When Betrayal Happened and I Didn’t Know What to Do

When it felt like there was no one in the world I could trust

On a cloudy November day, the air much cooler than it’d been in quite some time, Dorothy, Kathleen, and I headed off on our bikes, letting nothing stop us from meeting up with the guys in town.

In the park, we gathered as usual, sitting on rocks and fallen logs, drinking beer.

But John seemed different. He moved away from me to sit next to Dorothy.

I went over and sat next to him, but he still ignored me. Disappointed, I grabbed another beer.

I couldn’t understand why Dorothy didn’t get up and move. Why she didn’t tell John to leave her alone. Why didn’t she go off in the woods with Dan, as usual?

The more I drank, the more confused I became.

I needed to pee, but held it in. Not wanting to let John and Dorothy out of my sight. But eventually, I could hold it no longer and went into the bushes to pee.

When I came back, my greatest fear became real. Dorothy and John were nowhere in sight. I didn’t want to panic and make a scene. Didn’t want to run through the woods searching for them.

I grabbed another beer. Plopped myself down and gulped it fast.

Images stormed through my mind — images of what John and Dorothy were doing together in the woods alone. I wanted to bust out crying. I felt so betrayed, especially by Dorothy.

Not being able to trust a guy was expected. But Dorothy? She promised she’d never go with John. I trusted her.

I was so hurt. I didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know how to deal with all the emotions. In a panic, I leapt to my feet and ran. While running down a hill, I tripped over a protruding tree root and fell down hard. My hands in the dirt, stinging.

Heavy rain earlier in the week had made the ground damp. The wetness soaked through the knees of my jeans. Pine needles stuck to me.

“What the hell are you doing?” Dan yelled from the top of the hill.

I tried to stand, but fell. Twisting my head to the side, I looked back at him, yelled, “Fuck off!” I stayed on the ground, wiping my hands on leaves. Unsure if I could get back up.

After several attempts to stand, I finally succeeded. After taking a few steps, I realized just how drunk I was. I landed back down on my bottom like a child struggling to learn how to walk. The wet soil seeped through my jeans, the cold numbing my legs.

Lenny and Kathleen called out my name, and before I knew it, they were leaning over me, one on each side, trying to get me on my feet.

I flailed my arms, slapping them, not wanting them to see the tears in my eyes.

“Leave me alone,” I said, keeping my head down, not wanting to face them. “Just go away.”

“Whoa… Barbara,” Lenny stepped back. “Take it easy.”

“What’s wrong with you?” My sister asked, worry obvious in her voice.

My focus landed on the pond in front of me. I got back on my feet and made a mad dash to rinse my hands in the water, but I misjudged and ended up falling face first.

The shock of the cold water sent a jolt through me. My skin tingled.

“Get out of the water!” my sister cried.

I squinted toward her, noticed Dan next to my sister and Lenny.

My arms splashed and thrashed with attempts to stand and regain my balance. Lenny walked into the water while Kathleen stood on the sidelines, crying. Lenny gripped my arm and led me out.

The water had awakened something in me, helped me to stop feeling the hurt I felt about John and Dorothy off together in the woods.

When Lenny let go of me, I dropped to the ground and tried to crawl back into the pond. “I want to die,” I cried. “I want to die.”

On my hands and knees, I made it back into the pond.

Once again, Lenny entered the water. This time he grabbed me by the waist, lifted me up and carried me back to shore.

Exhausted, I lay on the ground, wet, cold, shivering, and moaning. I refused to move — refused to answer the questions my sister asked about what was wrong with me.

The guys and Kathleen stared at me like I was crazy. Like they didn’t know what to do.

Even in my messed-up mind, I knew I’d fucked up. I wanted to disappear even more. Wanted to sink into the earth and let the earthworms devour me.

“What are we going to do?” Kathleen clung to Lenny’s arm.

“Don’t know,” Lenny said. “But we can’t leave like this.”

“Get Dorothy.” Kathleen sobbed louder. “She’ll know what to do.”

