Two weeks after I got back from seminary, she sent me a text explaining how sorry she was for what happened that Shabbos. Additionally, she mentioned to me that she’d wanted to send me a “Shabbos package” that last Shabbos in seminary to show how sorry she was, but clearly didn’t manage to do that either. I wanted to ignore her for a week. I wanted to give her the “silent treatment” instead of words. However, my words came shooting out of me, and my anger and hurt gave way.

“How dare you!” I exclaimed. “Of course! It’s so easy to let me know how sorry you are now that it’s all over! Where was your sorry when I was stuck and left alone, with no Shabbos plans?! Where were you when you knew I wasn’t going to go all the way up to Tzfas by myself?! How about when I told you that all my friends had Shabbos plans already?! Or what about when it was too late for me to do anything else but sleep in the dorm by myself?! I had to spend my last out Shabbos alone in my dorm room! And yet you have the audacity to go and seek my forgiveness now? And pretend that you weren’t at fault! And ‘these things just happen sometimes’? No! They don’t ‘just happen!’ I missed out on an amazing chavayah because of you! You chose going to Netanya with your other friends when you knew I was left being stuck. And you seemed to totally be okay with that back then. And now, now when you think it’s all died down, you come back to me seeking my forgiveness! Well, news flash — it’s not that simple. Please don’t call me again. I don’t want to speak to you.”

I blocked out everything she responded after that.

It didn’t matter. Saying sorry wasn’t that simple, not this time.

And so months passed.

Eventually my thoughts started to change and I allowed my anger to melt a little. I called her and tried to talk more calmly about my feelings. We spoke, I yelled, she yelled back. I cried and she kept quiet. I was supposed to feel good after the phone call. Something told me that I’d feel good for a while, but that feeling wouldn’t last long. Because something still bothered me. Deep down, even though that hurtful episode occurred months ago, it still felt raw. I couldn’t shake it.

We left off as friends, however in my heart I knew our friendship was really over. Even though I told her all was forgiven and she told me how sorry she was, I had a feeling this would probably be our last real conversation. And it was.

Fourteen months passed by with no talking or texting from either side. I didn’t want to make the effort, nor did she seem to care. So I didn’t bother. There were times when I’d open an empty text page on my phone and start to type her something, and then realize there was no point. What was there to say? The friendship no longer had substance, there was nothing to catch up about. Then, it happened.

One day, I simply forgot.

I just forgot to think about it.

Gone.

And then, just like that, I bumped into her.

She saw me first. I didn’t want to see her, I tried to look the other way, but it was too late, she called my name. It was one of those moments that I knew my tongue was there, and that if I actually spoke a voice would come out, but I just couldn’t. I forgot how to use my words. She flung out all these basic, “How’s life?” kind of questions and I simply lost my tongue. All I could say was “Good… good… see you around.”

And then I walked away thinking, No! It’s not good! And nooo, I will not see you around!

Shortly after that minor incident I started to think, Why? Why, Hashem? Why did You make me see her? Just when I felt I was beginning to heal, You pulled the rug out from under me.

And then it hit me. I forgot, but forgetting does not mean forgiving.

Believe it or not, exactly a week after I saw her, she became engaged. She left me a message informing me that she was engaged. I simply texted her a “Mazel Tov.” That’s as far as I went; I didn’t feel that her being engaged should change the way I felt.

And then I started to wonder what to do about her vort. I began to consider going; I wanted to prove to her that I was over everything that happened and wanted to rejoice in her simchah. However, my heart spoke too loud and I realized I didn’t need to prove myself to her. From the sidelines, I was happy for her, however, I felt it was “okay to not be okay.” I didn’t feel the desire to march over to her vort and paste on a fake smile and wipe away the hurt of the past. I didn’t need to apologize for my feelings.

You might think I was being silly or pathetic and that being all grown up means doing things you may not feel like doing. But I strongly felt that this situation was different. Hurt doesn’t go away just because someone gets engaged. Hurt goes away when forgiveness is set in place, and that only comes with the journey of time, and a sense of understanding.

I bumped into her once more, a week later. Again she babbled and again I couldn’t respond as my thoughts were racing. I walked away, my heart pounding. Dear G-d, what on earth are You trying to tell me? And now, as her wedding is fast approaching, I think I have found my answer. My forgiveness is wanted.

Here’s what I’ve learned along this journey of forgiveness. We’ve all done wrong things at some point in our lives. Some by mistake, others intentionally. But the intention doesn’t really matter if we’ve hurt another’s feelings. And on the other side, there’s never a bad time for an apology. It may not come at the “right time” and the way it comes out may not be the way you expected it to be. However, apologies don’t come with expectations. They come with the simplicity of an “I’m sorry.”

And that means, “I am validating your feelings, and I know what I did or how I acted was wrong.”

And that is what my friend did back then. She apologized. I may not have felt that the apology was stated at the right time but when it comes to forgiveness it is always the right time.

And truth be told, I can also say that staying in the dorm that Shabbos wasn’t the worst thing that ever happened to me. Two of my friends’ plans crashed at the last minute so we all ended up staying together. Moreover, I ended up eating my very last Shabbos meals at one of my favorite teachers because of it. Hashem ultimately has a plan. We may not always see it, or understand it right away but it’s there. I still don’t know the reason why the whole incident had to happen with this friend. However, with time and understanding, I became aware that this incident needed to occur in my life, and all I had to do was forgive.

(Originally Featured in Teen Pages)