Two looks

"Irka!" The girl turned, searching for the caller. After a moment, she noticed Piotr running towards her.

"Can we talk for a moment?

" "Sure. Just maybe we should stand somewhere to the side, not in the middle of the corridor." They moved to the wall, where there weren't so many people. "

Did something happen?" She looked carefully at her friend's face. He seemed very nervous.

"No," he shook his head. "I..."

"Yes?" The girl tried to encourage him.

"I just wanted..." he paused for a moment. "I just wanted to ask you if you'd go to the prom with me," he blurted out. "Of course, if you don't have other plans," he quickly retorted. Irena smiled.

"I have no other plans, and I'd be happy to go to the prom with you. "

"Thanks. I'm very happy," he added after a moment.

"Me too. And thank you for the invitation." Further conversation was interrupted by the bell beginning the next lesson.

"I'm sorry, but I have to go. I have PE now. See you later!" Irka waved her hand and ran towards the gymnasium.

The next month, even though it marked the end of the semester, was mostly about dresses, suits, and polonaises for the fourth-graders. Everyone was excited about the upcoming prom, where they wanted to look beautiful and have a wonderful time.

The day before the prom, Irena was very excited; she couldn't wait for the next evening. They sat in the room with Majka, her best friend, discussing the details

and imagining the prom. Irka's two younger sisters, Kasia and Ewa, were their assistants.

"Are you going to put on makeup?"

"What time do you start?

" "When will you be back?

" "What suit is Piotrek wearing?

" "And Andrzej?

" "Can Mom lend you a chain bag?

" "What time will Piotrek be coming? "

"Are you in love with him?

" "Please?" Irka looked at Ewa in surprise. The little one was 10 years old and in the "great love" stage, in shorts and with disheveled hair.

"No, Piotr is just a friend. A friend," she added. "Nothing more.

" "But you like him?" her sister was inquisitive.

"Of course you do. You like your friends too," the girl nodded seriously.

"Ewa, Kasia! Come here," her mother called the girls, who reluctantly left their friends alone.

After the sisters had left, Majka looked at Irka carefully.

"Is he really just a friend?" she smiled teasingly.

"Yes, really. I even liked him once, but... That was a long time ago. Over a year ago," she added after a moment. She spun around in her swivel chair and reached for the first-grade group photo on the desk. It was hard to believe how amazingly everyone had changed. She sat at the very front, on a low school desk. Light brown hair, cut into a pageboy style... A ginger sweater, jeans. And a round face. Marta sat next to her – she'd thought she was her friend at the time, but she quickly realized her mistake. Majka wasn't in the photo – she'd been sick at the time. Piotr, on the other hand, stood in the second row – his dark hair was cut very short. Too short to notice it curling. Squinted eyes, some kind of checked shirt. Today, three years later, he looked completely different, but the changes in appearance weren't the most important thing. Piotr had never been an ordinary boy, a friend, which is why their relationship didn't really resemble other friendships.

"This friendship of yours is strange," she heard. "One moment you're together, having endless conversations during every break, and another time you don't speak to each other for two weeks. Another thing is that Piotr himself is a bit strange... How did you even manage to become friends with him?" Majka asked something she'd often wondered about. In response, Irena opened her desk drawer. Beneath various notebooks, markers, and rulers lay a thick notebook—her diary.

"I don't know..." she opened the opening pages. "I'll read you something:

"September 3rd

. I met a strange boy today. Although maybe strange is the wrong word?... Anyway, he's different. His name is Piotr and... he clearly doesn't like me. I don't understand why - he doesn't even know me. He didn't even pretend to want to talk to me, he didn't smile. He just answered my questions, and even then reluctantly. I'll see if he's the same tomorrow. Maybe he had a bad day today, had an argument with someone, and I was "in the wrong place at the wrong time"?

September 4th

. He was the same. However, I've noticed that he generally treats everyone this way. Maybe he's shy? Or withdrawn? Or has some problems? Or maybe he doesn't like people? No, that last one doesn't make sense - how can you generally dislike others? Individuals, yes, but everyone? No, it has to be something else. But what?" "

I think everyone perceived him that way back then. He didn't even talk normally to boys." As if—Majka hesitated—people were a necessary evil. You had to be around them, but you didn't have to get to know them or like them.

