Ending?

I have a 19 year old friend. She has an amazing body and is really nice, but man is her love life a train wreck.

At 9:21 last night, as I was growing impatient waiting for a phone call to be returned and cursing myself for having feelings for a woman, I received a text message from my friend. "He cheated on me..."

While this was upsetting news and I was extremely sorry to hear it, I was somewhat relieved, as I now had something to focus my attention on, other than my phone that was clearly not going to ring. Immediately, I phoned her. "What happened?"

"Well on New Year's Eve, we got into a big fight and I broke up with him and said I didn't want to see him anymore and to go call his skanky ass ex, and I guess he did. He didn't tell me about it, though. She did. She's lied about things in the past to try and break us up, but I know she is telling me the truth this time because she knew things that she could not have known about our fight and about a love letter she wrote him and where it was in his apartment." (She had snuck into his apartment in the still of the night to find the alleged letter exactly as described, and to find his apartment mysteriously clean.)

"But he wrote me this letter explaining what happened. It all makes sense when I read his letter." (His letter says that his ex, who would do anything to get him back, had come over and started cleaning his apartment and wouldn't leave. Not wanting my friend - who is also his neighbor - to think he was doing anything with her, he had left his ex at his apartment and went to his mother's place and his friend's. That's how the place had become mysteriously cleaned, and I guess the love letter was just planted.) "Well, ok, maybe I just want it to make sense. I care about him. I want to believe."

"You aren't Mulder."

"What should I do?"

"Are you serious? This is awesome. This guy is 32 years old, is dating a hot little 19 year old, cheating on her and she's calling me trying to figure out what she should do? This guy is a genius."

"Well when you put it that way, it sounds kind of terrible."

As we talk, the pieces start falling into place. He has been doing cocaine, and his friends and ex do cocaine. He's just recently back from rehab, after he got fired from his last job for failing a drug test - claiming it was just marijuana, but who knows. She likes him because he treats her badly and this is more of a challenge than some guy that is just nice to her. "In fact, if he just does what I tell him to do, I totally don't respect him. The worse he treats me, the more I want him." She could be the poster child for the majority of women I have dated or liked in my life. "You should just be an asshole to women from now on, J. That's what we like. It sounds fucked up, and it probably is, but it's the truth."

"You cannot stay with him. I mean, you can, but not only is he dishonest, he's a drug addict. You used to do drugs, you know how destructive they are. It's going to tear apart everything. However, I know you are going to stay."

"He's not an addict. He's only ever done coke the three times I caught him." (They've been dating about three months. Better still, he's been speaking of proposing to her. Scarier still, she would accept.)

"How do you know?"

"I can tell."

"You don't even know who is sleeping with and you're trying to tell me you know when he is doing drugs?"

"I know. I just want to make the right decision, but I don't think I'm strong enough to make the right decision. I didn't used to be like this. I used to date decent guys. I swear, women all start out good, and then we get our hearts broken and we end up as damaged goods."

"I'm told some women grow out of it."

"I sure hope I grow out of this."

Another call comes through on her end. I wait as she checks call waiting. "J, it's my best friend. She says if I don't talk to her right now, she is going to call her loser ex and she doesn't want to do that. Let me call you back."

"Good luck."

So at 1:09 in the morning, I received a follow-up phone call. She had conclusive proof of who had been lying to her. My question to all of you is, do you think it was the cocaine addict ex girlfriend who is extremely jealous and would stop at practically nothing to get her man back or was it the drug addict boyfriend, recently out of rehab, and swearing that he is trying to turn his life around?

I'll give you a hint - she was taking him back.