a story

written February 2013

sometimes in order to really get to know a person and the reason they are who they are now, you have to understand where they came from. 

This is a story of a little girl with a splattering of freckles and eyes the color of a cold sea. She was only 17 years old and had the whole world at her fingertips, but she didn’t even know it. She had one of those faces that rarely smiled, but when she did, she had the kind of smile that said, “You don’t know me, and you never will.” And she was happy. At least she tried to be.

She tried to stay as anonymous as she could in high school. She was only in it to get out. Sure, she had friends, but not the kind she wanted. Most of them were fair-weather, and she was alright with that. Her really good friends she never got to see because of the busyness of peoples’ lives. But no one is really alright without any real friends. And one time she thought she got really lucky. She made a friend and they were inseparable. This little girl had walls of steel built around her heart, but the secret was that it only took one blow to bring them all down. Once she finally felt like she could trust someone, she gave them everything she could; her trust, her secrets, and the things she made with her own hands.

She believed the best of her friend. She believed that her friend was looking out for her the same way that she was looking out for her friend. She thought this new friend was always looking out for her, but she was wrong. She was very, very wrong.

The little girl loved her friend even though it was very hard because she believed it was hard for anyone to love her at all. And she loved her friend because she felt like she could never repay her friend for all she had done for her. Her friend had gotten her a job, hung out with her when no one else would, and made her feel like she wasn’t doing everything on her own anymore, and the little girl thought she owed her friend so much.

And the little girl and her friend were happy. They laughed and laughed. They went on adventures and had inside jokes. They loved the same things, and got by alright. Until the little girl started learning about the things that her friend was saying behind her back to her coworkers and even to the parents of the children that they watched. And then the little girl’s friend started telling the little girl that certain people didn’t like her. Her friend told her all these mean things to her face. She didn’t even try to hide it.

And then the little girl found herself apologizing to her friend all of the time for things she hadn’t even done because that was the only way her friend would talk to her. And the little girl was very, very sad, but she didn’t even realize it because she wanted to stay friends with her friend, and for some reason she felt like it was her fault, and she would remember all of the really good times they had had. But it was not her fault. And the little girl got sick every weekend from all of her hurt. And the little girl started pushing everyone else away; she wasn’t able to love other people very well anymore. And the little girl forgot all about her other really good friends that she didn’t see every day. And the little girl couldn’t really get away from this bad friend because they worked together, had school together, and saw each other every day.

It wasn’t until that summer when the little girl started spending more time with her other true friends when she realized how much she missed them. She missed them terribly. She realized that she was missing the happiness that used to be in her life. And she realized that no matter how hard she tried, some people are mean. And no matter how hard she tried to love someone, some people are incapable of loving back. But she also learned that these people need love the most, but it’s also important if you see someone drowning to not let them drag you down with them.

The little girl got out of that bad, bad place. And she made some new friends. All of these friends were just as scared as her; just as terrified of this new place they were going to spend their lives. And thanks to a merciful and loving Father, the little girl’s capacity to love grew at least three times that day. And the little girl still loved her friend, but she decided to no longer let people walk all over her because manners and politeness cost nothing. And the little girl was happy. She was still a little guarded and broken, but she was fixing, and she was inconceivably happy.