My husband and one of his friends, Eric, discussed this situation the other night and I am still stunned. Eric's wife, Kelly, is not a drama queen. She doesn't play up illnesses or injuries. When she says she's hurt, she's hurt.
Kelly, an avid runner, is in training for a marathon. Her friend, Stacy, decided to join her on runs a few months ago. Kelly thought this was strange, since Stacy had never expressed an interest in running before. But after a few weeks, when Stacy suggested "joining up" and running with another pair of women Stacy knew through work, it became apparent that Stacy wanted to use running as an excuse to spend time with two women Stacy saw as the "cool kids" in the office.
Kelly didn't mind running with the other ladies as they seemed pretty nice, though very focused. But she sort of liked the fact that they set a harder pace and helped her with her endurance. Stacy became less and less friendly toward Kelly and seemed to be working to ingratiate herself with the other women.
Last week, Kelly and the group was running on a park trail. The park looks nice and picturesque, but there have been muggings and other assaults there, so it's not advisable for people to run alone. The other women pulled ahead because Stacy was having trouble with the pace. Kelly stayed with her. Kelly had a missed step about five miles into the ten mile run and severely injured her ankle. It immediately started to swell and she was in a lot of pain.
The other women were nowhere in sight. Rather than staying with Kelly and making sure she got back to her car safely, Stacy told her to just walk back to the car and they would meet her when they were done with their run. Which would take another hour or so.
And then she ran off, leaving Kelly on the running path by herself. Kelly tried to hobble back to her car but it hurt too much to walk. She eventually came across park staff, who got some sort of maintenance golf-cart thing to carry her back to her car. (They offered to call an ambulance, but she thought she'd OK driving herself. Eric was out of town and wasn't able to get to her.) She was able to drive herself to the emergency room and got it x-rayed. One of her bones was fractured.
Stacy called Kelly later that night, irritated that they'd come back to where their cars were parked and Kelly wasn't there. Kelly explained about the x-ray and that she was not happy with Stacy for running off and leaving her injured, on a trail, to fend for herself so she could run off to catch up with the other women. Stacy says she had a good pace going and she wanted to finish her run and dismissed Kelly's feelings with a "it's no big deal!"
The other women called Kelly later, apologizing up and down because they hadn't realized Kelly was hurt and had no idea Stacy had left her behind like that. They said Stacy had told them that Kelly didn't feel like finishing the run and turned around. (Stacy had called them to express her indignation that Kelly was mad at her and the whole story came out.)
Stacy continues to tell everybody who will listen that this wasn't her fault and Kelly has no right to be angry with her. She's tried to brazen her way through Kelly being mad at her by just pretending that the incident never happened and Kelly isn't mad. Kelly is having no part of it. Stacy's even calling Eric to try to get him to "talk some sense" into Kelly.
Kelly is considering a temporary cut direct, but is reluctant because they've been friends for years and this is the first time Stacy has done something like this. Other than ignoring Stacy's phone calls, is there any way Kelly can convince Stacy that she did something wrong and has damaged their friendship?
