Female Friendship, Eroticism, & Betrayal - Meghan
Meghan and I met at a menial service job after I had just turned 21. I can’t remember the exact moment I saw her for the first time, or even what our first exchange was like. I do remember thinking that she seemed nice enough — quiet, dutiful, polite, but mostly unremarkable. I remember pitying her for having very deep, pitted acne scars all over her face. They looked even worse in specific lighting and when her face got red. Perhaps it was due to rosacea, or maybe skin sensitivity from all of the peels that she and her fellow esthetics students were using on each other in beauty school. We struck up several friendly, predictable conversations together during our shared shifts. I was eager to connect with everyone and anyone at the time, as I had just emerged from a particularly dark, isolated period of my life. I got the sense fairly quickly after speaking with Meghan more than once that she felt just as lonely as I was, perhaps even more so. She harboured a strangeness that I had yet...