Lightning Struck Twice, and

TWICE I CLOSED MY EYES by oreo the cookie

Have you ever seen lightning strike twice in one place? Odds are, probably not. The chances of that happening are 1 in 9 million. Apparently, though, the mechanics are more complicated than that. Lightning follows the path of least resistance through the air; therefore, it’s more likely that lightning will follow through the original channel the first bolt went through, rather than going through a different route. Regardless, it’s a rare phenomenon. You even could call it a miracle, if you’re a “glass half-full” type of person. 1 in 9 million. I wonder what the odds of meeting her were. ~~~ It’s not a nice story. It’s not a drama, or a romcom, or one of those 3rd-rate slow-burn trash fics that you binge at 3 AM while under your blankets, unable to fall asleep. It’s not really a story of anything, really. There’s no hero, no girl, and certainly no riding off into the shining sunset happily ever after. If there was, I wouldn’t be writing it, trying to find closure in such an laughable way. … At the end of the day, it’s just a pointless, pathetic story. It’s sad and meaningless and forgettable, like a lot of everything else in life. But I need to tell it. I need to get it off my mind, because I can’t get it off my mind. I’ve given up on trying to figure this mess out because I can’t. I’m tired and desperate and it’s 12 in the morning, so I’m just going to write.

Like most stories, this story begins with a man and a woman. Well, teenagers, really. And like most stories that fall into this type of cliche, they don’t know each other, and they don’t intend to–No. Let’s start over. There’s a boy and a girl. The boy is your typical high school slacker, the average student coasting his day-to-day life with shallow entertainment and meaningless conversation, calling it “living in the moment.” He’s 15 and hasn’t really gotten a taste of the world yet. He’s got ambitions and dreams, but he doesn’t feel the need to act on it yet because turning 18’s still 3 years away and to him, that’s a whole lifetime. The girl is… well, to this day, I’m not sure who she is, or who she’s meant to be. She’s 15 as well, but she’s prepared, studying ahead, ready to enter the real world. She’s got ambitions and dreams, and she’s already laid out the groundwork to act on them because turning 18’s only 3 years away and for her, that’s not enough time to do all the things she wants to do. Neither of them know the

other.

Sure, you could say that they do know of each other, given the fact that they’ve been stuck in the same classes since middle school, but they don’t know the other. Not as classmates, and certainly not as friends.

It’s by a coincidence, a mere sliver of a chance that they meet that first summer day. It’s maybe 8, maybe 9 in the morning, in the library. School’s barely a month out, and there’s plenty of time before the new school year starts up in September. He’s been sitting alone at one of the window-side tables for the past 2 hours, reading through a stack of light novels whose name I don’t remember–maybe 10, maybe 12 books in total. When she arrives with her pile of prep books–SAT, AP Bio, who knows what else–and slides

into the seat opposite of him, he doesn’t even look up. Sure, he notices her on some degree, but he doesn’t really see her, no, not really. Another hour passes, maybe two, accompanied by a cup of coffee. He gets up from his seat once or twice to stretch his legs out, but other than that the time spent in his little corner of the world is pleasant and quiet.

Somewhere in between the flickering stretches of time, in between the journey from page-to-page, volume-to-volume, he notices that the girl has fallen asleep. And for the first time, he sees her. Details pass through his head as he sets aside the 3rd volume he’s read and looks at her. She’s put her head to the table, arms folded and head nestled against them. Eyes closed in deep sleep, black hair that spills over her shoulders, a set of red headphones over her ears. Mouth set in a neutral line. The boy sees the girl, and maybe for a second, maybe more, she’s the only person that matters because it’s just the two of them here, it’s just the two of them in the library, it’s just the two of them in this tiny slice of the world that no one else knows about, sharing the silence. Two silent companions that don’t even know each other’s name. He vaguely gets the feeling that he knows her, but he doesn’t, he really doesn’t, and he can’t quite place the familiarity because he doesn’t know her. But that moment breaks as she stirs, and then finally wakes up. When she finally looks up, he can suddenly put a name to a face that he vaguely remembers, a face he’s seen hundreds of times but doesn’t quite know, no, not really–the girl in front of him is Selina Ko. There’s a long silence as they stare at each other, before he finally decides to stick his hand out and introduce himself. That, of course, is when she finally recognizes him. I’m sure that every person who’s read something along the lines of high school romance can tell how this cliche-packed situation is going to turn out. It’s trashy, and it’s predictable. So, of course, the boy and the girl end up having lunch together and just talking to each other. That’s when they really start to know each other.

The boy learns about the girl he’s talking to, his classmate, the person who has sat across him all morning without neither him nor her realizing. He learns that she has 2 younger siblings–one sister in the 9th grade, one brother in the 2nd. He learns that she plans to major in business, and that she plans to become a management consultant in the future. He learns that she’s studying for the SAT, AP Biology, AP US History, and AP English, all rolled into library sessions where she drills herself on what’s needed to pass and to succeed. He learns that she’s an advanced pianist and also a skilled creative writer, and that those are her hobbies that she’s got a clear handle on, to develop and to master. His life is nothing like that. He doesn’t have plans to major in anything, and he definitely doesn’t know where he wants to work in the future. He isn’t studying for anything, and his hobbies consist of sleeping, reading, and playing video games.

