Car-Talk. in The Napkin.

Okay, I’ll keep posting. This isn’t classified, just something I haven’t written out. There’s a girl in high school I was friends with. Sanaz. Senior Year, we spent a LOT of time talking in her car. Just talking.

It would be after school. We’d be chatting on the way to our vehicles, and we’d continue the conversation in her car, far beyond all the cars leaving. Apparently we did this so much people thought we were dating. I mean, if she asked me out I probably would have said yes, but I never had a case of the Feels for her. She was simply a friend.

I sat in her car and listened. What a concept.

I remember once when she called me out. I had a propensity for acting a little weird, in a way to keep people away from me. To protect myself? She saw through it. I forget the phrasing, but she told me that I’m not really all that strange/weird/demented. She said it in a playful manner. I smiled quietly and acknowledged that she was right.

She saw something else in me. Smart girl.

Let’s see, anecdotes about Sanaz… There’s the legend of this guy she was into. She would ramble ON and ON about this guy. I was with her when she went to a payphone to try calling him. (Yeah, that’s how old I am.) I didn’t think her seeking him out was a good idea, but I wanted to be a supportive friend. Like..... if I was there, I could help with a fallout?

(To my knowledge, she didn’t connect with him.)

But something else that I will never forget during our car-talk. It won’t make much sense.

She once described eating cereal, and then seeing the ceiling open up to the sky. Drugs? She was explicit that this was a strange experience. I don’t know what happened fully.

Or another detail she said once from a story she was telling me about herself.

Blood in her hair. She had long black hair, so the detail from one of our car-talks is in my memory. Something she mentioned. Something happened to cause there to be blood in her hair. You don’t forget a detail like that.

It’s been a while, but from my emotional memory, she didn’t have good parents. Was she hit?

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

She also went to Rutgers, and I only bumped into her once. She was going to become a nurse. And it makes sense, looking back. I didn’t understand a lot of what she told me in those car-talks. I sat in the passenger chair and listened. But knowing what I know now, fairly good chance she had PTSD. It happens after PTSD sometimes, you grow a lot of empathy. She wanted to help others. Thus the desire to become a nurse.

And I have no doubt she will/has.

I’m honored we had those car-talks together. Because whatever happened to her, she felt safe with me. She word-vomited all over me. She felt safe with me. Wherever you are, Sanaz, Live Long and Prosper.