“Rose! I’m so glad you finally came out with us. It’s been so different without you,” Mia said to Rose, practically yelling to be heard over the pounding music that made the walls shake.

“I’m glad too!” Rose exclaimed in response to Mia, but truthfully she started regretting her decision to go to the party the second she got there. “I finally feel better and I missed-” Rose was interrupted by Nell, who elbowed her way right past Rose and grabbed Mia’s arm, without looking back once.
“Mia, you won’t believe what just happened,” Nell said to Mia, standing directly in front of Rose and physically exiling her from the conversation. Rose felt her heart sink, as this was an obvious and brutal reminder of the distinctive barrier between her and her friends. She considered saying something to Nell. It was always Nell who was cutting her off, pushing her around, and acting like she was invisible, but Rose tried to ignore this. Rose used to be very close with Nell, and the two could confide in each other about anything. So much had changed since then, and Rose didn’t know how to explain to her friends that she wanted things to be back to the way they used to be. Time and circumstance had pulled them apart, but Rose wanted to tell Nell how she felt, and rekindle her friendship with her.
But at that moment, she wasn’t in the mood to put up with being unwanted. After Nell had swept Mia away into her new, apparently more interesting conversation, Rose walked away. She walked down a narrow hallway of the apartment, pressing past the mass of sweaty teenagers, claustriphobically bumping into one another. Thankfully, Rose saw her friend Noah at the end of the hall. His eyes lit up when he saw her.
“Rose! You came! It’s so weird to see you here with everyone, it’s been so long,” Noah said. His blonde hair was sticking up from the sweat on his forehead, his red check contrasting with his crystal blue eyes.
“Thank god I found you, I basically forgot how to talk to people,” Rose explained to Noah. Which was true- she overthought everything she said, always regretting and replaying her conversations, wondering if she’d said something wrong. Noah was one of the only people she still felt comfortable around. The two of them were always on the same page, and in agreement.
“Wow, just stick with me. I’m a little overwhelmed too,” Noah said. Rose and Noah wandered through the living room of the dark apartment. Red cups and cigarette butts scattered the floor, all of which disgusted Rose. Rose clutched her forehead, and checked the clock for the fifteenth time in the past few minutes. She wanted to leave, but thought she might regret leaving too soon. Her straightened hair was starting to frizz up and curl at the ends, and she couldn’t have been more uncomfortable in her jeans.
“How does Sadie even know all these people?” Rose asked Noah. It was Sadie’s house, and it was crawling with high school kids.
“I honestly don’t think she does,” Noah responded. The two talked, joked around and laughed for the next couple minutes, and Rose finally felt better. She could always count on Noah to be there for her, and cheer her up. Thanks to him, she was feeling more and more comfortable at the party. A few times, other people came up to talk to them and Rose didn’t feel awkward at all. As long as she was with Noah, everything would be okay.
Everything was finally looking up, until Nell showed up.
Noah was in the middle of telling a story when Nell pushed through the crowds, approaching Noah and Rose. When she finally made it to where they were standing, she gleamed a big smile and widened her hazel eyes.
“Noah!” She screamed in a high pitch voice. “I haven’t seen you all night, where’ve you been? Wait, oh my god, come over here with me,” she said, not even looking at Rose once. Nell started to pull Noah away when Rose realized she couldn’t take this anymore.
“Hey Nell I was actually talking to Noah,” said Rose, surprising herself with her strong tone of voice.
“Oh, hey Rose. I was just coming over here to talk to Noah,” she said, as if Rose had not been there the whole time.
“You know, I exist too, I’m standing right here. You’ve been treating me like you don’t even know me this entire night,” Rose said.
“Calm down Rose, I haven’t seen you this whole time,” said Nell, in a monotone and dismissive voice. That’s what really annoyed Rose the most.
