Friendship Gone Wrong: Tale of Two, Now One

Bogor, Indonesia, 2027

You furrowed your brow, staring up at the mesmerizing color gradation of the sky. The sun’s rays still greeted your skin. However, on some other sides, black clouds began to cover the light.

You knew it was only a matter of time before you would feel the rain. So, you glanced quickly at the few reporters who had just interviewed you, now departing for their respective cars, and offered a faint smile. A brief wave of your hand followed before you shifted your attention to something more pressing.

You—yes, you are the most important, you whispered to yourself, your gaze fixed upon the grave of your best friend just before you.

Your footsteps inched closer to the gray tombstone embedded in a mound of cement covered in white gravel. To reach it, several times you had to step on yellowed grass that looked as dead as your best friend.

“How are you, Tania? It’s been eleven years since your death. How does it feel to be one point five meters underground?” you whispered in a hushed tone toward the wooden headstone that bore your best friend’s name. “Surely someone like you, who was always surrounded by warmth, feels very cold and lonely down there, right?”

You smiled, though your eyes looked a little wide. “Don’t get me wrong; I lost you during my eleven years in prison—I really did. It’s just that… I’m still not sad about your death. I guess you deserved to d*e. You’re going to heaven, just like you and the people around you said, right? You really were considered like an angel.”

“Angel,” you repeated with a sardonic laugh. “The world looked at you like an angel, Tania. You knew that too, right? You always enjoyed everyone’s positive view of you. You were warm, full of laughter, nice to everyone, and very easy to like. At least, that’s what they thought of you. That’s also what I thought of you back then.”

“But…,” you continued with a bitter laugh, “they didn’t really know you inside out like I did. They didn’t really know your true character underneath everything. Of course, that’s because you’ve always been picky about showing your true colors. Incidentally, you only chose to show your true colors to me. Unfortunately, it was only me.”

“They don’t know about you yet, do they? Do they know that underneath your friendly demeanor, you enjoyed hurting others? They should have been asking probing questions about your true character instead of endlessly questioning the chronology of your death.”

You took a deep breath before deciding to sit on the side of your best friend’s grave, leaning against the tombstone. Your face turned up again to see the fading sunlight covered by dark clouds. However, your gaze seemed to wander far away to your miserable past.

“Tania, do you remember how we met?” you continued after a few seconds of silence. “You and I met in London 16 years ago. Ah, remembering our first meeting always makes me smile. You were still green at our college back then, still new. You were trying to start friendships with many other Indonesian student communities until you met me and our other friends.”

“Being close to you was easy. You were a great Tania—beautiful, outgoing, quite intelligent, and able to make everyone instantly take the closest position to you. They used to say that you came from a wealthy and warm family, unlike me, who came from a closed and cold circle. I was also not used to crowds and not sociable, but with you… things were different.”

“You made my life warmer and full of laughter. You made me always feel needed by you. You made me think of myself as valuable back then. Often, you came to my flat just to ask for help with your courses. Not only that, but you also always brought me warm Indonesian food that I always missed there.”

“‘Chicken soup for the soul,’ you used to say to me with a laugh. Those were your typical words when you brought me your chicken soup several times, which was very warm when I was sick. I had to admit that you were really good at cooking Indonesian food. Honestly, nowadays, I even miss your cooking. To me, your dishes felt a hundred times warmer than the food at my house, which was always cold.”

“Unfortunately…,” you continued after a brief pause, “I don’t know when things started to change between us. No one realized what you did to me. No one.”

“Was it because of the boys in our campus community? Or did you think I deserved to always be humiliated behind your laughter in front of all our other friends? They all thought you were joking, but then it became a tradition between us. Yes, tradition. A tradition of excluding me in many ways.”

“You, who were full of principles, always snatched away whichever guy I liked in our college back then. You made me look silly for questioning your attitude about it. Worse, you made everyone believe that I was envious of you because of what you did. They had no idea that I had poured out my feelings about those guys to you before.”

“You also made all my old friends think of me as a clown to be laughed at and shunned. Somehow, it felt more and more normal for all of you to judge my actions and decisions in life. You and the others even started to exclude me from your fun activities more often.”

“You told them that I was a calculating person and never wanted to spend money when going out together. While you knew exactly how I had to save all my expenses to survive, you made them all think that I would become a burden. In the end, you managed to force me to always refuse to hang out with all of them out of embarrassment.”

“You always acted as if you were rooting for me to be happy—suggesting that I open myself up to special relationships with men. When I finally managed to get into a relationship with a man outside of our community, you then started attacking the concept of our unhealthy relationship. You said I was stupid for not wanting to part with a toxic man whom you said was having an affair.”

“Of course, with you saying that I was a stupid girl, it all became like validation for others to portray me as a girl with no self-esteem. Not only did you succeed in making me stay away from others, but you also shaped me into who I am now—alone, introverted, silent.”

You took a breath after uttering your last words to your best friend’s grave, then clenched your hands into fists. A tinge of pain and anger etched across your face as you did so.

“Remember when you suddenly introduced me to this guy who was an old friend of yours? You said he was perfect for me—a good guy who deserved me. You made me feel like things were warming up between us again and our relationship was improving. But just when I started trying to open my arms wide for your blessing, you suddenly showed some reservations.”

“Tania, how can you be jealous when the guy you rejected is being nice to me? How can you be upset that our relationship is starting to blossom when you always said you weren’t interested in him? Interestingly, you ended up changing your outdated and discarded scenario. You ended up dating him—your old friend.”

