Meant to Be by Chloe Peterson

Author:Chloe Peterson [Peterson, Chloe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: WBPM

22

Julia

I turned up the radio in my car, eased back into my seat and let the smooth tone of the female jazz singer's voice soothe my frayed nerves. It was a half-hour drive to my cousin George’s house, which left me with plenty of time to think.

When Faith had said that meeting my friends was her biggest fear, a part of me had downplayed her words. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand how hard meeting new people was for Faith. The loss of her arm would always make that experience a difficult one.

I simply underestimated how scared she truly was.

On Saturday, we spent the day happily with Max and Grover. On Sunday, Faith had asked for the day to herself to do some more work on her plan. Seeing as we’d spent all of Saturday together, I didn’t mind. I got caught up on a bunch of house chores that I had neglected.

But on Monday, I realized that meeting my friends was something that Faith feared to her core.

Faith was distracted, irritable, and moody. She apologized, but it was like she couldn’t help herself. When I asked what was going on, she mentioned the pressure of meeting my friends. I made sure to tell her that there was nothing any of them could say that would push me away from her. She spoke of silent judgment that might be in their eyes, and comments that might be made. Although I assured her that I did not associate with judgmental people, she insisted that one never knew how people would react. I had no comeback for that and all I could do was tell her that no one could push her away from me.

That had been my refrain over the past two days, and I could tell that Faith was getting annoyed with it. But what else could I say?

This morning, she calmly told me to call the hang out off, because she wasn’t ready to meet my friends. I felt a mixture of relief and disappointment. On the one hand, it meant that the mini hell I’d been living in would be over. I was tired of walking on eggshells around Faith.

On the other hand, I was disappointed that she wouldn’t get to meet my friends. I knew that Faith was working through her process and that it would take as long as it needed to. But a part of me wanted to force her to see that the world really wasn’t as bad as she thought it was. At least not the people I associated with.

I calmly told her that I understood her decision. She looked at me with exhausted eyes and asked if I was disappointed in her. That broke my heart. I told her nothing she could ever do would disappoint me and acknowledged how great she’d done to even set up a date to meet my friends.

Faith had low energy all day but wanted to continue with our lessons. Then, before I left, she told me not to cancel the meet up.

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