For The Love Of Candy

He told me how she'd cried for days after that last fight, and how
she'd planned to repair the friendship. She'd never considered our
relationship as 'over', but as on a hiatus of sorts. He also told me it
made him very jealous, and her reaction in the hospital that first day
made him mad enough to have me evicted like he did. Through the years,
he'd offered to ask me to have a three-some with them, but Candy would
never let him; she knew I'd never stand for it, and it could have meant
the end of our relationship completely, and she didn't want that.

We met when we were fourteen and in high-school gym class. Candy was
one of the prettiest and most popular girls in school, though her
popularity had more to do with her open-book sexuality than her
personality. I never could figure out why she chose me to be her
friend, we were nothing alike; I was red-haired, freckle-faced, and a
straight A student. I was shy and quiet and most of the kids considered
me pretty dorky.

Candy was an inch over six-feet tall with straight waist-length blonde
hair, and she was proportioned well and statuesque. I liked hanging out
with her; she drew looks from men of all ages wherever we went. She
drew looks from women too, but that was mostly out of jealousy, or
because Candy could be heard from across the football field. She was
totally free of inhibitions, and wasn't quiet about anything.

She introduced me to men, parties and drugs, and taught me how to sneak
out and smoke during class without getting caught. She introduced me to
things I didn't dare to try, too; shop-lifting and frequent sex with
single or multiple partners. She'd tell me all about her sexual
adventures. Maybe my attraction to her was in her adventurous,
free-spirited style, and the fact that she was the only popular person
who bothered giving me any of their time.

We became best friends over the years. Candy did a lot of things I
didn't think was right or didn't care to try, but she was always nice
to me and I didn't care what the other popular girls (or anyone else)
thought of her. She was about the only friend I had. In our senior year
in school, her foster mother took me in too, and we were even closer
from then on.

We were there for each other through thick and thin, and we even went
to get our G.E.D.'s together three years after high school was over,
because we'd both dropped out. After Candy got married, so did I. After
Candy had a baby, so did I. After Candy got divorced, so did I. We went
to bars together, and I loved the attention she got for me; we'd walk
into a place together and all the men would be looking at us; she was
tall and drop-dead gorgeous.

We fought, too. We'd have the most helacious knock-down drag-outs I
ever knew two girls to have, and yet still we remained friends. That
was because of Candy; no matter how I'd sworn to never speak to her
again, she would always come back. Sometimes I'd get a letter out of
the blue before she showed up at my door, even though I'd written her
back and told her to stay away from me. But she'd come anyway. At times
it took her a couple of years to come back, but she always, always did.
I thought that strange, but I usually was cooled off and ready to
forgive by then anyway, and we'd pick up just where we left off in our
friendship.

She did some pretty amazing things for me, at times. Like, when my baby
had her first birthday and nobody showed up to the party; not even the
grand parents came because they had a last-minute camping trip to go
on, instead. By that evening, Candy had gotten a cake, her own parents
and even some kids, and she threw a party for my baby. She could be a
very good friend when she felt like it; she did all kinds of cool
things for me. I guess I figured our friendship was one of those rare
ones that would really last our whole lives, as long as she kept coming
around after the last fight.

She always used a lot of drugs, and I didn't like that, but at the time
I felt that was her choice. When we were thirty years old, she started
a small business and hired me as her office manager. She lived 100
miles away by this time, and she drove the long narrow highway to the
office every day, and then home every night, and I worried that she'd
get too tired and crash. Candy then started using cocaine regularly to
make sure she could make the long drives without falling asleep, and
not long after that, she started using it during the day, just to get
through. It didn't take long for me to switch her coffee to decaf
without telling her. I worried she'd amp out and die.

One day she over-heard me telling a client that the coffee was decaf,
and in her cocaine-riddled state of mind, it was as if I'd slapped her.
She threw a temper tantrum in front of her client, and not only fired
me on the spot, but threw my typewriter, lunch, and anything else of
mine that she could reach, out into the street. That was it for me; the
last straw. She'd done some very good friend deeds for me, but the
drugs had changed her so much that I considered the friendship over
after that. This time, Candy didn't come back.