“That is so not what happened. You’ve been blatantly ignoring me for weeks, not just tonight. I’m sick of always being your last choice, and always being treated like I’m not good enough for you. I don’t know when you started thinking you were so great, because it didn’t used to be like this. I used to be worthy enough for you, until you apparently realized you were so awesome. So don’t act like you haven’t seen me, because I’m fed up of you acting like we’re not friends. I’m sick of you only talking to me when there’s no one else around.”
Noah and Nell stood there in silence, until Nell spoke one last time.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve noticed we’ve drifted apart, but it’s not only my fault,” Nell said timidly.
“You know what, forget it. You can go be rude and obnoxious around someone else, because I’m done putting in any effort with you. I don’t know why I didn’t stop trying with you a while ago. You are one of the rudest people I’ve ever met,” Rose said. That may have been a bit exaggerated, but Rose was angry. Nell stormed off into an empty room, covering her face. Rose was later informed by Noah that Nell had been crying uncontrollably and was too embarrassed to leave that room to go home.
That was all last night. That was why Rose needed to apologize to Nell.
A phone call or text wouldn’t do for this, she needed to go over to her apartment. She was drowning in guilt and regret for the entire day. Her goal was to remind Nell, and herself, how close they had once been and how close they could and should be. Although it was extremely nerve racking to walk into Nell’s apartment uninvited to apologize, Rose was eager to go. She knew it had to be done. Unfortunately, her mother made her stay at home all day to help her watch her sister, and do homework, which Rose could barely focus on. If only that one moment hadn’t happened. Things weren’t ideal before, but now they were really bad, and it was all because Rose decided to freak out. If only she had just played it cool, the night would have gone so differently.

Ideally, Rose’s trip to Nell’s apartment would result in Nell apologizing too. Although she hadn’t insulted Rose and made her cry in public, it was Nell’s fault that this whole thing happened- she had been ignoring Rose for weeks, almost months. With that hope in mind, Rose left her apartment right after dinner.
Rose’s heart was beating fast against her rib cage and her hands were shaking uncontrollably on the short walk to Nell’s. As she turned every corner she was hit with a brisk and frigid December wind. The sky was a deep navy blue, the color it always is just after the sunset but just before dark. She wished she’d left earlier, so that she’d have more time to explain. If she went around lunch, or even earlier, she’d have to whole day to fix things up with Nell. Her mother had made sure that this was impossible by forcing her to stay home and study. She could have explained the situation to her mother, but that could have made her worry.
Rose took a deep breath as she walked under Nell’s awning and through the glass double doors of her building. An elevator was just closing and she ran to catch it, but she just missed it. If I had only walked in one second before, Rose thought. The thing about Nell’s building is that there are so many floors that the elevator takes forever to show up. While she was waiting for the next elevator to show up, a crowd of people started to form behind her. Rose hated crowded elevators.
“This always takes forever, doesn’t it? It’s the worst,” said a girl who appeared to be a bit younger than Rose. She had long brown hair and wore a puffy jacket with a fur trimmed hood. Rose didn’t really know why she was talking to her, but she felt inclined to reply.
“Yea, I don’t know why it goes so slowly, but I hate waiting.”
Finally the elevator doors slowly opened, and the crowd filed in. Rose pressed the button to Nell’s floor, eleven. She could hear her heart beating loudly and rapidly, and she had a sinking feeling in her chest that she only got when she was super nervous. Rose played the moments of last night in her head over and over again as she watched the number of the floors go up, as the elevator traveled slowly. 2, 3, 4, 5, she stared at the green illuminated number. It seemed to stay on 5 forever. Had someone stopped at 5? The button wasn’t pressed and the door wasn’t opening. The elevator was just sitting there, at floor 5. She looked around and the other people in the elevator. Their faces mirrored what Rose was feeling almost exactly- panic and confusion. The first thing that came to Rose’s mind was how much she hated small spaces, and how badly she wanted to get out of this elevator.
As a confirmation of everybody’s fears, a man carrying a bouquet of flowers broke the silence and said, “We’re stuck.”
“No, this isn’t happening,” said the younger girl, who had talked to Rose just before.