It was just… living. That’s how it was. Compared to her, his life was average. It lacked material accomplishments, checkpoints, and goals. He was wandering in life, aimlessly drifting from one thing to another as it suited his whims. Though the discussion is admittedly off-putting, he doesn’t think much of it at first. After all, his policy has always been to “live in the moment.” One thing at a time, take it all in one at a time. Don’t worry about the past or the future; live in the present and indulge in the present. It’s only looking back at the discussion that he figures out what messes with him. That’s right–He wasn’t doing anything

with his life. He wasn’t thinking, just lazing around. He wasn’t studying, just lazing around. He wasn’t planning ahead, just lazing around. Rather, he had been using the excuse of “living in the moment” as nothing more than a justification for his laziness. So much for living in the moment. “This type of living is fine, isn’t it?” It was ironic, really. It was far easier to bury himself in entertainment than it was to admit that he wasn’t living the ideal life he wanted. And so it was laughably ironic that that type of comment would be the one to make him realize the complete opposite. ~~~ Of course, I’m oversimplifying. But it’s easier that way. You can skip past the dull days and nights that were never more than just jumbled assortments of movement from one place to another, devoid of purpose or meeting; you can skip past the late-night-early-morning binges of forgettable animes and unremarkable mangas. “This type of living is fine, isn’t it?” Selina Ko was the one who helped me put together a life I didn’t know I wanted until I’d talked to her for the first time. It was the conversations with her from there–asking, answering, searching–that had helped me slowly piece together what to do with my life.

Our meeting–that one-in-a-million chance–was the focal point for every other change in my life.

I picked up writing. I picked up my grades in the year after that. I even managed to pick up a 33 on the ACT.

I paid her back by doing absolutely nothing. ~~~ Our last meeting–if you could even call it that–was in the library. going to the library that day, but the library had managed to secure one of the newest volumes of the series I was currently on, so I was headed there to pick it up. Along the way, I had stopped by to peruse the shelves in the light novel section for more things to read–it was still summer, after all. As a result, I ended up staying for another couple more hours, rather than the 15-minute trip I had expected. I never went to my spot, though. Selina was there–she always was there, every time I went–and as usual, her head had been buried in prep books for the entirety of my stay. I had planned to drop by and say hello when I was going to leave, but that had been looking like less and less of a possibility as I kept reading. When I had finally finished the volume I was on, I finally looked up, and noticed that sometime in the middle of my read, she’d set aside the prep books into one big pile, and started fidgeting with her laptop instead. She was writing something on her laptop in short bursts of high-speed typing, but then all of a sudden, she just… stopped. She closed her laptop and then shoved it to the side so forcefully that the precarious pile of prep books toppled over, but she didn’t care. She took off her headphones and put them on the table and put her head in her hands. It was a while before I realized, like some old, broken-down computer, that she was crying. In a little bubble of the world where no one was paying attention, Selina Ko was crying. There she was, one of the people who had become one of my closest friends and someone who had helped me get my life on track, someone who had seemed to have her entire life held together in a well-structured and orderly manner, her composure breaking like it was made of glass. It made me uneasy. I knew I should’ve said something, or offered

I had a miracle and I wasted it.

my help like she had, or at least just sat down in front of her because any support would’ve been useful. But instead, I I left her there. I just LEFT her there. I Words are unable to convey the degree of self-loathing I have for myself in this moment. I didn’t even bother to try and muster the courage to do something, do anything. Instead, I just put my books that I was going to check out onto the shelf and I left the area in a quick walk before booking it out of the library and going home. She never noticed me. As far as she was concerned, I’m sure that she thought she was alone in the library.

I don’t think that it crossed her mind once that, a couple bookshelves away, there was a bastard that could and should’ve said something, said anything, even then. You couldn’t have done more. Some people have to work out their problems by themselves. You had no business interfering. That’s what I told myself that day after I had made my way home. Instead of owning up to what I did, I rationalized and justified my cowardice and my selfishness. I thought I could be better. I was wrong.

I never talked

to her again.

Not because she found out about what happened. No. It’s because to this day, I never told her. Instead, I just ghosted her and never talked to her again.

Like the miserable, two-bit person I am, I had a miracle and I wasted it. I never saw her again. ~~~ I had my chances. I’m sure our first meeting might’ve counted as a miracle of some sort. If I hadn’t met her, I’m sure that I would still be my old self: lazing around, doing nothing. That short, cliched meeting–that had changed everything in my life. Except it was just that–short and cliched. Looking back, it was as if lightning struck right in front of me. It was something that was supposed to be entrancing, dazzling, brilliant, whatever adjective you want to tack on to it. The average lightning strike lasts for around 0.2 seconds. In that short span of time, you’re amazed. You’re blinded. You’re awed. A myriad of emotions can pass through you in that instant, but once the moment passes, it’s gone forever, and you won’t be able to remember that sensation again.

Except when it’s finished, what follows isn’t what you expect. As the colors and lights fade, you realize that it wasn’t actually captivating or delighting at all; instead, it was only the illusion of being overwhelmed that gave you that impression, and you had simply become lost in the moment. What’s left isn’t the gentle wistfulness to experience something like that again. Instead, there’s an image that’s painfully seared its way into your brain and a ringing in your ears that blocks out everything else. How could I have ever thought I had a chance of picking up my life and becoming a better person if I folded like a limp rag because I was too afraid to try and help someone? How could I have ever strung myself along like that, thinking I could become a better person?

In life, I’ve found that there are few things that you can be sure of.

But this was–is–will be–one of them. “This type of living is fine, isn’t it?” I’m sure that one day, I’ll forget what that sentence meant to me. I’m sure that one day, this recount will be rendered meaningless by the passage of time, turned into nothing more than words thrown together to make a block of text that meant absolutely nothing at all. I’m sure that one day, this chapter in the book of life will eventually be forgotten and disappear, left in a corner of the dusty confines of a library that nobody visits anymore. I’m sure of that, because it’s as I said before. At the end of the day, it’s just a pathetic, meaningless story.