What Real Friends Do

I was smack in the middle of my favorite dream when the phone rang. Matt Damon was just getting to the good stuff, if you know what I mean. But when he opened his mouth, the annoying sound of my ringer came out. “Matt, don’t talk like that,” I cooed to him in my dream. “Take off your pants now.”

Ring, Ring!

I opened my eyes. Damn. It was almost three in the morning. Who could be calling?

“Hello?”

“Elle, is that you? It’s Becca.”

Becca. My best friend. Or, at least, my best friend until four years ago, when she met her pig boyfriend.

Becca met Keith at the library, of all places. She was smitten by his intellect, and loved telling the story about how they met while reaching for the same book. She fell fast and hard.

I wasn’t fooled. There was something-- I don’t know-- off about the guy. He said all the right things, but there was something in his eyes that was just plain evil.

I’m a very good judge of character, if I do say so myself. I tried to warn Becca that Keith was bad news, but she didn’t want to hear it. “If you’re going to love me, you have to love all of me, and that includes my boyfriend. If you can’t support me, then I can’t be around you.”

Well, I admit it, that hurt. She was going to dump me in favor of some chode she just met? I told her to call me when she realized what it meant to be a friend.

That was last time I had spoken to her.

“Becca? What’s going on? Are you ok?” I was instantly wide awake. Becca was crying on the other end of the line. Something was very wrong.

“Elle…. I…. can you come get me? I need to get out of here, and I don’t know who else to call.”

“Sure, I’ll come right now. Where are you?”

“I’m in West Covina.” Then silence for a bit. “Elle… he hit me.”

She gave me the address, and I hung up the phone. West Covina was 40 minutes away. I made it in 20.

I arrived at the apartment complex that Becca shared with Keith. She was already waiting outside. Her left eye was swollen shut. There was a line of dried blood coming out of the corner of her mouth. The last four years had not been kind to her; she looked at least 15 years older. She looked sad and oh, so tired.

I took one look at Becca and gathered her into my arms. “Oh, Becca,” I whispered. “What did he do to you?”

“It’s ok,” she answered through her tears. “It’ll be ok. Let’s just go.”

“Not yet,” I answered. I led her back to my car and opened my trunk. I pulled out my wooden baseball bat and a can of red spray paint. “Show me which car is his…”

The Topic: 

"In the middle of the night, you get an urgent call from a friend you haven’t talked to in years. Something terrible has happened. What is it and why is he/she calling you?"