“This is a joke, right?” asked a middle aged woman wearing high heels and tights.
“Does anyone know what we’re supposed to do?” asked an older teenage girl, with black hair and thick eyeliner. Rose couldn’t even speak. The rest of the people in the elevator seemed just as hopeless as she did. This was Rose’s worst nightmare. She thought about how she’d almost made the elevator before this one. So many things could have stopped this all from happening- leaving her apartment earlier, making that elevator that left just after she reached it, maybe even not yelling at Nell in the first place. Was this Rose’s fault? She couldn’t decide.
“This timing could not be worse,” said the man with the flowers.
“Same here, a letter from my first choice high school is waiting for me at home. I don’t know if I got in or not, and I was about to find out before this happened,” said the younger girl.
Rose remembered when she was in eighth grade, and high school was the unknown. High school is so romanticized, Rose thought. She used to dream up all these spectacular things that would happen to her once she got to high school, imagining tons of unforgettable experiences she would have. She was sure that this girl was so filled up with hope for the future, expecting the miraculous to happen to her. Soon she’ll realize that everyone just gets older, and more overwhelmed.
“That’s so exciting,” Rose said to the girl.
“Yea, well now I’m stuck in an elevator. It’s kind of like there was all this build up for nothing, and now I just have to wait,” she said. This should mentally prepare her for disappointment and dead ends, Rose thought.
“That is exciting,” said the girl with the dark hair, “I’m a freshman in college. God, highschool goes by so fast,” she said, looking up at the moldings lining the ceiling.
“Can we please try to get help?” asked the woman in the high heels. She had a good point- what they should be discussing is how to get out of the elevator.
“There’s a phone attached to the wall, it’s probably to help in situations like this. Does anyone know how to call down to the doorman?” said the man with the flowers.
“Here, let me see,” said the eighth grade girl. Even though she was the youngest one in the elevator, she seemed pretty assertive. She’d already told a group of complete strangers why she needed to get home, and seemed to be confident enough to help them all out of the elevator. She picked the phone up out of the receiver and pressed a green button. It seemed to work, because she started explaining what had happened to someone on the other line. She spoke for a while, then responded to the person on the phone with a series of “yea’s” and “ok’s”.
“Thanks, I’ll tell them,” she said, hanging up. “They’re calling the fire department, but the doorman said this type of thing usually takes a while. First off, we aren’t the fire department’s top priority, and it’ll probably take a long time to get us unstuck.”
Rose closed her eyes. This couldn’t be happening, she just needed to talk to Nell. When she opened her eyes after a long breath, she looked around. She’d been in this elevator so many times, never thinking much of it- she’d never predicted that it would soon be her own personal torture chamber. Her eyes wandered helplessly throughout the small space, hoping to find a way out. The elevator was on the smaller side, as far as elevators go. The walls were a chestnut brown wood with molding lining the ceiling, and the floor was fully carpeted by a hideous dark green patterned rug. Rose couldn’t help but contemplate the odds of her ending up in this position.
“Well, this is just perfect. My wife’s been gone for weeks, and she just got home today. I told her I’d be home when she got there, and I came home a lot later than I expected. Now she’s up there waiting for me,” said the man with the flowers, exasperated. Rose was trying hard not to focus on how little space there was holding the five of them. She felt her breath get heavier, and her face get hot- she was getting unbelievably nervous. Maybe it would help to voice that to the group, she thought.
“I hate small spaces,” she said quickly, as if to get it over with. “I hate them so much, this is maybe my worst nightmare. God, I was so close to taking the elevator before this,” she said, feeling a lump form in her throat. Please, do not cry in front of these people, she told herself.
“I don’t think any of us want to be here,” said the woman, “I’ve been so stressed at work, I haven’t had one minute off. I was so ready to just come home,” she trailed off. Rose didn’t quite understand why all of these people were explaining why they needed to be home. Maybe because in that moment, they only had each other. In any other circumstances, the group would’ve never spoken.
