It all started the summer of 19--. You see, I was madly in love with this guy named Matt James. His parents and mine were best friends for over 12 years and they still are. Well anyway, that summer, my family went to Illinois to visit his family. I was so excited because I hadn't seen him in a year. The only way we kept in touch was through letters. You should have read some of the letters; they said things like how he loved me and wanted to be with me all the time. Well, as you can see I was also, in love with him. He was what I considered a very goodlooking young man. He had blond hair and blue eyes. The kind of guy that many girls liked. I really felt that he wouldn't even look at me, a young girl that had so much in common with him and had known him since 1976. Anyway, my father drove us the entire way, while my mother read maps and slept, I listened to my walkman and sang the love songs that came on, to the other 6 kids in the van. The whole way I dreamt of how great it would be to see him, again, and about how much time he would spend with me!
Well, we made it there and everybody's dreams about what was going to happen came true! That is, everybody's except mine. When I got there I found out one slight detail that he never told me about--he had a girlfriend. I was very disappointed, but acted calm and collected. So, his younger brother Chris (14) and I hung out together instead. Besides, even when he was home, without his girlfriend, Matt ignored me.
The next day I felt very lonely, so I went outside and sat on their front door steps as I knew that they were never used. I stayed there all day thinking about how upset I was and about how much of a jerk Matt was! Then I looked up at the sun as it was starting to fade away into the trees. It looked so peaceful, you could see shades of every color just flowing through the clouds. It had reminded me of the times that Matt and I spent together when we were younger. Then I began to wonder about how he really felt, about me. He had never lied to me before, so why would he lie to me now? I watched the sun go down and the stars come up. As the first star decided to shine its light, as naive as I was, I decided to make a wish. "Star light, Star bright, First star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight" I spoke out loud, but soft enough so that no body around could hear me. "I wish that there will be some way that Mr. 100% gorgeous Matt and I would be together forever!, I know that I am asking a lot, but I really like him....." so on and so on. Then, I wondered how I would know so I said "Dear Lord or star please give me some kind of sign that this will happen. Oh, and please don't make it a small sign. Thank you very much, Patricia Kirkegaard."
Well, I waited all night and nothing happened, so I went down to the basement where my bed was and read a book. Then Matt walked down to his bedroom,but on his way he asked me if I wanted to play a game with him and a couple of friends. I said sure. When I went outside, I thought about whether this was the sign, then said "No because it wasn't big enough." Well, we started to play hide-n-go-seek. I hid in a place that I knew nobody would find me. When the person who was "IT" caught somebody, I wouldn't come out because everybody would know where I was hiding, so I just stayed there. Well, then this guy named Tim became "IT" and started to look for me. I could feel my body shake as he got closer and closer. Then he spotted me. It was like a cat and mouse chase. He ran so very fast, and I didn't think that I could out run him, so I thought that I would out fox him. I knew that there was a small place that I could run through in the fence and get to home base before he got me. So I started to run over there. Well, the next thing that I remember was that he almost touched me as he extended out his long arm, but I had turned a corner to fast and landed right in the middle of a grapevine fence and he landed right on top of me! When I got up my face was very numb, I felt it and I noticed some blood on my hand.
When they asked me if I was alright, I told them: "Yes" and walked over towards them. I noticed that they looked at me as if they had just seen a ghost. Then I heard my father yelling at me to get over to the porch (he had been watching the whole time). The guys just stood there in shock while my dad started digging into my face trying to remove as much metal as possible. All I kept saying was: "What kind of sign was that?" as I sat on the porch. My father tried to get all of the metal out of my face, but didn't succeed. At times I felt a slight pain in my face, but it was so numb that it wasn't much until my dad put alcohol and iodine on my face, then tears rolled down my torn-up and completely destroyed face. When I returned home three weeks later the doctors could not get all of it out either!
All that pain for what I thought would make Matt realize that I still existed. That night I told him how I felt and why I was so upset. He comforted me and said he was sorry, he said he "didn't realize that he was ignoring me" and that "he would try to be around me more often". I fell for his lies again, because they next day he brought his girlfriend over and didn't talk to me. To this day I still have metal in my face, and Matt keeps saying that he is sorry, but continues to be a jerk! MAYBE he really does love me. I don't know BUT -- WHAT KIND OF SIGN WAS THAT?????