My neighbor’s husband was beating her. Like straight up beating her. They had a 2-year-old at the time, and I knew she was a stay at home mom. So one day I had a weekday off work, went over with a cake, and made her my best friend. At the time she had a broken arm and two huge black eyes. She didn’t have any friends as she wasn’t from the area.
I didn’t call the police as I was young and scared and didn’t know what to do. I was 18 at the time and had just moved to the city. One of the most dangerous cities in the country. I was worried that their kid would get taken away, or that he would know it was me and try to beat me up.
I’m a girl, and I’m not a sizable one. I figured it would be easier for her for me to just be someone to talk to talk to and she could decide if she wanted to call the police or not. When I went over that day I just the new neighbor wanting to make friends (this happened when I had lived in the building about 3 weeks), I didn’t even mention her eyes or cast that day. We just sat around and giggled and compared Archie Comic collections. We legit became best friends in a matter of hours.
I helped her with her kid, I helped her dump him, I helped her move back to her home province, and we’re still best friend to this day.
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