“I just wish I could know about this school,” said the eighth grader, “It’s killing me, I’ve been anxious about this for months, and I was about to find out. I was about to be able to stop stressing, whether I got in or not.”
“Trust me, I would love to be stressing over high school right now,” said the woman. The way she said this was sarcastic and rude, which made the eighth grader turn her head away timidly.
“She’s right,” said the man, “Try not to waste all your youth stressing out over the little things. Just enjoy what comes to you. High school students make everything seem like the end of the world, but really it’s not as serious as you all seem to think.”
“I think the girl has a right to be a little nervous, she’s about to find out if she’s going to her first choice high school or not, it makes sense to be stressed out,” said the college girl. She’d been picking at her chipped black nails for the past couple minutes.
“I’m not saying she doesn’t have the right to be stressed out, what I’m saying is that it’s a remarkable thing to be young. Most people take it for granted.” After the man said this, there was a long silence. It’s a remarkable thing to be young- Rose thought about what the man said for a while, and started felt guilty for not making the most out of her youth. Then she spaced out and started to remember where this all began- the distance between her and her friends.
Every morning, starting out in early September, Rose would wake up with a pounding headache and grueling stomach pains. The headache would fade after she drank some coffee and woke up a bit, but her stomach never stopped bothering her. If she’d eat, she’d be nauseous, but if she didn’t eat, she’d be nauseous too. It was non-stop, it was constant- she had forgotten what it felt like to not be sick. The doctors had failed to find anything that told them what was going on with Rose, so they told her to rest and ‘take it easy.’ While Rose was ‘taking it easy’, her friends were making those spectacular memories that Rose was expecting, but without her. They’d invite her to come, of course, but she always had to say no. After a while, the invitations just stopped, and all she got from her friends was the occasional hello in the hallway. The worst part about the situation was that it was so vague. Rose was never given a clear answer about what was going on.
She remembered how everything started to go downhill with Nell. It started out in early September- one night stood out in Rose’s mind. She had picked up her cell phone at around 8:45, the screen glowing with a text from Nell. It read, ‘hey, call me when you see this?’ So Rose called.
“Hey! We’re all going to Noah’s later, want to meet at my house?” Nell asked right after picking up.
“Hey Nell, I’m feeling kind of sick,” Rose replied.
“Oh come on, don’t be so difficult. You’ll be fine,” Nell said.
“Sorry, Nell, I really think I should stay home,” Rose said.
“Since when are you so high matentense? You hardly ever come out anymore,” said Nell, sounding really frustrated.
“Sorry I just…” Rose trailed off. She remembered staring at herself in the mirror for a while, trying to decide what was best. She looked into the eyes of her reflection- pale skin, purple bags under her eyes. She couldn’t have fun, feeling this bad. It would be miserable, she told herself. These compilation of disagreements is how Rose drifted from her friends, almost without her noticing.
Rose often found herself dwelling on the past- on how much closer her group of friends were last year, how they’d always been for there eachother no matter what. They used to put their friendships over everything, but now it seemed as if everyone was too focused on being mature. The girls mostly kept things to themselves, even though they used to be able to tell each other everything. Rose also dwelled on her decisions- could she have forced herself to go out with friends while she was sick? What if she’d put in extra effort, to make sure their group of friends stayed together? Rose often ruminated about her small choices, and little moments. If they’d gone differently, would things be better now? Or will life always go by the big picture?
“So those flowers are for your wife?” Rose asked the man. For some reason, she felt comfort in speaking to these people- it reminded her that she wasn’t here alone.
“Yes, if they don’t die before I get home,” he said.
“Oh, don’t be so morbid. Calm down, you know we’ll be out soon,” said the woman. It felt strange to hear her tell him to calm down- all she’d done this whole time was complain, and look at the floor with a worried expression. “I think this is one of those times when you just have to focus on right now. All of our schedules overlapped somehow, and now we’re here, and we’ll be here until help comes our way,” she said. It seemed like a pretty sudden change of heart.
