Strange Insult
I
worried less and slept better with our new rooming arrangement, and Kristin
said the same. The new room also had thick walls, just a small window and was on
the upper floor of a small, narrow building that had only one room per floor and
was on a busy street with lots of traffic noise, so she also felt freer to make
noise when the demons were being cast out.
One evening, we were sitting on our respective beds after dinner when Kristin out of the blue said to me the most disrespectful and insulting thing that anyone has ever said to me. I have thick skin but this was so bad that it cut right through it. It had come out of nowhere and was all the more shocking because until then Kristin had always been polite and treated me with respect.
I am not one to tell anyone, let alone a girl, that my feelings have been hurt, so I got up, walked to the door to go out for a walk, opened and walked through it, looked back into the room while closing it, and saw something strange. Kristin's eyes were closed and her mouth was drawn into a weird smirk as if she was both happy and proud of herself for having insulted me enough to make me leave.
I walked down the stairs and spent over an hour walking around the town aimlessly trying to process what she had said, why she may have said it, and how she could say that to someone who has been caring for her for months, and returned without an answer.
As I walked up the stairs toward our room, I found Kristin crying at its opened doorway. She had been waiting for me, saw me coming and began to apologize profusely. I told her that it was okay, but it wasn't okay. So after a bit, I asked her why she had said what she had said. She said she didn't know and continued to cry. Had it been a demon speaking through her? Again, she didn't know, and continued to cry. I didn't get any answers but knew that she was sorry and distraught over what she had said, so I repeated to her that it was okay and told her to go to bed.
But her words and weird smirk stayed with me.