I Am The Villain: A Story About the Friend I Destroyed

If you know me in real life, you know about Karen and Albert. I wrote about that story on this blog—about how I was the villain, how I didn’t stand up for myself when it mattered, how that lesson has stuck with me ever since. Throughout my life, when different situations come up, I remember that moment and think, “Nope, I learned this lesson with Karen and Albert. I can’t go down that road again.”

This story about Eloise is like that for me. It’s one of those stories I think about all the time—how I was the villain, how I was the cruel one. Yes, it takes two to tango. She wasn’t perfect. Our dynamic wasn’t always the healthiest. But the love was there. And I was the one who dropped the bomb on it while pointing my finger at her.

Before we start, I need to be clear about something: this story is complicated. There were parts where bad things happened to me. I’m going to tell you about them because you need to understand the context—but not as justification for what I did. Context is not the same as excuse. What I did to my friend was cruel, and no amount of my own pain makes that okay.

The Girl in the Mall

When I was twelve or thirteen, I had a friend who could drive. She was everything I wasn’t—skinny, athletic, graceful. The kind of girl who could ride her horse bareback at a full gallop with her hands in the air, sitting in perfect position like it was nothing. I’d hit puberty late and stopped following my strict allergy diet, so I’d blown up like a balloon. I was bigger than her in every way.

One day she took me to the mall. We ended up in Victoria’s Secret, and she held up one of those really decorative bras with all the lace and detail. “What do you think about this?” she asked.

I looked at her and said, genuinely, “Why do you even wear a bra?”

It was an honest question. In my twelve-year-old brain, it made sense. I needed a bra. She didn’t. So why bother?

I watched her face drop. Complete devastation spread across it. It was the first time in my life I realized I could genuinely hurt someone without meaning to.

I should have learned something that day.

But instead, I just got better at lying to myself about my intentions.

How We Became Sisters

I met Eloise when we were young—preteen or early teenage years, I can’t remember exactly. We met through family friends and clicked immediately. Before I could drive, I was at her house constantly. Once I got my license, I practically lived there.

Her family tolerated me. I can see that now. They didn’t love having me around, but their daughter didn’t have many friends, and I wasn’t a bad influence. Just… a lot.

Her family was the complete opposite of mine. I grew up in emotional chaos, so being around their physical chaos felt oddly like home. Even when things weren’t great, I kept coming back. I always came back.

Eloise and I became inseparable. We did everything together—learned to drive, got our first jobs, opened bank accounts, navigated all those awkward teenage milestones. We had the typical ups and downs. Sometimes we were close, sometimes we drifted. But we always found our way back.

She was younger than me, and I fell naturally into the big sister role. I taught her things. I looked out for her. When she needed me, I dropped everything. I can’t count how many times I got in my car and drove hours across state lines just to hang out with her, to party, to just be together.

Fifteen years. That’s how long we did this dance. Fifteen years of inside jokes and shared secrets. Fifteen years of me knowing exactly how she took her coffee and her knowing which songs would make me cry. Fifteen years of late-night phone calls and showing up unannounced at each other’s doors. We weren’t just friends who hung out sometimes. We were woven into each other’s lives in a way that felt permanent.

By the time I was twenty and bought my first house, I begged her to move in with me. “We could live together,” I’d say. “It would be perfect. Just like we always talked about.” But she was in a different state, living her own life, and she never came.

Still, we stayed close. We FaceTimed constantly—the kind of calls where you forget the other person is even there until someone speaks. She was my constant companion, even from far away. When we did get together in person, it was an explosion of fun and chaos. We partied, we laughed, we lived up our early twenties like sisters do.

That’s what we were. Sisters who chose each other. For fifteen years, we chose each other.

When Everything Changed

At some point, Eloise found herself in a relationship with a guy. Something miraculous happened between them. And then something really bad happened. I won’t share the details—it’s not my story to tell—but whatever it was, it stuck with her. It changed her.

And I judged her for it.

I didn’t understand why she couldn’t just get over it and move on with her life. She was young. She didn’t have a job, didn’t have a car, barely had any money. She was bouncing from couch to couch, scraping by. I knew she was better than that. I knew she could do more. And I genuinely believed I could help her.

Looking back, I can hear her mother’s voice in my head: “You know, sometimes you just do too much. It’s not a bad thing, but you just do too much.”

I didn’t understand what she meant at the time. I do now.

I was always jumping into Eloise’s business. I’d hear something was going on and rush in to fix it. I’d get upset if she didn’t tell me everything. I’d get jealous if she got close to other friends. I convinced myself this was love—that I was protecting her, guiding her, being the big sister she needed.

I was a control freak. I just called it caring.

And it wasn’t just nagging or being bossy. I would sit her down for these long, deep, philosophical conversations. Hours-long talks where I’d walk her through all her choices, all her mistakes, all the ways I thought she could do better. I thought I was helping her see clearly. I thought I was being wise. But really, I was just delivering sales pitches—trying to convince her to see things my way, to do things my way, to let me run her life.

