The last time I saw her, she had a chip on her shoulder. She didn’t want anything to do with me. She didn’t want to talk to me; she didn’t even want to look at me. There was nothing the two of us had in common anymore.
That was okay by me because she had changed. She wasn’t the person I became friends with. Once we got to high school, she only cared about being popular and having a lot of friends. That didn’t include me because I was a bit of a loner. I didn’t care about popularity. I just wanted to survive the next four years of my life.
So when she stopped talking to me, I made a few new friends. I made better friends. They didn’t care what I did and the fact that I didn’t have a lot of friends. They liked me for who I was and they enjoyed my company… and I enjoyed theirs.
She was jealous of this, of course. However, she should have never ditched me. If she was nicer to me, then I would still be friends with her. I’m glad I’m not friends with her anymore, though. It’s made my life so much easier.
The last time I saw her, she was walking across the stage to get her high school diploma out of the principal’s hands. Once she left the stage, waving the diploma in the air to the audience, she disappeared into the crowd of our classmates and I hadn’t seen her since.
Now it’s four years later and here I am at a restaurant. She’s waiting on the table across from mine. I don’t think she’s seen me, but I knew she was going to end up being my waitress. Life was funny like that. You run into people you haven’t seen or talked to in a long time. You run into people who you don’t want to see ever again.
I remember she wanted to be a nurse. Nurses make good money. That was her reasoning. It wasn’t because she wanted to help people get better; it was because she wanted a lot of money. She always thought she was born to get rich, buy a big mansion, and live a luxurious life. She would be famous because she was so rich and people would adore her. They weren’t very good reasons, but it was motivation enough for her.
Now here she was… a waitress at a low-class restaurant.
“Oh. Hi.” She stood by my table breaking me out of my thoughts.
“Hi.” I smiled trying to seem pleasant. She looked like a bundle of nerves now that I was sitting right before her again. Four years is a long time.
“So how have you been?” I asked.
“Fine.” She muttered.
“Are you still in school to be a nurse?” I wondered being nosy.
She shook her head. “I didn’t get into the school I wanted. So I didn’t go to college.”
I wanted to laugh, but I held it in. She was always super smart in school that I was surprised she didn’t get into every college she applied to. I wasn’t surprised by the fact that she quit the moment something didn’t go her way. She was always treated like a princess by her parents. She had never known the word “no” and never learned how to deal with life when it threw lemons your way.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” I said.
“What have you been up to?” she wondered.
“Oh, I have a full-time job in my career field. Now that I just graduated, I’ll be getting a pay raise. I also started my own online shop and that’s going really well, too. Things are great.” I smiled. Was it wrong of me to rub it in like this?
“That’s… good.” She muttered. She turned to walk away.
“Oh, wait.” I called her back.
She turned and stared at me.
“You didn’t take my order.” I reminded her.
