other way, you couldn’t even try to not start shut for your own sisters sake? You embellished this and added nasty things, you didn’t just gossip, you lied!”

And that’s where my phone died, mid call. I let it stay dead for two more days.

We all wear zippers like scars, we can be different with our different friends and have different groups, sure. But the wolf also has a zipper on his clothing he wears to make the sheep think he’s with them.

She taught me to not take responsibility for other people and their crap attitudes, and it was life saving. I now understand her philosophy was forced on her and not actually learned. Her best advice was to go to work and go home on repeat, to watch how simple life gets ; i think i see now that she didn’t choose that advice, that she must’ve burned all of her bridges and the last one was that.

It hurts to grow out a mentor. A grievance to still be learning from them but because of them.