Never Talk to Strangers

My story actually begins four years ago, when I was in seventh grade. I used to be a very active, social and outgoing girl. But life does its thing and turns everything upside down, and slowly I grew to be less and less of what I was. My name is Nelly, and as a kid I was taught to never talk to strangers.

Back then, I had four best friends. We were always together, all five of us. We did not care about what anyone thought of us at school. It was nice, and I felt like I’d love it to continue like this. Before that, I never really had people to call friends. I was the kid who was there for any other lonely kid, and when they found their friend, I was left alone again. It was always like this, and I kind of got used to it. Having actual friends who care for you and enjoy your company was nice.

But then, one day, two of my friends got into a huge fight. To this day, I don’t know what it was about, and frankly, I don’t care. The next thing that happened, our little group split in two, and I chose not to take sides. The fight was between only two of my friends, but the other two chose to side with one girl, and the other one was left by herself. As usual, I was the one to hang with the lonely kid. Though, this time it was completely reasonable – she was my friend, and she was alone. The other members of our former group were together, all three of them. Why would I hang with them more than with her? She was alone. She was also concerned about me, telling me I should be less around her or they might stop talking to me. Nonsense, I thought, and kept being around her just as much.

I did not ditch my other friends; I kept talking to them and seeing them from time to time, just less. Yet, they did not like the fact I was talking to her. I remember how I came up to them one day, and the thing I heard from them was shocking.
“We don’t want shared friends with her.” I couldn’t believe my ears. “You either stay with us, or with her. Your choice.” Of course, I did not have to think this twice, and answered right away that I will stay with her.

I still believe I made the right decision. It’s better to have one real friend than three of those. But this one friend left me all alone when she moved to a different school, out of town. I did not see her for a year, and this one long year I became known as the anti-social girl, the one who sticks to her books.

This was also the year I became sick. I got a virus in my kidneys, and it was getting worse and worse with time, but my mom believed that I felt sick only two years later. Apparently, when your kidneys don’t work properly, your body is not cleaned as it should be, which means gaining weight. It makes your whole body tired, very tired. You look sickly, always. You become very depressed, so depressed you’re ready to give up your life, especially when nobody believes that you’re sick. But can you really blame them? It was like the story “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”. I complained every other day for so long that my head hurts, or that I’m tired.

I stopped going outside of my house, I stopped seeing people. I was always in my room. My skin became pale, and together with my sharp bright-colored eyes, I got a look that startled people at my school. The weight gain was painful to someone like me, who was her whole life skinny, too skinny to her taste. I always wanted to gain some weight, but never managed to. And this time, I just couldn’t understand why it happened. I didn’t eat differently, I never really did any sports, so it couldn’t be it. It was frustrating. My mom and my brother were no help, they called me “fatty”, and it made me feel awful. Me, being called a fatty. How did it come to this?

That was when I started to be on the computer more. You know how parents always tell their kids not to talk to strangers? Well, on the internet, it really doesn’t matter, apparently, as long as you don’t let them know too much about your whereabouts. I got to meet people online, and I befriended a girl named Adelyn. She was from the same country I was, but from a different city. I know, it is very different than to have friends in real-life, but this is what I had, and I enjoyed that. We became good friends; we talked to each other a lot, every day, and every chance we got to. Though, I never really met her. After knowing her for half a year, and hearing about this mystery guy from her school that she likes, I asked her to make a conference conversation on Messenger with him and some other friends, so I could “meet” him.

This guy, Kevin, turned out to be a nice, funny guy. We became friends quickly, as we had a lot in common. Of course, I only saw him as “the guy Adelyn likes”. He was very open about himself with me, and I definitely wanted him to like Adelyn. When I heard from him that he wanted to try to ask some girl out, I felt bad for Adelyn, and I never told her about it. When I heard the girl rejected him, as mean as it sounds, I was very happy, happy for Adelyn. Then, after a whole year of liking Kevin, Adelyn finally confessed her feelings to him. I heard the story twice, once from her and once from him. She was confused, as he did not say anything back to her, no answer at all. He was just shocked, he never realized it, and couldn’t believe that anyone could love someone for so long.

Kevin had this friend that I did not know, who made him do something really stupid. This thing I heard from Adelyn. She sounded so happy that day. She told me Kevin told her today that he likes her too. I would’ve been so happy for her, if I didn’t know it wasn’t true. Instead I felt horrible and had to ask Kevin about this. He told me his friend told him he had “nothing to lose”. This really angered me, and I announced that if he doesn’t tell Adelyn the truth soon, I’m going to do it myself. Though, I really didn’t want to; I thought she might not believe me or think that I’m just being evil. He told her, and she was heartbroken. After a while, still feeling a bit of anger towards Kevin, I had an argument with him. It was stupid, and probably was just influenced by that incident, but I just didn’t want to have anything to do with him any longer. I deleted him, blocked him, and even erased his number from my cellphone. Just like that, he disappeared from my life.