She never asked for any of it.

The Summer That Broke Us

When I got married, Eloise still wasn’t in a good place. No job, no car, no real home. So I convinced my new husband to let her move in with us at the place we were staying. We gave up space so she could have somewhere to sleep.

I convinced her to come work with me for the summer. “We’ll make so much money,” I told her. “We’ll have the best time. It’ll be like old times.”

What I didn’t tell her was that I was falling apart.

I’d been binge drinking before I got married, and by this point my body was shutting down on me. I was exhausted, sick, irritable. I didn’t know I had an autoimmune disorder. I just knew I felt like garbage. And I was taking my job way too seriously—treating it like life or death when it really wasn’t.

I was drowning. And instead of dealing with my own problems, I made them hers.

A few days after she moved in, she told me she’d met a guy right before coming to stay with us. They’d been messaging back and forth.

I saw red.

I started in on her immediately. “This is a terrible idea. You’re supposed to be here focusing on yourself, making money, not getting distracted by some guy.” I went on and on, convinced I knew what was best for her.

A couple weeks later, we went back to her hometown for my birthday. She wanted this guy to come hang out with us, and he did. That’s when we found out he hadn’t been completely honest with her about something.

Maybe that made him a bad guy. Maybe it didn’t. I didn’t care. I latched onto it like ammunition.

I gave her dirty looks. I sent her passive-aggressive texts. I whispered in her ear about how terrible he was. I talked about him badly in front of other people. I did everything I could to make sure she knew I didn’t approve.

And I sat her down for more of those conversations. Long, exhausting talks where I’d bring up her past, her trauma, everything she’d been through. I’d connect the dots for her—or at least, the dots I wanted her to see. I’d show her why this guy was wrong for her, why she was making the same mistakes again, why she needed to listen to me. I thought I was being a good friend. I thought I was protecting her because I loved her.

But she didn’t ask for my protection. She didn’t ask for my advice. And she certainly didn’t ask me to control her life.

The Day It All Fell Apart

When we got back from the birthday trip, things escalated fast. She invited that guy to come visit—he was staying at a hotel nearby. I spent days berating her about it. Bringing up her past. Throwing everything she’d ever done in her face. All under the guise of “I’m trying to help you. I know what’s best.”

Then one day at work, she had lunch with him on the farm where we both worked. They broke some rules—he drove somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be, and I didn’t have permission from the owner for him to be on the property.

I was yelling at him from across several acres of farmland, telling him he couldn’t be there. When I got closer on the golf cart, I was still going. Technically I wasn’t screaming in her face. But I’d been slamming her for days, so by the time I tried to explain, all she heard was more control.

She started yelling back. I told the guy he needed to leave—politely, I thought. But I wasn’t coming from a gentle place, and Eloise knew it.

We went back inside and kept fighting. When I realized it was spiraling, I reached out to touch her arm—trying to connect, trying to calm things down.

She looked at me the same way that girl in the mall had looked at me years before. Complete disgust. Devastation. Like I was a stranger.

“You’re abusing your power as a manager,” she said. “You’re being rude. I quit.”

She called that guy to come pick her up.

When I got off work, I packed up her things. I made a point of doing it neatly—folding everything, stacking it carefully outside the home we were staying in. I wanted her to see that I’d treated her belongings with care, even in my anger. I wanted her to see how controlled I was being, how reasonable.

When she arrived with her boyfriend to pick up her stuff, she asked if she could come inside.

I said no. I yelled it from outside the home. “You have no reason to be here.”

I didn’t even look at her. I stood there, staring at the ground or the sky or anywhere but her face, and I told her to take her things and leave.

Looking back, I wonder what she wanted. Maybe she wanted to reconcile. Maybe she just wanted to talk for a second, to not end fifteen years like this. But in that moment, I felt so angry. So bitter. So justified.

I had given her so much. I had tried to help her. And she was throwing it all away for this guy she barely even knew.

That’s what I told myself, anyway.

But the truth? She was probably just trying to get away from me. And anything seemed better than staying with someone who claimed to be a great friend but was actually smothering her, berating her, lecturing her, controlling her every move.

I never saw her again.

The Letter

I don’t remember exactly how much time passed before I wrote her a letter. Not much.

Normally when I wrote letters, I’d draft them over and over—100, 200 times—until all the emotion was wrung out and what was left was measured and kind. People used to tell me my letters were beautiful, that they wished they could express themselves the way I did.

But when I wrote to Eloise, I didn’t edit. I just sent it, raw and angry and full of everything I was feeling.

I told her I’d tried to help her. That she was making me out to be the bad guy when I was just doing my job. That she was horrible, that this guy was horrible, that she’d made a horrible choice. I told her I’d given her everything—my home, my job, my time—and she’d thrown it back in my face for someone she barely knew. I called her ungrateful. I said she didn’t know what real friendship looked like.

