and what now...

Have just returned from the annual 8th grade whirlwind tour of DC -- no barfing this year, but it was the soap opera to end all soap operas in terms of romance drama with the kids. And that was a relief -- I actually quit chewing my nails during the trip (am of course back to that now). The morning we left, OFL called me off the bus to tell me that "Our Friend" was discussing employee assistance with the union prez in his office, which made me feel better, and worse.

Because I'm a rat.

I can rationalize this whole thing out the ass, but the feeling remains -- I've really ratted someone out to The Man.

The group that intervened over the winter got together recently when we learned that Our Friend had started doing things that endangered her job and we all agreed that the next step had to be taken and the admins had to know, but one by one they chickened out until literally I was left on the phone with the last one when OFL arrived for the official meeting to discuss a problem... and I had to go face him alone. That was the one specific thing I told the group I did not want to have to do alone, and yet they left me to it anyway.

I was so pissed about that.

I had The Discussion and gave him the facts and avoided the names of those who chose not to appear, and I cried and shook because I was so upset we had gotten to this point, and OFL was understanding and matter-of-fact in terms of where we would go next and how he would approach things -- and what would happen if all else failed. He left and made calls and cancelled meetings, and I went and threw up in the ladies' room. Courage means doing the right thing even though you're a shaky weepy want-to-vomit mess and you do it anyway. I guess sometimes you get to be the pissed-off hoowah hand-me-the-fucking-gun John Wayne/Bruce Willis kind of courageous, but I have a feeling more often than not it's the other kind.

And that just sucks. There's plenty of preparation for doing the right thing when it involves absolutes: save the kid from the pedophile, save the old lady from being run over in the crosswalk, save the nun from the armed robber... but when it comes to saving a dear friend from themselves, when they are so fucking good at talking everyone out of doing anything, when you see the road ahead and it's full of empty bottles and broken dreams... well, there's Lifetime movies that always end up with everyone in the right place, and that's about it. And that shit doesn't apply.

I think right now that courage was involved, but I don't know where this is going, or whether I will look back and wish I'd done something different. I just know that I believed very, very strongly that things had gone far past what I was capable of dealing with, and that I really thought what I did was the best course of action at that time.

I hope it was.
I hope it works.
I hope my friend comes back to me, and I hope she forgives me when she finds out I spoke up.