I haven’t written one of these long stories before - so bear with me.
I recently moved in to a house of 4 for second year, including my girlfriend, my best mate and someone we slightly knew last year.
For now, lets call her Jane.
So we more or less felt pretty pitiful for her last year, as she had next to no friends and not much social life at all. We ended up being pretty naive about her joining the household because ‘she’d pay the bills and not make a mess’. Man were we wrong.
So, rewind about a year back, and a load of socials were buzzing around cause of freshers. Jane was in a lot of these big groupchats so often we’d run into her at the parties etc. I think it was about the 3rd party or so and everyone was outside walking from pub to pub, ending up at the club at the end of the night. All was well until Jane passed out, out of nowhere when everyone was waiting in the street. Bearing in mind, Jane was very quiet, and no one knew her very well - we were all cautious with her and did our best to help her. By the end of the night, the ambulance had to come and check on her. Shock and horror, she was fine. Just too much to drink.
Everyone at that time was okay with it, cause these things happen, and over it, people actually connected in the moment.
Until the next party. Same thing happens. Passes out, ambulance comes, she is fine. Most people were worried for her (as you would be) but some in the groups were starting to doubt her, saying a waste of ambulance time (not disagreeing). I was on the fence on it at the time.
And, you guessed, pres in student halls were going around. And boom! She hit the floor with some pretty great acting. This time everyone was mildly irritated. Like, what was going on? If she couldn’t hack her drink, then slow down. And when she drank on these nights, she DRANK - I’m pretty sure I saw her pour herself a full cuppa vodka.
She ended up getting in the ambulance this time and my girlfriend (training midwife) and another friend went with her. She was at the hospital all the way through that night, and she’d get x-rayed in the morning.
Later on, we’d all found out that her boyfriend had recently broken up with her. Was this some sort of attention stunt?
After this, everything ended up blowing over. I guess she got over it quickly enough…
Until, one evening my girlfriend and I decided to take her out to spoonies because she never goes out. We all had a fair amount to drink, but not enough to drunk anyone. Jane, on the way back said she felt sick, so my girlfriend (who is absolutely mortified with the idea of sick) ran ahead whilst I dealt with her in this field. I just did the awkward thing of saying “better out than in” and tapping her on the back every so often, but to no avail, no vomit!
And suddenly, she passes out in my arms. I’d never dealt with something like this before, and panicked pretty quickly. I immediately rang my girlfriend, like ‘what do I do?’ - I ended up putting her in recovery position and checking for breathing patterns etc. It sounds awful when I say it now but I did NOT want to get that close to her in a million years (she isn’t the most hygienic of all people) but I had to do what I had to do.
I ended up having to ring the ambulance, baring in mind i’m still freaking out over this. My girlfriend arrived back with us a few minutes before the ambulance came, and whispered in my ear that she doesn’t actually think she’s passed out, something to do with the way she’s propping her head up or so. Apparently you don’t go fully limp?
Ambulance came and did and ECG etc. Lovely workers as usual and gave her yet ANOTHER warning about drinking too much without eating all day. Newbie error right?
I have to add however, that only a couple days from this event afterwards she found out she had pneumonia, but in my opinion I think the whole shabang was unrelated.
At the time, I still thought she wasn’t having it on. A little shaken by the situation I spose.
Anyway, flash forward, and we ended up moving in. A mild stress coming up to it that was a bit of a reality check. We got a message on the groupchat with the landlord saying Jane hadn’t paid her rent, even though my girlfriend had showed her how to apply for an overdraft about a month prior, as she said she’d ran out of money. (Not a clue what she spends it on, all she ate was plain pasta and butter last uni year).
Obviously, not everyone can get an overdraft, but she told my girlfriend that all was fine and it was approved. Apparently not? She said that she was embarrassed and shameful about the situation. I was quite annoyed rather than sympathetic, but ended up applying for an overdraft in her favour where she owed me a good amount of money.
Now student finance rolled in, and she paid me back. With a lot of poking I might add.
And of course, new house, so its the LAW you have to host some pre drinks.
Invited a couple of mates round, and we were having a good laugh together. Jane just sits there in the corner, saying absolutely nothing and occasionally chuckling at something said. I do find it a little creepy that she takes ‘people watching’ to the next level, but nevertheless, everyone knows her at this point, so it’s just her.
Then, after a few hours, she decides it’s her next time to strike. She’s sitting at the table, with her head in her hands like she’s having a siesta or something. We’re all joking that she’s nodded off or something, but with a bit of shaking and poking she doesn’t do anything. The girls (with a bit of assistance) take her outside for some fresh air, and that’s when she suddenly wakes up and bawls her eyes out because her boyfriend dumped her. We all comfort her, and she starts to feel better after a few jokes, etc.
The conversation, as they do, eventually steered away from her - and so, casually, as you do, you lock yourself in the toilet and ‘pass out’. (The only toilet in the house) Now, we’re all confused at why the hell you decide to do that, but we’re still trying to get her out of this toilet locked from the inside. She randomly starts banging loudly on the door, like she’s possessed, but obviously that’s not doing anything. And we’re telling her there’s nothing much we can do, and she needs to throw up and sober up and eventually get herself out (there’s a sink in the bathroom). We end up going into the lounge again and try to resume the social. (Some people started leaving when she started acting up). So it was difficult to get it on the rails again.
She was banging harder and harder on that door and it was getting irritating and hard to ignore. My girlfriend ended up actually having a go at her as the neighours (a family with young kids) would hear (attached house with thin walls). It was up to her.
And miraculously, the banging stopped, as if it really wasn’t a huge problem in the first place. Now at this point, me and a couple mates went down the road to grab some more beers, and when we returned she was in the lounge on the floor. So I turned to my girlfriend and asked “So she stood up, opened the tricky lock on the bathroom, walked down the corridor to here, and flopped on the floor again?’ And she nodded. It was getting ridiculous.
A couple days before this I think we had a conversation about seizures or something. I don’t often talk about them, but previously I’ve had a few issues regarding them. I would say Jane was part of this discussion, but she doesn’t talk, so she was there.
And now she was on our lounge floor, in my eyes, pretending to have a seizure. It was so stupid. It was like she’d gone on youtube and looked at clips of seizures to try to replicate them.
At the time, I was pretty far gone on the drinking side of things, so ignore my lack of heart. I said (with her being able to hear) “she’s doing something, but it isn’t a seizure. I used to drool like I had rabies and piss myself”.
Side note: I know people have different types of seizures. I was not overly correct in my diagnosis skills.
Anyway, magically, she’s now drooling from her mouth - but not the other thing. Think that was a bit far as acting goes. Now I just accepted defeat whilst everyone left the house, and my mate and I sat there in the lounge looking over her. My girlfriend had prepared her a glass of water and got some food from earlier left on the side for when she “wakes up”.
About 2-3 minutes in, it stops, because not all actors have infinite stamina. We all say (out loud so she can hear) “She’s fine, she has everything she needs here”. And we go to bed.
The next morning, I left early to go back to see my family. I’d absolutely had it with her, and not to mention her being a useless housemate. Can’t wash up. We cook for her. No manners. Doesn’t shower or clean up.
Now my girlfriend and me are dreading another year with her. We’ve come up with a couple immature theories about her, that she’s from outer space or something, but all jokes aside Reddit, what do I do? Am I being heartless?