Sincerely, Anonymous

February 15

February 15

Dear Annabeth,

So I met Isabella today, and it wasn’t a thing like I expected. First off, she refused to let me call her Isabella. In fact, Her exact response to such was, “you can call me Izzy, you can even call me Bella, call me anything you damned want but I beg of you don’t call me Isabella.” Those were the first words she ever said to me.

The other thing about Izzy, which I called her for the rest of the day, was that she didn’t look like a single other person I knew. Her eyes were blue, but not piercing. They were more of a transparent color that was pretty but unusual. She was thin, but in a healthy way, and she was pretty but in an unconventional way. Her hair was thin and the kind of brown that left no impression on you, but she wore it in loose curls that worked with her long face. If you looked at each of her features separately you would think she was one of those people that you could easily forget, but when all those features were put together she was suddenly horribly memorable. She didn’t wear makeup and her clothes were the plain kind that you would see on anyone. I suddenly felt ridiculous in my perfectly done makeup. The dress Lila and I made suddenly felt intensely gaudy.

Izzy was also blunt, about everything. She said exactly what was on her mind in the least words possible. It seemed insulting sometimes, like when she said, “you try too hard, don’t you?” Sometimes the things she said were really nice though, like when she said, “man you have perfect hair.” It didn’t seem like she was trying to be mean or nice. She just said things the way they were.

In our entire exchange we got pretty much nowhere. The only things I knew about her by the end was what I could observe. She seemed to be able to read me like a book. By the end of the day she had told me of about five different cuffs that I should be wearing. She also winked at me and said, “I know you’re different. I won’t tell you what I know about you thats different, but just know that I know it.” I thought maybe she was bluffing but the entire rest of the exchange showed that that wasn’t quite her style. She didn’t bluff. She didn’t lie. She didn’t hide things.

Right before I left she said, “I like you,” and put her username in my tablet, telling me to ping her a time and place and she would be there. After leaving I realized that I had spent the entire day acting with particular malice towards this girl I didn’t know. All her truths and blunt information had caused me to say things in a biting manner. I wondered how that could have gotten her to like me. I also figured that the way she was likely rubbed people the wrong way. That was probably why she only had three names to give the Black Tens when they asked her who she was going to trust her life to. That’s likely why two of those people said no. Whoever she had chosen hadn’t trusted her fully.

It’s weird to me because I legitimately found that I liked her. I didn’t think that she would lie to me. She was almost too honest. I also wholeheartedly believed that she was able to keep a secret. She had this weird, very subtle, way about her that on the surface seemed like she would tell you any and everything, and you really did believe that she was telling you everything, but if you paid really close attention you could see that she was carefully filtered, in the most discrete way possible, that made me respect her that much more.

But, I just feel sad for the girl. I barely know her but from what I could gather she didn’t really have anyone or anything to lose and yet she was still fighting for her memories.  It seemed quite selfless really, making me feel that much more selfish for fighting for myself. The story that the scientists would place in her head after the memory swipe would be surprisingly close to the truth for Izzy. 

Love Always,

Lilly