Three months later I got a phone call from her daughter telling me that
Candy had been in a serious accident, and that she may not make it
through the night. I hurried to the hospital, careless of what anyone
else thought of my presence, and I lied and said I was her sister so I
could get into the intensive care unit and see her before she died.
They told me she didn't respond to anything; she was in a coma.

I went into the room and saw her, and then I wondered if I was in the
right room. This girl looked nothing like my friend Candy; her head was
swollen and misshapen, her hair had been shaved off, and she was so
thin; she looked alien. Tubes came out of every orifice in her body,
and even some where an opening had been forced into her. They told me,
she'd been driving home from the office and crashed head-on into
traffic at 70mph, killing an old woman. The frame of the windshield had
smashed through Candy's forehead and her brain was damaged beyond
repair.

I took her hand in mine and told her I was there now, and kissed her
ugly forehead. Instantly, her heart-beat raced to 190 beats per minute
and she started breathing hard, almost as if she were crying, but her
face still looked as if it were asleep. She knew I was there. Her
husband ran out to get the nurse, who made me leave when she saw what
my presence had done to Candy's condition. That hurt my feelings really
bad, but I came back the next day anyway. And the next, and every day
for the next four months. I'd come in and read the newspaper to her,
talk to her about the kids, tell her about her own daughter; any news I
thought she might want to hear about. And I waited with sweaty palms
during every brain surgery, and cried with relief when she lived
through them.

After those four months Candy moved to a nursing home, and I went there
every day, spending time and reading to her. By that time she'd come
out of her coma and was awake, but her body didn't work. The doctors
told me she couldn't understand what I said, and possibly didn't even
know who I was. I didn't believe them, especially after reading the sex
books to her. Sex was a large part of Candy's life, and I knew she
wouldn't want to live without that excitement, so I read to her. Her
eyes would light up in the nasty parts and she even smiled a
little.

I brought Tootsie-Pop suckers and ran them around in her mouth, and she
loved it, even though the nurses told me not to do that. In fact, that
may have been why Candy loved the suckers so much; they were something
out-lawed, so to speak, and she always did love to do what she wasn't
supposed to do. I shaved her legs for her because she was always
grossed out by women who didn't shave their legs, and I did her nails
and hair every day. I even found the man she had always told me she'd
love no matter what (it wasn't her husband, this guy had dumped her
years before), and brought him to visit with her just so I could see
her eyes light up. I could find ways to get reactions from Candy that
the doctors and nurses told me was impossible. She could blink once for
yes and twice for no, but she'd never, ever do it for the doctors and
nurses. I could tell she didn't like them, and didn't like where she
was.

I could tell because I knew her so well, and because of the dreams I'd
had. I'd never dreamed about Candy before the accident, but in the
night she came to the foot of my bed as just a head that screamed and
begged for help, and made me cry out loud in my sleep. She'd rather die
than be left like that, trapped in a body that wouldn't work. God, it
wrenched me something awful to see her like that.

Her husband had decided to clear out her things, aware that she'd never
use them again, and I helped him. I found a small box in the closet
that contained all the letters I'd ever written her; even the ones
telling her to stay away from me forever; she saved them all, over the
years. We divided up what would go to the thrift store, what would go
to other people, and mostly what would go to her daughter and her
mother. I took what I wanted after everyone else had sifted through her
belongings. Once, I wore one of her sweaters when I visited her, and
she stared at my shirt the entire time I was there. I never did that
again.

The nursing home was so far from her home that her husband found it
very difficult to keep up with his responsibilities, so I helped. I
took in her daughter as my own, and every weekend I drove the hundred
miles to Candy's house, where I cleaned, made freezer meals for her
husband, and paid all their bills.

