Philip's Culinary Escape

She had the most gorgeous hair. It wasn't too long, not too short, it was just the right length. And it was curly, which made it look more golden than blonde. Her eyes were blue, but not a clear blue like the sky - they were a darker blue, a deep Mediterranean blue. Her skin was pale, but she could tan well if she wanted to (I knew this because I'd seen her in bikinis). She was lovely and warm and funny, and she was tall - almost as tall as me. She had dimples when she smiled, and I loved that about her.

I didn't love her though, at least not back then. She was my best friend, that's all. We'd known each other since we were kids, and now we were grown up together. We were inseparable in those days - we were never apart for long periods of time, whenever one of us had something going on the other would be there to support them. We went out together, we hung out with each other's families, we did everything together. She didn't seem to mind though - I think she liked having me around as much as I enjoyed being around her - but at the same time she always seemed to have such high standards when it came to men. She always dated these really good looking guys who treated her like gold (she told me), but they always seemed to end up breaking her heart somehow or another.

She hadn't had any luck with men in recent years though. The guy she'd been seeing had dumped her six months ago, which came as no surprise to me because he had seemed like a total douchebag from the moment I'd met him (she asked me for my opinion on him and I told her). In fact I had never felt that way about any of the guys she'd dated over the years - they all seemed really nice at first but then one by one they turned out to be assholes who treated her like crap whenever they got bored of her or whatever. But I didn't let on that I thought they were bad people because I wanted to protect her feelings; after all it was obvious that she liked them enough to date them in the first place so why rain on her parade? Instead I just encouraged her whenever she said she liked someone romantically because for some reason I just couldn't bear to see her getting hurt again. So instead of telling her what I really thought about these guys after dating them for a while (that they were shallow jerks who didn't deserve a girl like Camille), I would just nod along and act supportive instead of honest with my friend and tell her how great every man in her life was as far as I could tell from what she said or what little bit of observation I could do without letting on to my true opinions of them... even though deep down inside, where no one else could see, I hated every single one of them for hurting my friend in some way or another!

And now here we are today - it's been four years since Camille started dating those guys and three since the last heartbreak ended our friendship in one blow... It ended our friendship because despite how hard I tried to not make myself hate those men for hurting Camille, even though deep down inside I was dying inside every time one of them broke up with her, hating them more and more every time they hurt my beautiful friend... Because despite how much it broke my heart watching my best friend get broken hearted over and over again by jerks who didn't deserve someone as kind and sweet as my Camille... Despite how much it hurt watching all these jerks dump Camille until there were no more left for me to watch dumping my precious friend... Despite knowing how much she suffered from their breakups at points where she couldn't even leave bed anymore because she was so upset... Despite knowing how much pain Camille went through at those times... Despite all this pain and suffering Camille went through during those dark times when we weren't friends anymore... There is only one thing that means anything now:

Camille is gone forever!