They all went off in different directions, their voices calling out for Big Mama and John.

While I was on the ground, I saw Dorothy and John strolling arm-in-arm, off in the distance.

Kathleen ran up to them; I knew she was telling them everything.

Dorothy broke off from John and bolted in my direction. She crouched over me, shaking my shoulders, asking, “What’s wrong?” She leaned in closer, gripped my cheeks, forced my face toward hers. “What’s wrong with you?”

I kept my eyes half open, unblinking, like a dead fish. I refused to answer.

“Do you think she took too many pills.” Dorothy turned and asked my sister.

“I don’t know.” Kathleen wrung her hands, still sobbing. “How would I know?”

“What pills?” Lenny asked.

“She’s on antidepressants,” Dorothy said.

“What?” Lenny asked.

“Forget it,” Dorothy said, gripping my shoulders, shaking me hard. She looked at Lenny and Kathleen. “She was fine earlier. What the hell happened?”

“Yeah, she was fine,” Lenny said, “until you two went off in the woods.”

“Don’t blame this on me,” Dorothy snapped.

“Well, she didn’t freak out until after you left with John,” Lenny said. “Does that make it sound better?”

“Stop fighting!” Kathleen screamed, her hands covering her ears. “Just help her.”

Dorothy rubbed her forehead while she paced, thinking out loud. “We can’t take her home like this. We got to clean her up? we got to — ”

“What if she took too many pills?” Kathleen asked. “What if she dies?”

“She won’t die.” Dan stated, like a fact.

“How the fuck do you know?” Kathleen turned on him.

They were all talking too much. I wanted them to shut up. I was so cold. All I wanted was silence.

Each time they sat me up or got me on my feet, I’d come alive and fight them until I broke free and ran back into the pond.

“I want to die,” I moaned. “Let me go. Let me die.”

“Just let her go,” Dan said. “She’ll change her mind.”

“Are you fucking crazy?” Dorothy held my by the arm, Keeping me at the water’s edge, with only my feet in the water.

“Yeah, shut the fuck up, Dan,” Lenny said, pushing him aside. “You’re no help.”

“Let’s just leave,” Dan said.

“You guys can’t leave us here like this,” Dorothy said. “We need to do something.” Dorothy grabbed my chin, forced my face toward hers. “Barbara, Barbara, look at me. Snap out of it.”

John moved in front of me, hands in his pockets, said, “Maybe you should take her to the hospital.”

“How are we supposed to do that?” Dorothy asked.

“Yeah, I don’t have my car today,” Lenny said.

“Just do something!” Kathleen cried. “Do something!”

“Call an ambulance!” Dorothy screeched. “Go to the pay phone, Kathleen. Call an ambulance!”

Lenny and Kathleen left the park together. My mind was unable to grasp what would happen next.

“Also, call home,” Dorothy yelled after them. “Tell your parents to come.”

I’d gone way too far. Didn’t know how to come back. My life was over.

Dan, John, and Dorothy grabbed hold of me. They took turns dragging and half carrying me from the woods through the ball field to the park entrance. I kicked, screamed, fought them all the way.

Whenever I broke free, I tried to get back to the pond to crawl into the slick, muddy bottom. Face no one ever again.

The ambulance pulled in at the edge of the field. I fought the attendants until they strapped me onto a stretcher.

On the side of the field, I saw my parents. My mother ran toward me, screeching, “Oh my God! Oh my God, what happened?” She grabbed hold of my wet jacket, shook me, repeating, “Oh my God, Barbara Ann, what happened? What happened?”

The ambulance attendants told her to step back.

“Barbara Ann, Barbara Ann! Can you hear me?” she kept screaming.

My father stepped forward, asked Dorothy and Kathleen, “What the hell happened here?”

The attendants lifted the stretcher and slid it in the back of the ambulance.

In the hospital, it all happened fast: leaving the ambulance, lifted from the stretcher onto a bed, nurses and a doctor working over me, listening to my heart and lungs, sticking an IV into my arm. I tried to pull away, tried fighting them. Then I gave up as if I was dead.

