I still have trouble fitting in, but I'm older now and childhood is just a memory. Looking back on it now, it all makes perfect sense. It would have been impossible for it not to have happened. It was a year ago when he had walked into the bar early in the evening. I had been sitting there for about fifteen minutes alone, but as usual, not really lonely. It was a small bar in the city and not many people went there. That was why I went there, a solitary little place where I could be alone with my thoughts and my thoughts were pretty much all I had left. I still had my family, but I had moved away thinking this was my new life, a life where I would fit in and where I was not different from others. It hadn’t worked out that way yet, but I still thought it would.

Even though there were no other customers in the bar, he walked right over and sat in the seat next to me. I could feel the cold air from his clothes in the warm room. He ordered a beer and we sat there in silence, two strangers, sitting inches from each other in an otherwise deserted bar on a cold winter evening, not talking, not looking at each other, but inches apart. As time went on I could feel him next to me, but I knew that it would have to be him to say something first. I wanted to be the normal girl, to fit the image. Girls don’t initiate conversations with strangers in bars. But, as usual I couldn’t do it, I had to be different, I couldn’t fit the mold, the peaceful and secure mold that others seemed to enjoy.

“Did you come here hoping to meet someone?”

I said it in an almost confidential tone which didn’t seem to faze him at all.

" I wasn’t hoping to meet someone. I knew I would meet someone. I knew it would be someone like you too. Actually, I knew it would be you exactly.”

I was speechless. I didn’t know how to answer him so we sat there in silence. Neither looking at each other, just sitting. This went on for about ten minutes until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“ How did you know it was going to be me?” I said, knowing that I didn’t know anybody in the city.

“It had to be you, there wasn’t anyone else.”

His tone was calm and sure and somehow began to interest me even though I wasn’t sure what he was really saying. It seemed like every time he talked, I couldn’t answer him. I had felt this inability to answer people before, but it was usually because they had said something mean or just plain stupid. I would just look at them and then walk away. Another great way to win friends.

Once again we sat in silence, but it didn’t seem really uncomfortable. He was still a stranger, but I didn’t feel that way about him totally. Maybe, in some strange way this is how I begin to fit in. Maybe, this person who seemed to be different from others was what I needed. Maybe, this was the change in my life that I had been waiting for. Maybe, this time it would work.

I began to take quick little sidelong glances at him. He seemed about my age, was dressed in a nice winter men’s cloth coat and had what I guess I would call a normal profile. No real warning or danger signs here I thought. But, then again, he didn’t seem to want to look at me, he just looked straight ahead and sipped his beer.

Then, without warning he turned and looked directly at me.

“ My name is Michael and you’re going to have a good night tonight. Tonight you’re going to become a part of something, something important, something big. What do you think?”

His voice was smooth and calm, his enunciation perfect. I was flustered and my heart began to beat a bit faster. Why was I suddenly feeling these school girl emotions? What had this stranger called up in me?

“Okay,” was all I could manage.

“Let’s go,” he said standing up and throwing some bills on the bar.

For some strange reason, I found myself standing and slipping my arms into my coat as he held it up for me. Something in me told me that this was not exactly right, but I wanted to go, I wanted to be a part of something big as he had said. I wanted to change my life and this seemed to be the way to do it at the moment.

He had parked his car right outside the bar and it was still warm inside as he pulled away from the curb.

“It’s an interesting affair, and you’re going to be an interesting part of it. This may actually be the a chance of a lifetime for you.”

“When we get there just follow my clues. Be yourself and everything will fall into place, you’ll see.”

Be myself, that had always been the problem. If I could only once be someone else and not myself. Even if only for a few seconds, then maybe my life would have been different. I had given up thinking those thoughts and now suddenly he was asking me to be myself. It was intriguing, but it also scared me.

That was a year ago and I've been here since then. I still remember the night as if it were yesterday. We pulled up to a building with a small lighted entrance door in a deserted area of the city. The cold hit me as we walked to the door. He pushed the button of what looked like a doorbell and a small slot opened in the door. Apparently, we were okay as the door opened and we went in. The first thing to hit me was the music, loud and boisterous. We went down a few steps and were in a crowded, smoky room with strangly dressed people standing, milling around or dancing to the loud music. He pulled me through the crowd as I began to think that this may have been a mistake.

CHAPTER THREE