“She’s cheating on you. I wish I didn’t have to tell you this, but she has moved in with this guy just down the block from you.” Tamara said to Marcus over the phone. Meredith’s friend was almost in tears having to tell Marcus this, but she had determined that he had the right to know, and even though it probably meant that her friendship with Meredith would come to an end, Marcus had to know this.
“Why?” Marcus said weakly, his voice full of sorrow. “Why did she do this?”
She hesitated before telling him, but she had to let him know. “She met this guy right down the block and hit it off with him. I saw them the other day making out in her car near our workplace. I’m so sorry, Marcus!” Tamara sniffled and tried to wipe away her tears with one hand as she held the phone with the other.
“But…but we had such plans! I was going to move up there and we were going to get engaged!” he said, and Tamara could tell that he was stuck between belief and disbelief. “How could she do this to me?”
Meredith had sounded so much in love with Marcus, and Tamara was glad for her longtime friend. Then Shawn happened to meet her at her new apartment building when he was visiting a friend of his and they started talking in the laundry room on the ground floor. That’s what she told Marcus, but the truth was that Meredith realized that she didn’t want a commitment and, instead of telling Marcus it was over, she just simply stopped communicating with him.
It was stupid of her, because naturally Marcus would get worried, especially since he lived so far away. He called her old apartment building manager, and she informed him that Meredith had moved out, though she didn’t tell him where she had went. He had almost called the police but instead he called Tamara, so she had the unpleasant duty of informing the good-natured Marcus that his girlfriend was unfaithful to him. She had gotten to like Marcus for being an upstanding guy, though he was a bit too geeky for her taste.
Now her friend had thrown that all away, and Tamara was pissed. She got off the phone with Marcus and got in her car, taking a moment to take a deep breath before she turned on the ignition. Once she had calmed down enough to satisfy her, she cranked her car up and began to drive over to Meredith’s house, deciding to let her know that she had told Marcus and that their friendship was over.
As she got to her soon-to-be-former friend’s door, she heard loud moaning and the slapping of skin. One of the neighbors who happened to walk by shook her head and said, “They’re at it again!”
Tamara asked, “Yeah, I know. Her and her new man must be banging like rabbits!” She said this with a resigned sigh.
“Hell with that! She’s got two men in there!” the black lady said as she walked past Tamara and headed to the laundry room with a basket full of clothes. That hit Tamara like a two-by-four between the eyes, and she soon pounded on Meredith’s door, screaming for her to open it.”
“What the hell is your…” Meredith said after a few minutes. She opened the door in a long t-shirt that covered most of her naked body.
“Shut the hell up! I just got off the phone with your boyfriend, and I told him you were cheating on him!” Tamara screamed at her.
“What? Who the hell is this ‘boyfriend’?” Shawn said as he was getting his clothes on.
“Oh you didn’t know? This hussy has been in a relationship with a guy from Virginia for almost a year now and he was close to moving up here to be with this slut before she got her hooks into you!” Tamara said as she glared at Meredith.
“Is this true?” Shawn asked Meredith.
“Yeah, but he doesn’t matter…” she answered defensively. Tamara could tell right then that Meredith hadn’t told him of her now former lover.
“Oh so you just think it’s cool to cheat on a guy and not tell me that you’re doing that?” Shawn said. “You told me that you were single!” He sounded angry as hell.
“Honey! Baby! Don’t get mad! I’ll explain later!” Meredith said quickly, trying to calm him down. She turned to Tamara and hissed, “What the hell is your problem, coming over here like this?”
Tamara took off the necklace with the “BFF” pendant on it, which Meredith and her had bought for one another years ago, and threw it at Meredith. “You can go to hell, you slut! We’re no longer friends! You didn’t have the guts to tell him yourself and I had to do your damn job, and coming to see you doing this, with two guys…you’re disgusting!” She turned and walked quickly away before she lost her temper, hearing her plead with Shawn to not leave as his friend discreetly left the flat.
The next day at work, Meredith glared at her friend, but Tamara didn’t even look at her. She soon found out how vengeful her former friend was when, weeks later, she got her bosses to fire Tamara for some trumped up reason. It didn’t break her heart, as she wanted out anyway and she was close to completing her degree anyway. Going on unemployment for a few weeks or a few months would make things lean for her, but she knew she would find something better soon, and she wouldn’t have to look at the shell of what her former friend had become.