Irena nodded and flipped through the next few pages without reading. She knew there were several more descriptions of failed attempts to talk to Piotr, and finally, a resolution not to try again. She looked for notes from May of the same year.

- "May 18th

"And yet this guy isn't a complete mummy without feelings or interests. I mean Piotr. A few days ago, I talked to the priest about photos, and as promised, I took a couple of the ones I like best to school today, the ones I took the best. And it turned out Piotr takes photos too and really enjoys it. For the first time, I saw this man able to talk normally—not just in half-words, to get off his back. I was truly surprised!"

"I remember that! You had this cool photo with a branch in the foreground, right? But I only learned about Piotr's passion later, probably in second grade, during the freshmen's induction ceremony," she smiled, recalling the event.

"Yes... Although I think at some point we simply stopped paying attention to him and that's why we didn't notice. Remember, Maja - who took the photos at the bonfire? And on the trip? Only Piotr distanced himself from us, so we retaliated.

" "Possibly... What do you have next?"

Irka skipped the next pages again - they contained memories of summer experiences. Later, they were written down about her feelings for one of her classmates. Piotr existed in some of the descriptions as background, or as an additional element. Only the next notebook, beginning with memories from a second-grade trip, contained the true beginning of their friendship.

"May 23rd.

I just got back from the Bieszczady Mountains. It was cold, but wonderful. The mountains are sometimes tiring, but at the same time so beautiful that the tiredness is completely irrelevant. I'd love to go there on vacation." Oh, that's not it yet. Wait a minute...

Descriptions of the views and various excursion adventures filled four and a half pages. Finally, Irka found what she was looking for.

"Last night was the best. We sat in the "guitarists'" room and sang. It was amazing. Around midnight, everyone started leaving – some went to bed, some to another room, where the drinking party was supposed to take place. We (i.e. Majka, Iga, and I) stayed with Piotr (Maćek was also in the room). Those two crazy women fooled around, joked, and finally went off with Maciek to play a nightcap on someone, and Piotr and I stayed.

"What kind of joke?! And with Maciek too? I think you added something," her friend laughed.

"Should I keep reading, or are you not curious anymore?"

-Come on... Of course I want you to keep reading.

"OK," Irka continued, "...and Piotr and I stayed. He sat and played the guitar all the time. It's amazing - just like the sound of the guitar, the Moonlight Sonata, and the songs of the Social Democratic Congress. It's good that Piotr was understanding and sang and sang and sang... Another person would probably have had enough of me. I would never have thought that sung poetry had such an unusual and wonderful atmosphere. I'll have to buy myself a cassette of this kind of music. I'll also try to save up and buy myself a guitar. I've liked this instrument for a long time, but I never thought of learning to play it. I thought that only the chosen ones, blessed with exceptional hearing, could play it, which of course I don't have, and that small hands ruled out the possibility of playing the guitar well. Piotr showed me that's not the case. I'll have a little trouble with some chords, but if I practice, I'm sure I'll succeed. Maybe one day I'll play like Piotr, or Michał? And maybe on some trip I'll sit down." "Early morning" and I'll play "Black Blues at Four in the Morning"? That would be nice."

Irena looked up. She saw Majka's gaze drift to the corner, where the guitar stood in its case. She bought it a few months later. She was still far from the level of her classmates, who had the advantage of "experience" and often free time, but she played and enjoyed it immensely. SDM, on the other hand, remained one of her favorite groups.

"And after that trip, did you become friends?" Something didn't seem right to her friend.

"That's what I thought then." She looked out the window and rested her head on her clasped hands. She remembered well what happened after the trip. "I thought I'd found common ground with Piotr, that everything would be alright. But it wasn't like that—Piotr wasn't the friend I'd imagined him to be. For the next year, I felt like I was on a rollercoaster—one day Piotr treated me almost like a sister, and the next few days he created such distance that I didn't really know how to approach him. As if that weren't enough, I started to like him.