They asked questions. The two nurses pulled me into a half sitting position, and one placed a small paper cup to my lips and told me to drink. I sealed my lips tight.

The other nurse gripped my face and, with her strong fingers, squeezed my cheeks, forcing my mouth open. The other nurse poured the liquid in. I gagged, wanted to spit it out. But the other nurse held her hand over my mouth and said, “Swallow.”

The taste of the thick syrup lingered in my mouth. I didn’t know what it was or why they’d given it to me.

“What was that?” my mother asked.

“Ipecac,” one nurse said. “It’ll make her throw up.”

They brought Dorothy and Kathleen into the room. The doctor questioned them. A nurse cranked the bed up. I stared at the ceiling. No fight left in me.

My mother hovered by my bedside, still hysterical. The nurses tried to calm her. She was still asking the doctor and nurses, “Will she be okay? Will she be okay?”

At one point, the doctor turned to my mother and said, “She’s intoxicated or faking it.”

“You mean drunk!” Mom screeched. She turned to Dorothy. “Where would she get alcohol? Do you know anything about this?”

“Violet, I won’t lie to you,” Dorothy said. “Yes, she was drinking.”

“Are you sure that’s all that’s wrong with her?” Mom turned her question to the doctor.

“Yes,” he said, and left the room.

“Something else must be wrong.” Mom turned to the nurse. “Look at her, for God’s sake!”

“Mrs. Langille, your daughter will be fine.”

My mother was like a spin top, rotating from one to the other. “How could something like this happen? Dorothy, I trusted you. You were to keep them out of trouble. How’d you let this happen?”

I bolted upright, the nurse quick in placing a stainless-steel dish in front of me, and I threw up.

“My God, oh my God.” Mom flapped more wildly around me, like a crazed bird.

One nurse left the room. The other nurse brought me a cool face cloth for my forehead and a fresh pan to throw up in.

I kept heaving until long after anything remained in my stomach, until I wished for death.

Hours later, worn out and tired, we all left the hospital that evening for a quiet, sombre drive home.

Once at home, our lies came down like a thunderous rain. All our careful planning, all the freedom we’d gained, all destroyed. Dorothy taking the brunt of it.

“You’re the oldest, for God’s sake,” my mother yelled at Dorothy. “You're twenty-nine. I thought you had more sense.”

Dad sat in his usual spot on the chair in the kitchen, by the stove, leaning forward, smoking cigarettes, shaking his head like he didn’t know how to process all that had happened.

Dorothy didn’t talk back to my parents; she never had, and I didn’t believe she ever would.

I tried my best to defend her by saying, “Maybe you should let her out of the house. Let her date. Let her be the adult she is, then she wouldn’t need to go sneaking behind your backs.”

Part of me wondered how I could even sit there defending Dorothy after she’d let me down by going off into the woods with John.

“You should be quiet,” my mother said to me. “You’re lucky you’re alive.”

My father put on his cap and headed out the door to his garage.

“Well, if you think I’ll end up trapped like Dorothy, I’d rather be dead,” I told my mother. “I won’t be her age and not allowed to do what I want.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Barbara Ann, stop going on about stuff so far in the future. You’ve a long way ‘till thirty”, my mother said.

“You never listen!” I screamed. “You think you’re always right. That you know everything. But I won’t be like Dorothy. I won’t be stuck here forever listening to you!”

I went upstairs, slamming all the doors I could slam behind me until I was safely alone in my bedroom.

Once alone I could let myself cry for all that had been lost that day.

Was there a time in your life when you were betrayed? A time when you didn’t know who you could count on or trust in your life? A time when you didn’t know how to handle what was happening? When you felt like you wanted to die?

The story of how Dorothy got to town to be with the boys.

BARBARA CARTER is a visual artist and writer with a focus on healing from childhood trauma, alcohol addiction, and living her best authentic life.