Dating : Girls on a Train

I found a seat near a phone charger on the train to NYC when I heard my name from the other side of the car. “Dee Dee? Is that you?”, a vaguely familiar voice asked.

I looked up to greet my middle and high school acquaintance with a faint smile.

“Hey Sarah, how you been it’s been so long,” I replied quietly. I was dead tired from waking up at 4 am to catch this train, and I looked forward to using the two-hour commute to get some sleep in, but Sarah positioned herself across from me, and we started talking.

Sarah told me she’s working in NYC at a finance job she hates, will get her the experience she needed to work at a much larger financial institution. I mention I just finished earning a bachelors degree in fashion and started a role in the industry.

“But isn’t the fashion industry so catty?”, she inquired.

At that moment, I’m brought back to the seventh grade, when Sarah pulled me aside during lunch to ask me not to sit at her table anymore.

“It’s nothing personal,” she told me with a smirk on her face. “But my friend moved back home, and we need to make room for her, plus you’re really quiet and don’t talk to anyone. Ugh, I feel so bad!!!”

And yet, she’s still smirking.

Later, my dad found me sitting in my brothers’ room alone with my head down. I’m crying. He sits down next to me. “Is everything okay?” he asked. I told him I’m fine even though I’m not. I kept telling him I’m fine until he relents and leaves me alone.

I looked at Sarah, and with a smile “It’s actually not that bad, I’ve dealt with enough cattiness to learn you can’t take things too personally.”