"And you didn't admit anything," Majka shook her head, "and it was just, 'No, you think I have nothing against him

.'" "I shouldn't have told you. But that's old news. It was over after four months. I knew I had to get him out of my head, and the holidays and meeting Krzysiek helped me a lot with that." She paused for a moment. "That's not all. There was one unspoken rule—no talking about the past. To this day, I know practically nothing about his previous class, or any friends he might have." Piotr didn't bring up the subject, and I respected that.

"But now he's... normal, isn't he?" Majka sounded unconvinced.

"Yes," Irka smiled slightly. "The difficult friendship 'normalized' in fourth grade. I finally felt I could count on Piotr, that when I needed him, he'd be by my side, and not shut himself off from me and the world again. I realize there are areas I'll never be able to enter, but that doesn't bother me. What matters is that Piotr has opened up to people, that we understand each other. I feel a strong bond with him. And I'm very happy about that.

" "I don't think I would have had that much patience," Majka said after a long moment. "At some point, I would have given up.

" "I didn't have much patience either. I'd waved him away many times, telling myself: if he doesn't want to, then leave him." I practically crossed him off my friends list, but then something always happened that he'd get another chance. He took advantage of it...

On the day of the prom, Piotr had a lot of things to do from the morning, so the anticipation and excitement hit him later than his friends. By the time he found time for himself, it was already afternoon. He was sitting in his room, organizing his notes, when he heard a soft knock on the door. "

Come in." The custom at home was to wait until invited, which made life easier for the sisters and brothers.

"What are you doing?" Karolina, Piotr's sister by four years older, entered the room.

"Nothing important." He looked at her carefully. She wore no makeup, wore enormous jeans and a colorful sweater, yet she looked exquisite. She had long auburn hair that reminded one of smooth fabric, and large, intensely green eyes. She didn't have a model's figure, but she was slim and moved with the grace one sees in girls who spend hours in dance studios.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" She glanced at her brother.

"Why didn't you tell me in December that you had the end of January off? I would have the most beautiful partner in the entire school," he shook his head. Karolina studied in a city four hundred miles away, so she wasn't a frequent visitor.

"And the oldest. Come on, kid," she winked knowingly. "The girl you invited is definitely very nice and pretty, and you'll have a great time. And by the way – tell me something about her." Karolina had only arrived a few hours earlier, and her knowledge of her brother's friend was limited to her name and age. Piotr reached for a shelf and searched for a moment in a small album.

"That's her," he handed his sister a photo from the school trip. "The one standing on the far left.

" "Pretty. And nice." Karolina studied the photo. She saw a girl with rather dark, short hair and gray eyes. She wasn't slim, more like... roundish, but calling her fat would be an exaggeration. There was something about her appearance that made you want to meet her, talk to her.

"But that's just her appearance. And is there anything more? Unless you don't have the time or the inclination to talk about her..."

"No, why? Irena is..." he paused, searching for the right word, "different.

" "Yes..." that explains a lot." His sister sat down in a huge armchair that completely didn't match the rest of the furniture, the room's decor, but was a beloved piece of furniture of all her siblings, and none of them would allow it to be removed from the house. "Can I find out what's hidden in that telling word?" she smiled. "

It's a long story.

" "If you want to tell me, I have the time." She knew perfectly well when her brother didn't want to talk about something, and when he wasn't sure if the other person was in the mood to listen, so she encouraged him. "

You asked for it yourself," he winked at her knowingly. After a short moment, he began to tell the story:

"I met her three and a half years ago. We were in the same class. Right at the beginning, she approached me and introduced herself. Later, I noticed she did that to everyone, but then... You know—the memory of Baśka and Mirek was too vivid for me to feel like making new friends. And on top of that, Irka reminded me a lot of Baśka—roughly the same height, similar hair color, the same pageboy haircut—Karolina nodded. She remembered her brother's first love well, who was the same age as him and had not a shred of respect for other people's feelings. She was fifteen, running around on "dates" with three different boys at the same time, and when he met her with Mirek, she laughed in his face. Two days later, he realized that Mirek's meetings with Baśka were no big deal. At that time, they were having a lot of family problems—their parents were on the verge of divorce, their father was drinking more and more frequently. The only person he told about it was Mirek. And suddenly, it turned out the whole class knew about his problems. Or at least a large part of it. Piotrek broke down and began isolating himself from people. He was happy to be going to a new school, with people who didn't know him, but he didn't particularly want to get to know them. He just wanted to be left alone.