“Weren’t you ashamed of doing that to me? Weren’t you supposed to feel a little guilty towards me? Incredibly, you were even able to keep smiling and looking proud when you later told me and the others that you were officially engaged to him. You even lightly expected me to come to your celebration with him.”

“Tsk tsk, Tania… even in the last meeting between me, you, and that guy before you got married, you could still judge my bad luck. You could still humiliate me in front of your fiancé by insulting another man of my choice whom you found shameful.”

“‘Just split up, you’re stupid if you still want to be with a man who hurts you and eats up your money,’ you said to me while showing off the diamond ring on your ring finger. You must have loved seeing me feel slapped and embarrassed in front of your man. You must have been happy to make me always look like a loser in front of you.”

“In fact, it was your attitude that made me return to him. In fact, it was you who made me become such a person. You took away all my old friends, took back the man you were supposed to set me up with, and made me now have no one to talk to about anything. Yet, the moment I tried to talk to you, you took the opportunity to humiliate me once again.”

“Look, Tania,” you whispered as you touched your best friend’s tombstone, “this is all because of you. What’s happening to you now is the result of your actions over the years we’ve been together. Your death is not my fault; it’s all because of you.”

“Doesn’t it feel great to have the most beautiful fairytale wedding with him, half a year before your death? It must have been perfect to have that with everyone close to you except me. You invited them all and ignored me — ME — the one who actually introduced you to all your friends back then.”

You then gently rubbed your best friend’s tombstone while whispering, “Even after you died, you were still able to make me feel difficult. They say I k*lled you. They said… I was the one who put cy*n*de in your favorite black tea. I was the only one they said was most likely to do it. I was the one they said had the strongest motive for it.”

“Even so, those times were quite fun for me,” you said with an amused laugh. “Everyone was trying to find out about me. Everyone was trying to figure out what happened to you. Everyone speculated about how you d*ed and whether or not I actually k*lled you. They and you made me so famous in the eyes of the world.”

“You know, one year before your d*ath, my life was at its worst. Of course, everything was still related to your presence in my life. It was so bad that I kept thinking about dy*ng. I even took cy*n*de from one of the patients at the hospital where I worked, who was saved from an attempted su*c*de.”

“You remember, right? I used to work in a hospital ER? I witnessed many times how many people intended to e*d their lives. I once thought of doing the same thing with that cy*n*de, but fortunately, it didn’t happen. In the end, I just kept it and then used it for something bigger.”

You then flashed a happy smile with a glint of light in your eyes. “You! Yes… I used it on you! You were the perfect person for me to see the reaction of a d**th potion. Watching you d*e because of the potion was shocking at first – leaving me paralyzed in silence for a moment. Then, everything became so frightening, until I finally felt relieved.”

“You know, until now I always smile every time I remember your last seconds that happened in front of my eyes. I was happy and very lucky to be able to witness it. Even if I end up behind bars, I probably won’t regret what I did to you. If everything had to be repeated, I would probably do it again and again.”

“Wasn’t it interesting that after not seeing each other for a long time, you and I finally met again to close your age? I’ve never forgotten how you always savored your black tea. Therefore, I served it to you… like a director preparing for a spectacular performance.”

“I should have used a smaller dosage, but… I was concerned it would prolong your suffering, and I wanted to witness it firsthand. Therefore… I had to enhance the potency of the substance, significantly and swiftly, so that you would ingest it before having a chance to suspect or notice any irregularities.”

“I was fortunate they put formaldehyde in your beautiful corpse as I had hoped. Of course, thanks to that, no one knows what really k*lled you. They did call me, interrogate me, and convicted me, but the legal system moves based on concrete evidence. Isn’t that how it should be?”

You rubbed your forehead with your bony fingers and then chuckled. Then, you lifted your body and stood up while still looking at your best friend’s gravestone.

“You see, Tania, who won in the end?” you asked now with a big smile. “Me. I’m the one who won in the end. They finally granted me some leniency for my good behavior there. Now, I can stand back here and look at you as the soil beneath my feet.”

“Tania… Tania… you should be praising me. I did it so perfectly, right? I made you d*e in front of my eyes at the risk of being ensnared, but… look at me. The world still thinks that an invisible crime is not a real crime. There will be many people out there who will bleach a hand that was never actually seen k*lling.”

“If you remember,” you continued, “this is all the same as what you did to me. No one really knew who you were because you were an angel to everyone else. The cruelty you displayed — known only to me — is already sealed in the ground along with your body – thanks to my help.”

Now, you reached into the bag over your shoulder and pulled out a black rose from inside. Your hand then placed the rose in front of the tombstone, and you set it there slowly.

After doing so, your face turned back up to the sky that had just made a subtle rumbling sound. A drop of rain hit your skin as you did so, making your eyes blink once. You wiped it away with the back of your hand before looking up at your best friend’s tombstone once more.

“This will probably be the last time for me to visit you,” you said quietly. “From now on, I will live my life more happily, without fear, and without your shadow anymore. Of course, if I have to do something like this again, I already know the right moment and the right way.”

“Indeed, this is all thanks to you. Because of you, I gained the eyes of the world and will be remembered for all time, while your shadow will fade away. Thanks to you, I learned to be more careful. Thanks to you too, I’ve received a lot of sympathy and can now stand here freely.”

You took a moment to pause and gave an amused grin, leaning back slightly towards the tombstone to whisper, “Therefore, thank you, Tania. Thank you for your d*ath. Now, you and I are on our own – going our own way.”

After a few seconds of silence, you straightened your back and turned your body around. Now, you walked slowly away from your best friend’s grave, wearing a triumphant smile under the gray sky.

“Goodbye to you, perfect angel, and… may you rot in hell,” you said for the last time there, without ever looking back.