My cousin. By marriage. Does that make it any better that I wish I didn't know my cousin?
We were the absolute best of friends as kids. We would dress in matching outfits and had to do everything together. When we went out to stores or restaurants people would ask us if we were twins, and we loved that. Of course, we said yes every time.
Things were great until my senior year. I went through a lot of crap. A lot. Some brought on by crazy teenage hormones and some from bad people. I think my cousin tried to be there for me and help, and maybe in the end it was too much.
I moved out of my parents house the summer before my senior year of high school because of an argument we had. I came home after curfew, was told I was grounded, and immediately packed a bag and walked to my friend's house. My cousin drove to Austin to take me back to League City with her. We lived together at my aunt and uncle's house and eventually moved into an apartment of our own.
Moving into the apartment was terrible for everyone involved. Her mom (my aunt) was pretty adamant about not letting us move out. I think she saw the whole idea as mine, when in reality my cousin had come up with the plan and I agreed. Of course a seventeen year old girl would rather live on her own with no rules. Why would I say no to that and continue to live with my aunt and uncle who were much more strict with me than with her? My aunt did things like take all the drawers out of my cousin's furniture so she wouldn't take it. The whole situation was handled in an extremely juvenile way on both sides, which is pathetic considering my aunt was the adult in the situation.
I was going to school, coming home and napping, and then working full time waiting tables. I was incredibly lonely, depressed, and had next to no friends at my new high school. It was pretty pitiful. I even dyed my hair black and wore all black. It was a very dark time for me. I'm really embarrassed when I see people from that high school because I was so different and I don't feel like I was myself at all.
The issues between us arose because she would spend more time at her boyfriend's house than at our apartment. Like I said before, I was lonely. She was my best and only friend in town and when she wasn't at the apartment I had no one else. I started to call my mom all the time and we worked out some of our issues over the phone. One day on the phone she asked if I wanted to come home. I said yes and within hours she and my dad were at my apartment helping me pack and move out.
My mom paid to break the lease and for my share of the bills (electricity, insurance, etc). I later found out my dad had paid her too. She was upset that I was leaving, and I completely understand why. She would either have to move back to her parents (and our moving out had caused a big rift between us and that part of the family), move in with her boyfriend, or take on the apartment lease by herself.
She ended up moving in with her boyfriend (now her fiance). I received a letter a couple weeks after moving back to Austin that had copies of the bills and a letter asking for us to pay her for breaking the lease and for the bills. I called her and told her my mom had paid her. My mom called her and told her she had paid her. (At this point we were still in the dark about my dad also paying her.) After that things were tense and we stopped all communication.
At my dad's funeral we put everything in the past and it was like the apartment argument had never happened. Then a couple of weeks after the funeral I get a phone call asking to pay her back for the bills...again. It was then that I realized that our relationship would never work and I stopped all communication with her.
We had to sell my dad's things because no one had the space or need for them. One of these things was his gun case. A couple months after the funeral when all of the money was being put into an account my mom asked my uncle about the gun case, and he said he had given the money to my cousin because I owed her money. That was extremely disappointing to hear but not at all surprising.
And I wish I didn't know her.
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