Last night I got a call out of the Blue Velvet (a martini bar that the college crowd thinks is upper class but its really just a theme bar) down town going WAAAAYYY out to the west side of town. I pull up, a guy comes over to my window and knocks, and a girl gets in the back seat. This is confusing to me, since the name on my computer says “Dave”.

Dave tells me that he needs me to get this girl home. He hands me $22, gives me his cell phone number in case I need a credit card to pay the rest, and apologizes over and over. The girl in the back seat is weeping the whole time, pulling on his shirt, and begging him not to do this.

DRUNK SAD GIRL ATTACK GOGOGO!

So the whole way to her house she’s sobbing, barely able to talk, drunk, throwing herself around in the back of my cab, and snuffling a lot (this part is kinda gross because I can tell she needs a tissue, but I have none to give her). I get out of her that the man- Dave- was her ex-boyfriend who broke up with her two months ago. She cannot talk without sobbing the words out, so its kind of hard to interpret things. I coo at her, tell her things will be better tomorrow after some sleep, but she insists that she needs to show Dave how much he hurt her. Because he doesn’t know… “HOW COULD HE JUST THROW ME IN A CAB AND GET RID OF ME?!” I figured he just wanted to get insane drunk girl home safely.

She tries to convince me to drop her off at his house so she can wait for him to show him how much he hurt her. I tell her, “No, I was hired to take you to your home, the trip is already paid for.” She offers to pay me more… and I’m tempted, but this girl seriously needed to get her ass home and in bed.

I make more cooing noises, tell her things will be alright, she tells me I’m such a sweet girl, etc. She apologizes STILL sobbing, I can’t make out words well, and she has snot running down her face. Yuck.

But all the way to her house, WAAAAAAYYYYY out on the west side, I’m thinking that everyone’s been in her shoes. I felt incredibly old and sad, because I’d been in her situation and burdened myself on other people, and been in the situation of the guy. Its hard when you know you’re hurting someone so bad and you just want to take care of them. But you have to be strong because the breakup needs to happen for some reason or another, and you have to be the one with the spine. You have to be the one that gets the finger pointed at, you have to be the one to be the target of scathing comments, rumors, snickers, harsh words, and bleeding hearts. And you have to shoulder it gracefully, because you KNOW how much you hurt this other person, and you used to care for them so much, and probably still do… and you feel incredibly guilty about it.

I dropped the girl off at her place, made sure I didn’t voice that her ex probably knows how much he hurt her, because that’d only flare things up… and after she got inside I called the number the guy in the beginning gave me.

I let him know that the money he gave me was barely enough, but the girl gave me a $2 tip. I let him know she was at her house and not at his, like she wanted me to take her to. I did my best to kinda put him at ease, because I knew he was just trying to take care of her and the situation as gracefully as possible.  He was also very polite to me in the beginning, and a kindness deserves kindness in return.