You've probably experienced that one moment where you meet someone new. It's like completely starting over after finishing a 5 year test. It's like erasing your memory of what you learned before and starting fresh and refilling.
So we met up one day. We started talking and I realized how foolish I was being this whole time. I didn't even know her name! And she didn't know mine either so I started that conversation.
"So...what's your name?" I asked, politely enough as if saying it to a queen.
"Um....beth," she mumbled as I tried to understand.
"Elisabeth?" I asked, trying to figure her 1000-piece-puzzle out.
"Yes...yours?" she asked me with a timid, but bright look on her face.
"Veronica and I am 17 years old," I answered, a little too matter of factly. It didn't seem like she cared in the slightest bit though. I could tell that I was getting impatient.
So we talked on. Then I got impatient with her and told her to go play on the playground but she shook her head.
"I fear social interaction," she told me. This was the very first full sentence she was talking to me with.
"Then why do you talk to me?" I asked, getting ahead of myself with my impatientness. Then she started running.
I must've been leading her to tell me something. Like in a court case when the opposing side has to cross-examine the witness. They always seem to lead the witness into saying what they want them to say. I did that and I felt horrible about it.
"Elisabeth, wait! I'm sorry please come back!" I yelled after her. She heard me but she just didn't want to come back and I could totally understand why.
So the next night, all I was doing is sitting on the couch, watching tv, and feeling sorry for myself. Then the phone started ringing. I walked over and picked it up.
It was Elisabeth's mom.
"Is Elisabeth with you?" she asked, sounding excruciatingly stressed and worried.
"Why? Is she not with you?!" I screamed that. I just made everything more hectic.
"I'm coming over," I told her and didn't expect an answer.
Ok. So I'm helping Elisabeth's mom find Elisabeth. I arrived at their home, got out of my car, and knocked on the door. The mother answered it with a concerned look on her face. I asked her permission to look around and if she could point me to Elisabeth's room. She politely, but silently pointed me in the direction to her room.
"Upstairs, third door to the left," she told me, hoping that would help me.
I opened the third door to the left and started to look around. I looked underneath her bed, under her desk, then I opened the closet. She was standing there with a glisten in her eyes that made me cry. The glisten told me everything she was afraid of, all her insecurities, all her worries. I now knew how she felt when I asked her the question that made her run. She felt more stressed and pressured more than anything because she didn't have an answer.
"I know now and I'm incredibly sorry," I told her, in the most sincere way possible.
"I don't care about that...incredibly tragic thing happened," she told me and I became very interested in the subject.
