An untitled chapter from the past

I always knew that one day she’d contact me. No, not in any vain, self-absorbed sort of way, but that it’s a small, microscopic digital world despite its vastness, and we still have people in common. No matter how many online pseudonyms I have (I can think of three off the top of my head), I just knew that bumping into one avatar would eventually lead to her.

She found me. I wasn’t looking forward to being found, but, feeling its inevitability, I was curious. Where was she, how had she changed, how had she not, what was she doing? I admit that I wanted to know, but not knowing was more comfortable. Not knowing meant that I could keep the feelings I associate with her compartmentalized in the past.

We were more than best friends—I thought we were like sisters. We lived together in one room and coordinated our class schedules to match. For years. And then, one day, she left. Completely. She moved out, she quit taking classes with me, she was “busy” when I’d try to talk to her, and she gained an entourage of new friends, none of whom I knew yet they seemed to know all about me.

She broke my heart. How do you go from sisters to enemies in the span of time it takes to move out of a dorm room? How do you share everything, and then, abruptly, nothing?

I had some sense of closure about six months after she disappeared when a mutual friend told me, “This is between y’all, and I’m not gettin’ in the middle of it, but this is what she told me.” My friend shared a few sentences about a misunderstanding, something changeable and repairable had she not just walked away from what we had built together. When my friend told me why she left, I wanted to go shake her and say, “That’s it? You never even gave me the chance to fix it. You never told me something was wrong, and it was something so simple. I’d have changed myself a hundred times over to have fixed it if you had told me.”

It’s been more than ten years, but I remember every detail of the conversation with my friend about why she left. And, here she was Thursday morning, knocking on my digital front door. All those years of knowing I’d see her again, and, poof, she showed up as I drank my coffee and got ready for work.

I thought about ignoring her. I thought about blocking her. I thought about what I really wanted to say to her. And I ended up with the curious side of me peeking around the door. I let her in, just to see. “Hi, I’m a librarian now. We have a cat and a dog. I still make jewelry. Tell me about you?”

I haven’t heard back from her yet—I do recognize that not everyone is quite so enslaved to their computers as me—but I can’t wait for the response. I know from glancing at her stats that she lives in our hometown. I know she looks like she hasn’t aged a day, or she’s using an old photo. I’m laughing now; I know she’s not online nearly as much as I am since I haven’t had a reply from her.

But what happens when I do get the answer? Curiosity satisfied, ignore her benignly? Grudge not lifted, blackball her from my IP? Or be honest?

My best friend says that I have nothing to lose. My friend says that I should tell her she broke my heart, not expecting an apology or an answer, but just putting the truth out there so it’s in the open. I’m leaning more and more toward honesty. Those years ago, I never got to tell her how bad she hurt me. I gave myself some peace over it, eventually, saying to myself it was her problem that she couldn’t be honest with me in the first place. I don’t want to hurt her, don’t want to slash back, but I want her to know that she killed me when she left me like that. I never understood why she destroyed a relationship I thought was so mutually valuable.

I’ve been thinking about what I would blog about her from the moment she showed up. Wondering all day what would eventually bubble up out of me from all the confused words that could be said. And it’s this. This is what I have to say:

Brook, everything in my life I owe to you. With you as my sister through the first half of college, I was driven, and I learned to succeed academically instead of just coast. With you, for the first time, I felt real intellectual accomplishment. I went on to get two Master’s degrees, and I work at a private college. Thank you.

With one exception, all my dearest friends from college, the only people from school I’ve kept in touch with, they all came into my life after you left me. Thank you.

And because of all the new people in my life after you left, I met my future husband. I don’t even know how to say “Thank you” enough for him.

Brook, because of you, I learned, I grew, I loved. I always thought of our split with such regret, but, today, after all these years of waiting for you to find me, I see how many gifts you gave me even in your absence.

Honestly, I’ll never forgive you, and I can’t foresee my having anything but the most superficial interest in your life, but I’m not angry. I can’t even believe it of me, but I’m not angry. I feel regret and grief still, like I always have, but, as of today, I don’t resent you anymore. And I feel liberated by not being angry. You gave me liberation, Brook. Thank you.