One night her husband decided it was time for him and I to get
together, but I was too in love with my own husband. Her husband didn't
even attract me; in fact, I didn't even really like him, but he was my
friend's husband and I always kept my opinion of him to myself. Another
night, he tried to force me to have sex with him and in the struggle
he'd hurt me badly enough to wear a sling on my arm for several weeks,
having ripped a tendon. I never told anyone how I'd really been hurt,
and never went back after that; he was on his own.

But, during the argument that went with the struggle I learned
something about my friend that I'd never known all those years. Her
husband told me that Candy wouldn't be upset if I had a relationship
with him; she'd be jealous that he'd gotten to have me maybe, but not
upset.

What?

He told me how Candy had confided in him more than once, that she was
in love with me, and it had been a problem in their marriage for years.
She'd only married him because she couldn't stand the thought of being
Gay, and for a man he wasn't bad. I didn't believe him at first, I
thought he was trying to freak me out. Candy and I had a long, eventful
relationship, but she'd never, ever shown me anything like what he was
telling me. After some thought though, I knew what he was saying must
have been true. It explained all the things Candy had done for me,
explained her coming back after the worst fights we'd had with anyone
in our lives. Explained her devotion to someone who really didn't care
if she came back or not, and it explained why she'd kept my letters,
even the angry ones, all those years.

My head swam and reeled trying to understand this intense love from
someone of the same sex. How could I have never seen this in one I'd
known so well? Why was I just finding out, when it was too late for her
and I to talk things over? How could I have treated her the way I had,
when we fought? She never showed me this love that I was just hearing
about. Or, had she?

I was so stupid to not have paid attention. I was blinded by my own
sexuality, or maybe by my anger at times, but blinded none the less,
from seeing her heart. I thought I had seen it, and that's why we
remained friends through all the turmoil and years. I thought I had
seen it when she threw my baby showers and helped me through my G.E.D.
tests. I thought I had seen it when she was my friend at a time when I
had no others, or when she wore that awful dress I'd chosen for my
wedding party. I did see it when I went to the hospital that first
time; nobody could raise a reaction in her before that.

It sure made visits with Candy different after that. Now I cared for
her more than before, better than before. Not because I was 'in' love
with her, but because I finally saw her heart; saw her true love for
what it was, and felt so ripped-off in my own heart. It felt like my
own heart had been too hard on hers, and I felt bad. I felt bad for a
long time.

Then one night I had a another dream about her, and then I had this
same dream three times in a row. In the dream we were fourteen again
and at high school. She was running with different friends and didn't
seem to notice me as I followed them around. Eventually I began crying
in my frustration of trying to keep up with my best friend, and that's
when she finally noticed my presence and was happy to see me. I told
her how sorry I was that I wasn't better to her, and how embarrassed I
was when I wore her sweater in front of her. She hugged me and told me
all that wasn't important; what was important was that she was fine and
doing well, and so was I, and all had been forgiven. She told me to
stop worrying about her and get on with my life and my own family, who
needed me more. She told me she would see me again someday, and we'd
party like there was no tomorrow because she'd found the best party of
them all in the Light. And she told me she loves me. Two days later,
she died.

I never take friendship lightly now. Never. I mean, there are those
that are just friendly to me, and those few that are true friends to
me, but I treat them all as if I love them. In fact, I do love them
all. Everything done in friendship is an act of love of some kind, is
it not?

Candy showed me something that I couldn't learn by myself, and it
opened a whole new world for me. One filled with turmoil but tempered
with love. If I had known this a long time ago, I still wouldn't have
had a sexual relationship with her, but I think I would have done
better by her. Love is a very strong emotion; the strongest, I think,
besides anger. And the two aren't really all that far apart when it
comes to passion. Now it's all blended together, for without love there
couldn't be hatred and anger. I never tell someone to leave me alone
forever now, no matter how angry I am. Otherwise, I might rip myself
off and even though I'm not Gay, I wouldn't want to waste that kind of
pure love.

Again.