Dallas, Texas

Silently repeating Pamela's words to herself, Sue Ellen knew right there and then that as much as she had prepared herself for rejection, because she had known it was a possibility with putting herself out there, she hadn't actually expected it to happen, and now that it had, it hurt, and she felt lost. Naively, she had assumed that positive efforts would return positive results, but that didn't seem to be the case now. She had tried and failed to make a friend being herself and ironically, that attempt had failed because of who she was, or more, what she was, her failure wasn't actually related to her specifically, it was a rare negative consequence of her marriage to JR. In other cases, being a Ewing was one of the causes of her isolation from the 'normal' life her old college friends and other same-age peers were living, but the Ewing name itself wasn't what was keeping people away; in this case though, that's exactly what it was. If she had been married to anyone but JR, whether it be a wealthy man like Billy Frampton, or a middle class man like Clint Ogden, Pamela had as much as confirmed they could be friends, but because she was married to JR and was involved in the Ewing family, they couldn't be friends.

"I'll be honest Pamela, it doesn't make complete sense to me. I'm a Ewing, but like you said, you liked me originally and you know I have nothing to do with Ewing Oil, so I don't really see the problem for you and I together. I'm not asking you to come and socialise with JR or Jock, and I'd like to think I have enough personality to fill a conversation with more than whatever it is you think privileged people talk about. I'm sorry that you don't think you can relate to me though, I really don't try to live so differently that I alienate myself from being able to have a conversation with a 'regular' person, and I certainly don't purposely assume that because I'm married to a wealthy man there's no possible way I could understand other people's lives".

"I'm not sure if you realise, but I didn't grow up with a lot of money, nor did I grow up in a perfect home. My daddy was a drinker who left our family when I was just a girl and died not long after, and my mama is a controlling stage mother who made a career out of managing my life, personal and professional. I no longer have a need to, but I'm very capable of creating a budget that stretches every dollar to its maximum use, I can do that with a wardrobe too, not because I have to anymore, but because I didn't always have what I have now. Not to sound tactless, but you might have had a shot at what I have too if you'd given Bobby half a chance, he's a good guy and I really don't think the Barnes/Ewing history weighed on his mind much at all until you brought it up. I believe it's that way for everyone on the Ewing side to be honest, I've heard the story of Ewing Oil's origins a lot recently and while Digger is mentioned, it's not in a nasty way; as far as I can tell, Jock acknowledges the past, but he's not fixated on it. That doesn't mean he didn't wrong your daddy, I don't know whether he did or didn't, I wasn't there, but neither were you…"

"With that being said, I can't completely defend the origin of the Ewing money, but I can and I will defend my husband, and even my father-in-law, regarding the income they generate now. Jock has pushed JR for decades to succeed in building Ewing Oil into the biggest independent oil company in Texas and I don't pretend to understand exactly how they do that, but I do know that the success the company is enjoying now is absolutely the result of that hard work, not just luck or somebody else's misfortune".

"I'm not sure why any of that matters at all though, we've already established that I'm me, and you're you, neither of us are in any way involved in the oil business, and I won't pretend to completely understand your family dynamics, but if I have it in any way correct, we're discussing a conflict which happened decades ago. If anyone should be debating who was right and who was wrong in the situation, it's the men who were involved, your daddy and my father-in-law, not me, not you, not Bobby or JR. There are consequences to every action and we're all living with them, but the fight isn't ours to fight, and from my perspective, there isn't a much of a fight to fight anyway. We live in the now, not the past, it's time to accept that and do that".

"If you don't want to be friends with me then I'll accept that, and if you don't think you can be friends with me then I'll accept that too. I don't personally feel like me being a Ewing is that much of an issue, but you clearly do and I suppose that's just something I'm going to have to accept. I really did ask you to meet me tonight because I thought we had something in common and we had a chance to make something of that though, not because I wanted to start a debate about past wrongs. That's all l had to say, I didn't really plan any further…"

Attempting to sum up her feelings for Pamela, Sue Ellen acknowledged aloud that she might just walk away from the situation without the friend she had hoped to gain, and although she considered asking Pamela to really, truly reconsider, she stopped herself before she went that far. Somewhere inside her, she knew that if she had to beg for a chance at friendship it wasn't a relationship worth pursuing. Her sessions with Doctor Williams had taught her enough to know that being open and honest was important, but so was self-respect, and it was perfectly acceptable to remove herself from a situation where respect wasn't mutual. She had done her best; the ball was in Pamela's court now.

To be continued…