Allow me to set the scene:

You're on vacation with your best friend (off and on for 6 years) and her family, and two other friends. You've been on vacation with this same family (though last time was just the mother, the father, the best friend, and the best friend's little sister) once before-- maybe 4 years ago.

It's the day before departure to return home, and you are trying desperately to have a great time.

All week (yes, 7 days), you have been dutifully being your best friend's "playmate," listening to her bitch and whine about everything that has been done, planned, or is to be done or planned, about every place you've gone or are about to go, every person in the group for one thing or another, blah blah blah.

You're getting pretty good at relaxing, and just taking things in without becoming too involved, so you practice that, and have been all week. Every single day. Every hour in that day.

The older girls (4 of them) have been saying to you "You don't have to be with her all the time, you're allowed to do things," and "Wow, you're out here on your own; great job!" Even though you are perfectly aware that it's fine to do things without your best friend, you know that since you came on the trip with her, you should hang around her, have her back kind of (with body language/actions speak louder than words). So you spend a lot of time doing whatever she would like to do, going with her when she takes off, agreeing with her even though you disagree.

You see, your best friend got a very bad sunburn the very first day of the vacation, and hasn't wanted to go out to the beach or to the pool since. Hasn't wanted to leave her room, actually. She's been very edgy and agitated since the burn, and you try to spend time with her in there, and ask her to come to the pool with you-- even knowing she'll say "hell no," or something close to it.

You sit next to your best friend at dinner, you drive with your best friend, you go in the room when your best friend gets upset to listen to the bitching about whatever didn't go her way, just to be there for her to have someone to listen. You do everything you know you should do, as a good friend, as her pick for the vacation.

Today, your best friend wakes up on the right side of the bed for the first time all week, and everyone notices and appreciates it. You guys go to the beach together, without your best friend, and tan for a while, then go up to the pool, and your best friend comes down-- with pizza for everyone-- and you all have a great couple of hours together. Around four, everyone goes up to the condo to get ready for jetskiing.

You drive with your best friend to the place, following behind everyone else, you study for the boating test with your best friend, you take your tests, you decide to just be your best friend's passenger on the jetski instead of riding on your own, you both seem to have a great time. Your best friend's mother doesn't want to ride anymore, so she offers you her jetski and you take it. You ride along side of your best friend the rest of the time (a half hour).

Walking back to the cars, you talk to your best friend's sister who tells you how she was kind of emotional about having lost her very expensive sunglasses while riding. When you get in the car with your best friend, you talk about lots of things, naturally-- one of those things leading to the conversation about the sister and the glasses situation. Your best friend begins laughing, to be mean towards her sister, and says that she might actually feel sorry for her if her sister hadn't laughed about her having a bad situation with her old pair of sunglasses one time. You say that perhaps you shouldn't've said anything, seeing as she wasn't advertising it.. And then your best friend pulls a number where she is suddenly mad at you for thinking that your sister would tell you something without HER getting to know it, so she shuts up and refuses to talk to you, and while you continue to talk and point things out like nothing's happening, she pretends like you aren't even in the car with her.

You get to the condo, go upstairs, put clothes on while your best friend showers. You go out to the dining area and sit down, and get online. Your best friend's other sister talks to you about going to the Melting Pot (that's where your best friend has been wanting to go all week and has gotten pissed more than once about not having gone yet), and about whether your best friend made reservations or not seeing as it's a Friday night. You tell her that you have no idea.

Turns out, the older girls and the younger sister want to go to Joe's Crab Shack since they didn't go with you guys earlier in the week. Your best friend gets pissed off because "no one ever does anything" that she wants to do. Topping it off, her mother comes into the room where you're sitting and your best friend's getting ready in the bathroom, and tells your best friend that she doesn't want to have a 2-hour long dinner after the long day. Your best friend gets more pissed since there'd only be you and her going.

The mom leaves the room, and your best friend comes out of the bathroom, puts a t-shirt and shorts on, slides on her shoes, grabs her keys and heads towards the door. You ask her where she's going. She responds with "I don't know." And she walks out.

A few minutes later, her mother comes in and asks you where your best friend is. You tell her that you don't know, you asked but your best friend didn't say. Your best friend's mother walks towards the door, she turns and walks back. She leans against the wall, while you sit on your bed, and she just kind of looks at you.

She says to you, "I.. I just guess that now's a good time to remind you of your place. You are here as your best friend's guest. You are here to be with her. Don't forget that. And, realize that that means being loyal to your best friend." And you respond with a "What? ..What did I do?" She tells you that your best friend told her how you wanted to go to dinner at Joe's Crab Shack, and not at the Melting Pot with your best friend. You tell the mother that you didn't say anything about eating anywhere (but thinking in your head, and telling your friends online about how hungry-- in general-- that you are). She just stares at you, weirdly, then says "Well.. I guess I take that back..then." And walks out.

You get seriously angry inside. You feel like your ears are on fire. Like your lungs are filling up with lead. You don't know what to do. You don't know what to say. Your PLACE? As if you need a reminder. As if it's remotely okay to be reminded of your "place." You start packing.

You finish packing, you walk out of the room and pass the little sister. She asks what you're doing, you respond with "I'm going outside." You walk out of the room, out of the condo, get on the elevator, walk out to the pool. You look down, and you see your best friend's father in his big truck, waiting, it seems. You call your grandma and start explaining things. You keep an eye on the truck, not to where he can see you, but so you can see him. You see people coming outside, you tell your grandma to hold on. You watch them all pile into the truck, and wait to see if they drive away. They drive away.

They drive away without you. You start crying. You're just panicked-feeling, stressed out. You explain everything to your grandma, and she asks you if you got locked out of the condo. You try to get into the doors just to get inside and not be in the pool area anymore-- you can't. You hang up and get the code from a text message you'd sent yourself earlier that week, and the code doesn't work. You try twenty times. The code won't work. You call your grandma back, you find a staircase that leads into the parking garage. You walk towards the beach from there, and your best friend beeps in. You hang up with your grandma and answer the call.

Your best friend asks what you're doing, and you reply by saying "I'm walking towards the beach." You say "What're YOU doing?" Your best friend says "Doesn't matter what I'm doing, I asked YOU." You say "Well I just TOLD you." Your best friend blows up your shit, and tells you how you've not spent time with her all week, and how you haven't even been around her at all, and that it's stupid of you to not have made an ally seeing as you don't have a car here. And that hey, you've been hanging around the sisters, so you could've at least made the effort to make one of them an ally, but you didn't even do that. You don't know what to say. Everything's so absurd. You say nothing. Your best friend says nothing. After a minute, your best friend says that you should've said where you were going "outside" if you'd wanted anyone to come and get you for dinner. You say nothing. You're appalled. Your best friend says that she's around the area if you want to get in the car. You say no. Your best friend says "Do you want food." You say no. You hang up.

You call your grandparents and bawl.

You hang up with your grandfather and call your good friend who lives in Florida. You try to explain things, but doubt that he'd be able to understand you through your crying and panic.

You sit on the beach for awhile, then get up and get pissed off and rant about how you aren't going to take anyone's shit from here on out. No one has that right to talk to you like you're less than they are.

You walk to the building, and the inside door's propped open! Wtf? You walk through the first door, and then through the second. You push the button for the elevator, go up, and even the condo doors are unlocked. You go inside, and tiptoe around. The TV's on. That doesn't mean anything. They leave anything and everything on when they're not around.

You hang up with your friend, and eat two pieces of bread then go into your room, into the bathroom. Your face is covered in mascara. Worse than the movies. You wipe it off, go to the computer and sit on the bed. You begin typing this.


Now what.