In Which I Dodge a Bullet

[If you can't handle a little scandal, 

this is the part where you need to stop reading. 

Consider yourself warned.
For those of you continuing on with us,
this story has a purpose,
so listen closely.]

Some time early last April, a friend (I won't implicate her by name in our shenanigans) and I took a trip to our favorite hot springs. It was an especially emotional night, the kind of night marked by the insatiable need to drive a long ways away and share a full moon with the full moon. We listened to great songs like "Goodbye Earl" by the Dixie Chicks, read essays out loud from Shauna Niequist's collection Bittersweet, and tried to drink Martinelli's (we didn't have a bottle opener, and it's hard with wet hands). We may have even shed some therapeutic tears. It started out as a really good night. 

I should explain the arrangement of these hot springs. There are two, just hanging out in the middle of a cattle pasture, each surrounded by a fence, maybe to keep the cows out, maybe to make it easier to find each of the hot springs. I'm not really sure. At any rate, the spring closest to the parking lot was occupied by a big group of people having a bonfire. We weren't really in the mood to intrude on their rowdy party, so we traipsed through the mud to the next spring which was about a five-minutes' walk across the pasture, and only slightly smaller and cooler than the first. From there, we could still see the bonfire and make out the people around it, but they were far enough away that we didn't particularly worry about them. After all, what would they want with us and our inferior spring?

As I was saying, we were having a good time. There's nothing like a good, warm dip in the middle of a frosty April night to free yourself of frustrations. We were enjoying the freedom and the beautiful night——there was a huge, full moon above the mountains, so bright we didn't even need our flashlights. In fact, we probably would have been more comfortable, swimming at distances as we were from each other, with a little more cloud cover. All the while, I was keeping watch of the other party, hoping they'd wrap things up pretty soon so we'd be able to go enjoy the bigger, warmer pool.

At some point, however, something happened: I was trying to bust our Martinelli's open on a rock when my friend suddenly said, "Oh my gosh, who is that?" Leaning on the outside of the fence, fully back-lit by the full moon, was the silhouette of a rather burly young man. He wasn't moving, wasn't talking ... just standing there, looking at us. We, of course, were up to our chins in the water since the air was cold, but we were instantly terrified. When we talked about it later, we both admitted that our first instinct was, "This is a demon from another world." He was that creepy, just standing there, not moving, not reacting. 

Call me stupid, but aside from the short-lived fear that this might be some apparition from hell, I didn't think much of my own safety. Instead, I got defensive. I grabbed a towel and started talking to him. I should say talking at him, because he didn't respond. After several minutes of yelling at him for being a creepy pervert who needed to get lost, he finally turned and started walking away. It was only then that I noticed two more guys on the north side of the spring (their view was definitely obscured by the rocks, so don't be scandalized. I really don't think anyone saw anything). Not one of them said a word; they just started slowly walking away until they were about 100 yards from the spring, at which point they started laughing and ran back to their lame bonfire. 

Needless to say, we were not pleased with the Creeper Peepers. We made ourselves decent, collected our possessions, and made a run for it. A pair of flip-flops was sacrificed in the deep mud of our return path (no way were we going near that bonfire group) and we quickly jumped into the car and headed back towards Provo. For the entire drive, we were filled with the pervading unease of those who have narrowly missed a potentially awful experience. My friend was, perhaps, more shaken up about what could have happened; I was mostly preoccupied with a sense of disgust at their behavior. I was angry that these jerks, who couldn't have known what was actually up (so nakie), had intended to harass us, and ended up being total creeps. Ultimately, neither of us were hurt by the experience, although we're certainly more cautious when we chunky dunk nowadays. 

This story is definitely one of my more interesting memories of the year, and I sure enjoy telling it. However, the reason I'm telling you this story is not for the sake of the story itself, but because of its metaphorical value and because I feel the same right now as I did driving away from those hot springs: a little shaken up, sure, but not hurt. Just glad that nothing really happened and that no harm was done to anyone I care about. But most of all, thoroughly disgusted that some people are so selfish, so deceitful, and so malicious in their treatment of others. It's sick. People like that are the reason people like me have trust issues. You'd think you'd be able to avoid them; you'd think you'd be able to just go into your own little private place and be happy and unbothered. Unfortunately, that's not always the case. You can't always just avoid things all on your own. 

There's this great part in Pride and Prejudice where Lizzie has just received the news of Lydia running away with Mr. Wickham. You know the scene. She's crying, wringing her hands, talking to Mr. Darcy, and mourning the terrible trouble that her sister has gotten into by running away with the most despicable womanizer among the whole of her acquaintance. When she's finally able to compose herself, she says:

"I might have prevented all this 

by being open with my sisters." 

How poignant is that? She and Jane had been worrying so much about saving Wickham's (and Darcy's) reputation and giving Wickham the benefit of the doubt that they let someone they loved get sucked into a living nightmare. To be fair, by the end of it, it seems Wickham's drawn the short stick in that relationship because Lydia is cray. But most of us are going to meet our own Mr. Wickhams in our lives, and a good portion of the time, our friends are going to be too polite and too kind to give us the head's up. We're going to go off thinking everything is fine, when the reality is that everything sucks and we just haven't realized it yet. Alas, we won't have Mr. Darcys to save the day when we've sunk ourselves that far into the muck. We're just going to be stuck being abused and abandoned by the dirtbags that don't actually care about us. The way I see it, we're all in trouble unless we do something to stop it. So consider this post a warning, my sweet, darling friends—a warning and a pledge. 

First, a warning that there are wolves in very convincing sheep's clothing. If things seem like they could be too good to be true, there's a very good chance that they're false. Keep your eyes open.

And second, a pledge——that I will never hold my tongue when I've seen the fangs of the wolf beneath that that fluffy, white, harmless-looking pelt. No one deserves an unexpected bite, especially when someone nearby saw it coming from a mile away.

It might sound like I'm condoning gossip, and maybe I am, but for me it comes down to the question of whether I'm going to be polite to people, kind to them, or do right by them. And while what I have to say about certain people may not be polite or kind, I hope that I only do it in trying to do right by you, in trying to protect you from the wolves and Wickhams out there.

It's true, we don't want to be poisonous back-biters who give people undeserved reputations. But frankly, I'd rather give someone a bad reputation (especially if they do deserve it) than watch them wreak emotional havoc on someone I care about. Personally, I praise the heavens above that I had a decent group of friends who took the time to do this for me today, unpleasant though it was to hear. 

Let's do each other a solid, ladies. Let's do right by each other. Please?