I waited for Beth at our usual table in the library.  Final exams were over, so I was looking forward to the two of us just hanging out.  I hefted a pile of library books onto the table.  Another good thing brought on by the end of finals: more time to read.  Beth sat heavily in a chair opposite mine. 
     “Hey Beth!” I said.  “Glad that finals are over, right?  More time for us to just hang out.”  She smiled distantly and was silent.
     “Look, Lena,” she said, a little more forcefully than I had expected.  “Thanks for helping me with stuff this year, but I, um, I don’t really want to hang out.”
     “Why not?  We can just relax.  Talk, listen to music, you know, whatever.  Why don’t you want to hang out?” 
     “I’m sorry,” Beth said, “but you just… you irritate me.”  Did I hear that wrong?  Is she serious?
     “I- well, I… I don’t know what to say,” I stuttered.  “I thought we were-”
     “You thought wrong.”  I was taken aback by her blunt words.
     “Please, Beth.  I thought we were friends.”
     “Yeah sure.  Friends, ha.” 
     “Why are you telling me this now?”
     “Seriously, though Lena?  Friends?  You thought we were friends?”  The bitterness in her voice could have killed me.
     “Well we’ve been studying a lot together and I think you’re a really great person so I just assumed…”
     “Studying doesn’t equal friendship, Lena.  I’ve been putting up with you all year so I can pass chemistry.”
     “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?  I would have left you alone.”
     “No, you wouldn’t have.  You’re too persistent.”
     “So you really think I’m irritating?”  The neediness in my voice made me sick.  I could tell it was making Beth nauseated as well.
     “You talk too much, you ask too many questions, and you try too hard to be nice.  In fact, you try to hard in general.”
     “But isn’t trying a good thing?”
     “Whatever,” Beth said.  She shoved back her chair and stood up forcefully.  I reached out to stop her from leaving.
     “Beth-” She didn’t move any farther away, but looked like she wanted to.  “You said you were sorry,” I began again.  “You said you were sorry to say that I irritate you.  Do you like me at all, then?  Even just a little bit?  I don’t understand.”
     “I just said sorry, Lena.  It doesn’t mean anything.  It’s like saying ‘no offense but…’  Everybody who says that really means to offend whoever they say it to.  It’s just a courtesy.”
     “I think you meant it,” I said.  “The ‘sorry’ part, that is.” 
     “It’s just something people say, Lena,” she spat.  She looked down at me witheringly and stalked out of the library.  I sank back into my chair and pulled the stack of books into my lap.  I bit my lip and opened one of the books.  I read without comprehending until the library closed and my mom came to pick me up.
     When I got home, I logged onto my email and re-read everything Beth had ever sent me.   The emails went back to September when she had failed her first chemistry quiz and asked me for help.  We didn’t really know each other back then.  She was just some girl with shaggy hair and dimples.  A cute girl.  A funny girl.  A girl who sat in the back of the room.  A girl who didn’t look like all the other girls.  A girl who I wanted to be friends with.
I poured over email after email, looking for a hint of annoyance or dislike, but found none.  Sure, most of her emails were strictly school-related, but she had sent the occasional friendly message, which I lived for.
     “Hi Lena.  How’s winter break going?”
     “Was that book you borrowed from the library last month any good?”
     “Hey Lena.  Saw this photo and I thought of you.”
     How were those not indications of friendship?  How could she expect me to know that we weren’t friends?  What was I going to do with my study hall periods for the next two weeks now that finals were over and she didn’t want my help or my company anymore?  All the words she had said and written to me over the year crashed into what she had told me this afternoon in a cacophony of misunderstandings.  One phrase repeated itself loudest of all, fighting against the current of doubt: She said she was sorry.  She said she was sorry.  She said she was sorry.