Beware of Friend

When I was in high school, I didn’t have very many close friends. I didn’t grow up in the best living situation and it definitely messed with my social skills. When I finally went to college, all I wanted was a new start. I ended up befriending one of the most attractive guys I had ever met, Jake. We hit it off instantly because he was a weirdo at heart just like me, and for the first time I didn’t feel judged by someone. He was so charming and I was sort of falling in love with him, but I figured that nothing would happen because he was out of my league. I also had a slight suspicion that he was gay, but he always denied that. We became pretty much inseparable. We would do crazy things together, like break into old abandoned buildings and go “ghost hunting”, or do some shoplifting and even slash peoples tires who took our parking spot. I did understand that all those things were wrong, but because he was my best friend and only person I could turn to, I just let everything he did slide and  joined in. When he began to trust me, he would start telling me things about his home life. He said that his family was one of the richest in the state, lived in a huge mansion and would talk constantly about this crazy expensive Christian private school. He also mentioned things like his family owned Blue bunny. He said he was only telling me all of this because I was his best friend and knew that I wouldn’t take advantage of his wealth like his past friends. I believed him. Why would anyone make something like that up anyway? Months go by and Jake’s behavior starts to slowly shift. First he became a little paranoid. He would yell at me for not calling him the night before and accuse me of wanting to hang out with other people instead of him. I thought that was silly, since I really didn’t have any other friends. A few weeks later, he started a fight with 4 McDonalds employees because “the cashier talked down to him.” It got so intense that the employees even chased us out of the McDonalds trying to fight him. It was not before long that things like this would become a weekly to daily occurrence. When he started to develop an alcohol problem, he would just go ballistic. He threw heavy objects at me, would hit me and just become crazy abusive. It got to the point where I was honestly scared of him. I tried to talk about his behavior to him one day, and he told me to “stop being a f*****g cut”. After that I decided to ignore him. I wouldn’t answer his calls, texts or anything. He gave up and I thought he got the hint. I wish that was the end of that. 

A week goes by and I had no word from him. One day when I was walking to my local dinning hall, I saw him walking towards me. I tried to ignore him, but he came running up to me, and collapsed in my arms in tears. He said “Oh Chrissy, I am so happy to see you. I just found out that my best friend from my home town killed himself 5 days ago… I don’t know what to do…” I honestly felt sad for him. I had never seen him like this and for some reason I wanted to comfort him. I told him to come to my dorm after class and we could watch movies and order pizza and talk. After class, Jake was waiting for me INSIDE my dorm room. I had no idea how he got in there, I asked him how I got in, and he told me that I left the door unlocked. I did not leave the door unlocked, I always double check the doors… I decided to let it slide because I didn’t feel like arguing about it and setting him off. He just started crying a bout his friend, Aaron Holland. Apparently Jake had gone home after he had found the news, attended the funeral and had received a box of Aarons things that Aarons mother wanted Jake to have. Items included a tie, some of his artwork and his favorite watch with his initials “AH” carved poorly on the backside. Jake told me all about Aaron and started reminiscing about all the crazy things they did together and how he thought of him as more than just a friend, but a brother. This was the worst I ever felt for him, so I told him that my roommate was going to be gone for the night and he could stay in her bed if he didn’t want to be alone. He agreed and after a few hours we both fell asleep. 

When I woke up, Jake was gone. Thought he must have gotten up earlier than me and had some work to do. However, I did notice that all of my things were miss arranged on my desk. I know for a fact that it wasn’t like that the night before, so it was clear to me that Jake was messing with my things before he left. I checked to see if anything was missing, but nothing was so I ignored it. After this, things started to just get…weird. It wasn’t weird because of Jake, in fact I had not seen or heard from him since the night he stayed with me, it was weird because every single time I came back to my room, things would be rearranged. My roommate even started noticing and asking me if I was messing with her things. I said, no and that things have been moved around on me too. Nothing was never missing, it was just a constant state of confusion for the both of us, not knowing where anything was in our room. Before I knew it, things would start going wrong with my car. I had a fairly new car that was in good shape, but all of a sudden it would just overheat while I was driving it, or it wouldn’t turn on at all. I didn’t have money to pay to get it fixed, so I just drove short distances or stop on the side of the road when it started overheating.

