This is my post for #freewriters 2614 prompt friend from hell hosted by @mariannewest
I was the only woman fisherman on our part of the river. The Carver girls were fishermen in Grant, a town north of me, but they fished nights, and I, for the most part, fished days, so we never saw each other on the water.
I had a friend on land. We were very close. I met her through my sister and we were friendly but did not hang out. My sister got on hard drugs and no longer came around. I heard Debbie's father passed away and felt bad for her so I went to her house and we went to the river with a case of beer. We stayed there all day, writing messages in the sand for her father. After that day we became not just friends but close friends.
Our kids played the same sports and when I knew I was not going to make it off the river in time for practice, she would run out to my house and take them for me. We would go to each other's games and when there was a tournament in different towns, we went together.
On days of no school we took our kids to the river fishing or to the beach, we always had something to do with the kids,
I almost forgot about the crab hole. It is a nice change from swimming in saltwater because it is a freshwater bend up the Sebastian River. Yes, there are gators, but no one had ever been bothered by one. You do not touch the bottom when you jump from the tree so I am not sure how deep it is, but the deep bends where we fish are ten to thirteen feet deep. You can not get to the Crabhole by boat, it is too narrow with trees overhanging the creek.
We would bring a small grill and hot dogs, a cooler of beer, and drinks and snacks for the kids.
I shared this picture from a group I am in on FB
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=469368652883271&set=gm.3466452103657658&idorvanity=3099603853675820
When she was not working Debbie would go fishing with me and help pull in my net. Those days felt more like fun to me, but she would say things like, "How do you do this by yourself?" And when we got to the dock, she would say, "I am going home, showering, and going to take a nap." She was so tired.
I am sure if I had her job packing fruit, I would say, " How do you do this all day, I could not be fast enough to make any money. They got paid by how many boxes they could fill with oranges or grapefruit.
We were always up to what the other wanted to do, she loved going grouper fishing with me. In this picture, she has one on but she let it get in a rock, not in a rock but a cave in the rocks. If you can give them a little slack in the line and wait long enough, you will feel it start to move. That is when you get your line tight and yank and reel as fast as you can. Sorry I got off subject, I can't help myself.
I bet you are wondering why I chose Debbie for the prompt friend from hell. It was nothing like that, we had already started growing apart, I was working more and she had another friend she was hanging out with. I went with her a few times but always felt like I was the third wheel.
Then one day my husband and I saw her at a grocery store. She had lost a lot of weight and dyed her hair blonde. I told her how good she looked and she said thank you. My husband took it too far, he kept telling her how good she looked, and she would say thank you but he kept saying it over and over, "Really, you look great" until I said something to get us moving on. I could tell she felt as uncomfortable as I did. I have seen her a few times since then, our conversations are generic, Hi how are you, how are the kids doing, and nice to see you again.
Thinking about how my husband kept telling her how good she looked, and if we had stayed close friends, would he have tried something with her? This is the only time I have doubted his loyalty toward me, if so, she would have become a friend from hell. But nothing like that happened and I am removing any thought of this from my mind.
unless I said otherwise, photos are mine