we were meant to be friends for a much longer time. I went all the way through junior high, high school, even college, without making a friend. I was always alone. I imagined how wonderful it would be to have you by my side. If you couldn’t actually be there, at least we could write to each other. Things would have been a lot different. I could have stood up to life better.” She was silent for a time. “I don’t know why, exactly, but after I entered junior high, school life went downhill. And that made me close in on myself even more. A vicious circle, you could call it.”
