It’s a bit strange how things come full circle.

Last year, on Friday, April 5, someone bumped one of the back taillights on my truck. I remember the day so well because the next day was pseudo-prom with Ethan. It left a small crack in the plastic and a bit of red paint smudged on top of the brown, but I wouldn’t have really noticed were it not for David.

I was walking to my truck with Jared. We were waiting for Angela and Ethan, who were still in the band hall, but we decided to go on and put some stuff in my car. As we reached where I parked, David asked if the truck was mine.

"Yeah, why?"

"I heard some announcement saying that someone hit your car."

We looked at the damage, and it didn’t seem like a big deal to me. I thought about going back inside just to check with the office, but I really just wanted to go to Sushi Yaa with my friends. So we left, and I figured I’d just deal with it on Monday.

Friday and Saturday went by like a soft spring breeze. That Saturday was one of the best days of my life, though it makes me sad to think about it now. Sunday was a different story. My dad saw the crack, because he notices everything, and I made the mistake of telling him I knew about it instead of pretending to play dumb, like I should have. There went my driving privileges for two weeks, there went seeing my boyfriend next weekend, which of course was a 3-day-weekend. I was crushed, angry that my parents were punishing me for something I didn’t do. I didn’t ask for someone to hit my car. They didn’t believe me when I said I was going to take care of it on Monday.

The next two weeks were pretty much hell. But I got through them. On Monday, I went to the office, but they were no help. A whole year went by, and I never knew who hit my car, and it never got fixed either.

Last Thursday, April 3, I was standing outside of Mrs. Brininstool’s room. AP tests are coming up, and I was going to one of her crowded study sessions. I was about to sit down to wait when this girl I’ve known since freshmen year came up to me. I can never remember her name.

"Hey, Alex, can I talk to you about something? Actually, it’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about for a long time."

A million thoughts raced through my head. Did I do something to her? Did she hear a rumor about me? I had barely ever talked to this girl. She was a friend of a friend, someone I kind of knew but not really.

"Do you remember about a year ago, well probably more than a year ago, when someone hit the back of your car?"

Oh, I thought. Now I know.

She went through this long explanation about how she was just learning to drive, and she didn’t really know the rules of the road yet, and when she hit my car she didn’t know what to do so she ran back inside the school to write a note but by the time she came back I had already left. She didn’t know it was my car until she saw me driving it one day. Since then it had been eating at her to tell me but she was scared. I could tell she was about to cry.

Flashbacks of when I hit my ex-boyfriend’s car ran through my head, and how I almost cried when I told him, because I felt like he already hated me anyway. I’m sure this girl felt the same way, and that I would be mad and hate her for this, too.

When she finished her explanation, I told her not to worry about it. It was so long ago, and my car is so old, and I really didn’t want to bring the whole ordeal back up to my parents. Mckenzie - I finally remembered her name - looked so relieved and said I was the sweetest person ever and hugged me, her blonde braid hitting my brown one.

I was thinking about it later that day when I realized that it was almost exactly a year ago from when she hit my truck to when she told me about it. She hit it on Friday, April 5, 2013. She confessed to it on Thursday, April 3, 2014.

Maybe I’m just a weirdo who remembers dates really well. But I found it quite amusing how almost exactly a year later, things come full circle.