The girl who cried wolf just got mauled by a bear

She is beautiful; she seems to always get what she wants.  She exaggerates all accounts and her life is a fable in which one must sort out the truths from the inaccuracies she peppers her stories with.  She is passionate and every experience is moving or traumatic.  So when she told me her husband hit her, I took it with a grain of salt and made sure to suggest the logical things like call the cops, leave him, etc. without ever really believing it happened.  She played the perfect wife and mother: doting, charming, compassionate and exuberant as always and again she spoke of physical injustice done against her.  I knew she too was guilty of the same, so in hopes of remaining aloof I offered my sympathies and told her to give him space and get away, but she talked of impossibilities.  Her theatrics lessened and I started to see the girl who was so used to crying wolf for attention, making something out of nothing.  When she called me this morning this girl I saw was scared and shaken and was no longer playing games, there were no wolves, only a bear and she needed help.  Her husband had been arrested for domestic assault and battery because she finally decided enough was enough.  I wasn’t there to fight or scare of the bear but let her know her heroics in facing this challenge was not only accurate, but admirable.  I felt low.  Low that she had to face this alone.  Low, because I had believed she had been making nothing into something when in reality she made something into nothing.  Next time, if anyone calls wolf, I will run to their side, because even if there isn't a wolf, there is a lonely, lost shepherd.