Glinda stared blankly at the screen, the words beginning to blur as an unfamiliar choking sensation threatened to overwhelm her. She knew the tears would render her useless and she called for her maid to cancel her appointments for the day. She was glad that she'd downloaded their conversations over the years even if she couldn't bring herself to read them just yet. Elphie00 hadbeen her best friend for five years over the internet. It had been a lonely time to be homeschooled and to come across her in the chatroom had been the most wonderful thing of her isolated existence back then. Elphie00 had been abrupt and serious in many ways but they had muddled along and slowly she began to open up about her life and after a while, they found some things to laugh over. Glinda didn't understand everything that this serious young woman talked about but she relished the thought of being able to have contact with someone so different. She imagined that one day they'd be free to live as they pleased, be free to meet, even.
'I don't fit in anywhere' Elphie00 had written once.
Galinda as she was then, had not known how to reply. She was popular and pretty with her red gold curls and frothy dresses and enjoyed social occasions when her studies were finished for the week. She fitted in well with her friend group and hadn't had to think about much else before she met Elphie00. But slowly, thoughts she'd previously not entertained, permeated her brain and occasionally she'd think of something that her friend had said and the others thought her very queer when she expressed it. She kept it to her thoughts from then on.
'I don't belong anywhere' was something else Elphie00 had written.
Glinda was not to know that one day she would desperately want to share that understanding with her. They had discussed it on and off and Glinda had got the impression that her friend was not well treated by the people who surrounded her. There was an element of fatalism in her friend's outlook and Glinda had never fully understood it.
Then one day her friend had gone offline and stayed offline. Glinda had logged on every day for a month and she was still not there. Glinda had faithfully searched for her for another year but Elphie00 was not responding. Shehad gone. Glinda had hoped that she'd kept offline to go and be free, enjoy her life, travel, meet people, maybe find a place where she would fit in. Now that she knew the truth, she was paralysed by the thudding pain of it all. Her friend had died, soon after their last interaction. Confirmed by a user who had known them both. Glinda hadn't interacted as much with Bikboq and had never personally messaged him but he had finally traced the whereabouts of her friend and it wasn't the news that she'd hoped for. Over the years, Galindafied had changed her name to Glinda, married a wealthy older man and settled into the life of a pampered do-gooder. But she'd never forgotten her teenhood friend. Always there, ready to talk. Her current crop of friends had included a couple from back then but more of them wives and mothers who had married further up as she had. Their talk was mainly of home life and charitable works. Her husband had not been able to sire the children she desired and so she was lonely, sitting adrift in a sea of luxury with her little dog. It was at this point in her life that Glinda knew what it felt like to not fit in or belong anywhere. And she had no way of letting her friend know.
'Have you ever experienced heartbreak?'
No, Glinda hadn't at the time and she'd said so. Now she knew that Elphie00 had been dead for ten long years, it had cracked her heart in two. And she knew it would stay that way forever.