Spiderwebs 1
A raw, unfiltered memoir of trauma, betrayal, motherhood, and healing — told in chapters that sting, bleed, and set you free. ~Are You Fucking Kidding Me!~
🕸️ Author’s Note & Disclaimer
This story is based on real events from my life. Names and some identifying details have been changed for privacy. The narrative reflects my personal memories and perspective, which may differ from others’ recollections.
This memoir contains discussions of trauma, addiction, and abuse. Reader discretion is advised.
Sometimes, the people closest to you aren’t tangled in your web — they are the web.
The many times life’s lessons have proven to show how it is painfully clear one cannot expect others to act in such a manner as you would yourself. You cannot expect the same outcome to situations, and any disappointment to the truth is only the fault of your own. I have learned to accept that people are people, and what seems to make sense in their thought process validates their actions and feelings to themselves. Nobody is wrong to feel how they feel—for it is a fact that we feel. However, our feelings are not necessarily a fact.
So I’ve decided to take a collaboration of some of my darkest moments and collectively have it accessible for everyone’s reading pleasure. Therefore, starting somewhere in the middle and gradually expanding to the beginning at some point. I figure you can thank George Lucas for allowing me to realize you can pretty much place the beginning at any given time or point in the story.
Narcissism
Betrayal
Addiction
Deception
Saturday mornings were memorable. It was always the start of a headache from the night before and your best friend screeching through the driveway to pick you up for work. As one of the morning anthems played from Gwen Stefani’s “Don’t Speak” album, coffee and cigarettes were the only things on our minds before entering the place we so-called work.
Her rickety compact car was usually the capable source of transportation for most of our ventures, being my car was constantly undergoing some form of maintenance. The opposites of attraction defined the friendship we seemed to obtain, and somehow, it seemed to work.
Macey was of European descent but extremely Americanized. Heavy coffee drinker, with a cigarette toggling between her fingers every chance she could get. She reminded me of a scene in Sixteen Candles when Grandma Helen was smoking a cigarette while cooking breakfast. Keeping the ash in complete formation during a state of emergency or any given catastrophic event was a god-given talent only few can display—and she won the gold every time.
Her exact point of origin was difficult to pinpoint. It was the perfect scenario of her existence solely being “just some girlfriend.” Dating a friend of a friend of a friend… later, a friend of a friend, until ultimately it became simply dating one of my good friends. She found herself in the after-work groups and the sports bar gatherings we’d all like to congregate at. When there was a good game or fight playing on Pay-Per-View, we all found ourselves together at local spots enjoying drinks, sloppy chicken wings, rooting, and talking smack about the opposing teams.
All great memories of the beginnings of so many friendships that were destined for failure at some point—merely because we were typical young adults who thought we had life figured out. We never realized people are who they are, not who they seem to be.
Macey found herself in my cypher—my inner circle—doing favors and offering help when she could. Being that she was dating a friend, it felt only respectful to entertain conversations she might want to engage in. Macey loved a good drink at the end of the day to deflate from the daily stress of work.
Any given Sunday, there’d be a cracked bottle of rum and a case of Bud Light tucked away in the fridge, while football commentaries filled the air. Bland supermarket potato salad in plastic containers, and the notorious ranch chip dip that could make any Lays taste worthy. She’d dump a pound of the driest broccoli and carrots into a sectional NFL chip n’ dip party platter—with a football-shaped central dip bowl specifically for blue cheese dressing.
Her world had no saturation. Everything was dried out, burnt, or shriveled. She was older, so I assumed there was more dehydration in places I’d never want or need to know. She was the first watered-down younger version of what Magda from There’s Something About Mary probably looked like in her prime—but more bird-like. We nicknamed her Woodstalk because she resembled the bird in Charlie Brown. It matched her dry blonde hair and split ends that looked like she’d stuck a fork in a socket.
She had this 80s blow-dried hair wave that tried to channel Charlie’s Angels, but on a low budget—lacking bounce, shine, and enough hair to pull it off. The end result? A dry, frizzed-out nightmare.
Outside looking in, she was all layers. And you wonder—was it just her look? Or a reflection of her life?
She’d suffocate her pores in clay-colored sludge—tribal-level foundation. Her orange-tan never blended with her supposed olive tone, and she sculpted her lashes with so much black mascara they looked like 5 thick spider legs per eye. No bird was complete without a beak—and her nose sealed the resemblance.
This chaotic ritual happened every morning, with a cup of coffee and a pack of cigarettes. But it never phased me. Oddly, I looked past all of it. I’m not even sure if we had much in common—or if she simply mirrored me. But somehow, it worked. She became like family.
She learned my routines. She helped me out. She never questioned my parenting. She loved my daughter, Destiny, and that meant everything.
Destiny was my reason for breathing—my heart, my hope, my whole world. She gave meaning to the madness. And Macey… she inserted herself gently, carefully. She provided relief—like a friend should. And for a while, I believed she really was.
But webs aren’t spun overnight.
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