A few days go by and I get a frantic call from Jake. It had been almost a week and a half since talking to him at this point. He tells me that he needs me and that he felt like he was being followed or attacked by the spirit of his best friend. I honestly thought this was the craziest thing I had ever heard. He said that he has been seeing Aaron in his mirror, outside his window and things would be completely miss arranged in his room. Also, he found his friends tie just laying on his bed. As soon as he said that things were moved around in his room, there were connections forming in my head. I had no idea why or how this was all connected, but I knew for a fact it was. Even though I was so tired and didn’t want to leave my room, he somehow convinced me to go to my car, and drive over to his side of campus. I got dressed, walked to my car when I noticed something very strange. There was something in my car, lying on my dashboard that I didn’t recognize. I got a little closer and realized it was a watch. My heart jumped out of my chest. I knew who’s watch it was.. I turned it around and confirmed my worst fear, on the back of the watch was the initials “AH”. I dropped the watch immediately and fell to the ground. I honestly felt like I couldn’t breathe. Logic was not setting in at this point and for a second I honestly thought that Jake’s dead friends ghost was coming after me as well and somehow his watch got into my car. I did not go to Jake’s. I immediately ran back to my dorm, slammed open the door and told my roommate everything that had just happened to me. I explained to her everything about Jake from beginning to end she just had the most confused look on her face. “You realize that it was Jake, right?” She said in a really concerned voice. Logic hit me like a ton of bricks. Jake was messing with me. He was mad that I have been ignoring him and he put this whole thing together just to mess with my head. He knew that I believed in ghosts and crazy supernatural stuff, and also that I was gullible. We also put it together that he was the one breaking into our room when we were not there and re arranging our things to probably make me believe that Aaron's “ghost” was after me.  At this point, my roommate and I questioned if Aaron was even a real person, and if he made that up. I was so angry, I went straight into FBI mode. This whole time, Jake was blowing up my phone, but I decided to turn it off. I looked up Aaron Holland’s obituary for his town, and nothing came up. It had been a few weeks since his “death” so it should have been up by then. After I realized that Jake had lied about Aaron, I wondered what else he had lied about. I started doing research about his “families money" and the house that he showed me he lived in, and the blue bunny story… Everything I looked up did not make any connection to him and it occurred to me that everything that he has ever told me about himself was a lie. I ended up reaching out to a few people on Jakes friends list from his home town. One responded and seemed more than willing to give up every detail about him. They told me that Jake actually used to be one of his best friends until he started becoming violent. Jake used to be a fat kid who got bullied, until he decided to lose over 100 pounds turning him into the most attractive guy in the school. After he became attractive, his old friend noticed changes in his personality, darker changes. He would start lying about his life to other people to make himself look more entitled. He actually made this friend lie for him to get other people around him to believe the lies. Whenever Jake didn’t get his way, he would act out severely and becoming extremely demanding and abusive to everyone around him. His family, friends and eventually pushed everyone out of his life. His old friend said that their friendship officially came to and end when Jake got so drunk, he started speaking in tongues, saying that he was possessed and was going to kill him and his family. This conversation honestly frightened me. I felt like he was the most manipulative a disgusting person. My heart sank deeper and deeper until I felt like I wanted to vomit. 

After I was done with the conversation, it was about 2am. I knew I wasn’t going to sleep that night. I tried and tried but I couldn’t help but feel so manipulated and betrayed. Jake knew that I was an easy target and I knew he was getting some fucked up enjoyment out of messing with me. I had no idea what the extent of what he planned was going to be, but I knew it wasn’t good. As I was thinking, a knock comes to the door. It was 4am by that point, and the only person I could imagine it being was Jake. I was petrified. My roommate woke up as well and I mouthed to her “I think it’s Jake”. “Don’t answer it” she mouthed back. The knocking got louder and louder and I got up, opened the door. There was Jake with the creepiest grin i’ve ever seen. “LEAVE ME ALONE” I screamed. “I KNOW THAT EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVER SAID TO ME WAS A LIE, AND I KNOW AARON DOESN”T EVEN EXIST!” As i was about to slam the door in his face, he pushed the door open so hard I was knocked to the ground. The only was I can describe what happened next, was he turned into a wild animal. Breaking everything in the room he could, screaming even started to hit my roommate. This only went on for maybe 1 minute but it felt like forever. The RA came running into the room and tackled Jake to the ground. I ran to my roommate to make sure she was ok. She said he had hit her eye and that her head hurt. As they were taking Jake away, him screaming like a maniac, I held my roommate so tight and we both sat on the floor crying. Later we made a statement, and I told the school board everything that had happened with him since we became friends. They felt that he was a danger, and actually ended getting him kicked out of school. He never tried to contact me again since I had deleted my facebook and changed my phone number. I never knew how he got into my room all of those times, and I never found out if he was the one messing with my car. What I do know, is that Jake is bad news, and I’ll always be more careful when I make friends. 

Author's Note

I was trying to write a fictional story before about an event that actually happened to me, but decided to write out what actually happened. I wanted to write this first before I went on with my fictional story. I know the writing isn't the best, but needed to get this off my chest.