“I was on my way to apologize to my friend,” Rose decided to share, “and then this happened. I hadn’t really thought about it at all- what I was going to say or what would happen when I apologized. I just kind of forced myself to come here because I knew I had to.”
“Well, you have time now, don’t you? Maybe getting stuck here was actually good timing for you,” said the girl in college. “There’s really no rush- you can talk to your friend when you get out of here, and maybe it’ll go better than you thought because you’ve had this extra time.”
“That’s actually a really good point. It’s a good skill to be able to take advantage of little moments of free time. Time is precious, you know,” said the woman. The eighth grader had sat down on the floor and was bouncing her knee, and the woman joined her soon after. The college student went back to picking at her fingernails, and the man looked at his flowers, looking for signs of wilting or dehydration.
So Rose stopped worrying about escaping the elevator, turned off the internal panicking of claustrophobia, and used this opportunity to think. She thought long and hard about what she was going to say to Nell. She started thinking about what the man and woman had said, about high school kids always making a big deal over everything, and stressing out over things that soon won’t matter. Really, what most people misunderstand is that being young is astonishing, and shouldn’t go to waste because of messups, or bumps in the road. They should get past this, because they only get one shot at being in high school, and just like the college girl believes, it’ll go by fast- faster then they’d think. It shouldn’t be about fights that accumulated over misunderstandings- it should be about that sense of hope and wonder that you first feel starting out. Thanks to the eighth grader, Rose had remembered that feeling of excitement for the unknown. If Rose had made the best out of last night, taking that particular night more seriously, none of this would have happened. And if Nell had made a little more effort to speak to Rose, even at school, there wouldn’t be a problem. And maybe, Rose could have tried to see her friends when she was sick- all of these decisions would have called for something different as the outcome.
Then, Rose thought, maybe all life is made up of is the little moments and quick decisions- maybe that’s what can make our experiences spectacular. Whether these little things are deciding to go to a party, or just missing an elevator, or telling a bunch of strangers that you need to apologize to your friend, it all adds up. And sometimes you just need to take a risk, and life could be a little more miraculous, and a little less repetitive. So what she wanted with Nell, and the rest of her friends eventually, was a fresh start, with the goal of making themselves happy. They’d make the most out of the little moments, remembering that anything can be amazing if they set out to make it that way.
Then, all of a sudden, the elevator started moving upwards, breaking the silence with sighs of relief.
“Thank god,” said the young girl.
“Hey, good luck with that school. I hope it all goes well for you,” Rose said to her.
“Thanks, I’ll try to make the best of it whether I get in or not,” she said, making Rose believe that she had a similar epiphany because of the people they’d met today. It’s unbelievable how much others can teach you, if you let them.
“And I hope everything goes well with your wife. I’m sure she’ll be really happy to see you,” Rose said to the man. “And I hope things get better with work,” she said to the woman, “and that you enjoy your first year of college,” she said to the older girl.
The elevator stopped, and when the door opened on eleventh floor, Rose stepped out slowly.
“It was nice meeting all of you,” she said, and actually meant it. They all said goodbye, and Rose stared at the door until it closed, in a state of disbelief at what had just happened. She looked at the clock in the hallway- she’d only been in the elevator for a little more than an hour, but so much had happened in that time frame. She walked down the long hallway of Nell’s floor, passing by rows of doors. She’d walked through this hallway so many times before, but this time it was different. Although she felt intimidated, her time spent thinking had her feeling as ready as she’d ever be. When she arrived at Nell’s door, she did not hesitate- she took a deep breath and rang the doorbell. Nell’s mother answered the door.
“Rose! How nice to see you, I didn’t know you were stopping by,” Nell’s mother said, welcoming her to come inside. “Nell’s in her room.”
Rose thanked her, and knocked on the door of Nell’s bedroom. Nell opened the door in just seconds, with a shocked look on her face when she saw Rose.
“Um, hi,” she said, taken aback.
“Hey Nell, I think we seriously need to talk about last night,” Rose said, already feeling a weight lifted off her shoulders.