Then, at the end, trying to sound poetic, I wrote something like: “Maybe one day when we’re in different chapters of our lives, we’ll stumble into each other again.”

And then I said it.

“I won’t say that I love you. Because you don’t love people who hurt you.”

I was telling her I never loved her. That I would never love her again.

At the time, I meant it. I felt righteous. Justified. I thought I was standing up for myself.

What I See Now

Years have passed. I don’t know what her life looks like now. I don’t know where she is or what she’s doing.

When I talk about her—and I still do—I still call her “my best friend Eloise.” Because that’s what she was. My sister in every way that mattered.

And I destroyed it.

Not because she hurt me. Not because she was a bad friend. But because I couldn’t let her live her own life. I couldn’t let her make her own mistakes. I couldn’t handle not being in control.

I convinced myself I was helping. I convinced myself I was being loving. But what I was actually doing was suffocating her. Judging her. Demanding she live according to my timeline, my standards, my expectations.

And when she finally stood up for herself, I punished her for it.

That letter wasn’t love. It was cruelty. And it made sure she could never come back—even if she wanted to.

I can’t reach out to her now. Not after what I said. Not after telling her I never loved her when loving her was the most real thing I’d ever done.

The last time I saw her, I was yelling at her from outside our home, refusing to even look at her face. That’s the last image she has of me. And that’s the last image I have of us.

Fifteen years of sisterhood, and that’s how it ended.

This isn’t like the girl in the mall. That was a thoughtless question from a kid who didn’t know better.

This was me, grown and supposedly wiser, choosing my need to be right over her need to be free.

I was the villain. And I have to live with that.

What I Carry Now

Here’s the thing about being the villain in someone else’s story: you don’t get to forget about it just because they’re gone from your life.

I still talk about Eloise. Not in past tense, like “I had this friend once.” I talk about her in present tense. “My best friend Eloise,” I’ll say, telling a story about something we did years ago. And people who don’t know better will ask, “Oh, when are you seeing her next?” And I have to explain: we don’t talk anymore. We haven’t talked in years.

I call her my sister. Not my little sister—because even that feels like I’m looking down at her from some high place, still trying to position myself above her. Just my sister. My best friend. Because that’s what she was to me for fifteen years.

And I destroyed it.

I think about her a lot. I wonder what her life looks like now. I wonder if she ever thinks about me, and if she does, what she remembers. I hope she remembers the good parts—the late-night drives, the inside jokes, the way we could just exist together without needing to fill the silence. But I know she probably remembers the end more clearly. The control. The lectures. The cruelty.

I’ve learned things from this. Hard things. Uncomfortable things.

I’ve learned that love without boundaries isn’t love—it’s suffocation. I’ve learned that wanting the best for someone doesn’t give you the right to decide what “the best” is for them. I’ve learned that you can genuinely believe you’re helping while you’re actually hurting, and your good intentions don’t erase the damage you cause.

I’ve learned that sometimes the people we love most are the people we hurt most, because we feel entitled to their choices. We feel like their lives are ours to manage. We forget they’re whole people who existed before us and will exist after us.

I’ve learned that saying “I love you” means nothing if you’re not willing to let someone be free.

In my day-to-day life now, I try to catch myself when I feel that familiar urge to jump in and fix things. When a friend is struggling and I want to tell them exactly what they should do. When I can see someone making a choice I think is wrong and I want to sit them down for one of those long, philosophical, “I’m just trying to help you see clearly” conversations.

I stop myself. I ask: Did they ask for my advice? Am I respecting their autonomy? Am I trying to help them, or am I trying to control them?

It’s not perfect. I still mess up. But I’m trying to be better than I was with Eloise.

Because this is what I carry now: the knowledge that I am fully capable of destroying something precious while convincing myself I’m protecting it. The knowledge that I can call something love while it’s actually cruelty. The knowledge that I hurt someone I loved more than almost anyone, and I can never take it back.

I was the villain in Eloise’s story. I’m the villain in my own story too, when I think about her. And I have to live with that. Not as punishment, but as a reminder. A reminder to do better. To love people without trying to own them. To be a friend, not a puppeteer.

Open Letter To Eloise:

I just want you to know that I see what I did. You were my sister for fifteen years, and I threw that away because I couldn’t control you. I took my own pain and made it your problem. I judged you when you needed compassion. I smothered you when you needed space.

And then I wrote you a letter telling you I never loved you—which was the cruelest lie I’ve ever told.

I loved you. I still do. But love doesn’t undo what I did.

You deserved better. You deserved a friend who celebrated your choices instead of controlling them. You deserved someone who held space for your healing instead of demanding you “get over it.”

I didn’t give you that. And I’m sorry.

Not because sorry fixes it. But because you deserve to hear it.

The bridge is burned. I know that. And I’m not trying to rebuild it. I’m just acknowledging the crater I left behind.

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