"She was a wanderer, everywhere. She irritated me. Not because of who she was, but because I felt trapped by her. She kept coming over, chatting. Now I know she was trying to be nice, that she wanted to get to know me, but back then I wanted to tell her, 'Girl, leave me alone, back off. I don't want to be friends with you. Or anyone else.'" She finally gave in. She was the last one to give in, but there came a moment when I think she felt she'd had enough of breaking through my shell. She simply stopped paying attention to me. And you know what was strangest? I felt like I was missing something. But I couldn't bring myself to approach her. I convinced myself it was better this way," he paused. "One day I saw our catechist looking at some photos. They were quite good. I especially liked one—a photograph of forested mountainsides, the backdrop for a blossoming branch. You can't see the tree, just the branch." It turned out they were her photos. I started talking to her about the photos and the pictures. I don't know if she noticed it herself, but it surprised her. For a moment, she had those wide eyes you sometimes see in children.

"And you started treating her normally?" Karolina couldn't help herself and interrupted her brother.

"Photos aren't everything." But I stopped treating her like a necessary evil. She became one of the few girls I cared about, who thought about more than just boys, clothes, and cosmetics. Or maybe she just lived for school—what the homework was, when the revision was, when the tests were, and what reading material was required. Then she surprised me again. It was in second grade, on a trip to the Bieszczady Mountains. On the last night, we sat, played guitars, and sang. It was the first time I'd ever seen music reflected in someone's eyes. I saw it especially clearly when we weren't playing songs, but instrumental pieces. She liked the first movement of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" the most. I also convinced her to try learning to play on her own. She has an ear, a nice voice, and loves the guitar—it'd be a shame to waste it," he winked at his sister knowingly. "I think I only accepted her then. But at the same time, I realized I couldn't be the way she wanted me to be. I couldn't enjoy every day like she did, I couldn't suddenly start singing with joy, regardless of people watching. And when I'm feeling down, I withdraw into myself, I don't want to talk about it, and I don't want anyone to comfort me. It took her a long time to understand this, and it must be admitted that she can sense other people's moods. At the same time, she needs someone to take an interest in her when things aren't going well. I can't do that either—I don't know what to say then, I feel lost. That's why sometimes..." he paused, searching for the right word, "sometimes I ran away from her. You know, mentally." He looked at his sister carefully, wondering if she understood what he meant. She nodded. She knew.

"How did she handle your seesaw?

" "I guess not very well. Every time I felt like she was pulling away, two steps ahead. And I couldn't explain to her how I felt at that moment.

"Are you still running away like that?

" "No, at some point it occurred to me that I could lose her, that at some point she might need me, and for some reason I'd retreat into my own world and not even notice. So I slowly started to change. It took a lot out of me, but I explained to her that I'm not good at confiding when I'm feeling down, and when I tell her what the problem is, I'm looking for a concrete solution, or at least an outline, not a comforting "everything will be alright." "

Did she understand that?

" "Yes. She also explained to me that when she's nervous, when she's worried, she doesn't expect anything major. She just wants someone she trusts, someone she can talk to, even if it's pointless." "

You found an extraordinary girl, Little One," Karolina said, looking out the window. Piotr realized her thoughts had wandered off somewhere far away. After a long moment, he interrupted his sister's thoughts:

"Earth to Karolina!

" "You know... I was wondering if I would have had that much patience for you. And what might have happened if I tried to communicate with Jacek again. Maybe we could be friends too?... Don't destroy what you have, Piotruś," she was the only person who sometimes spoke to him like that. He sat on the edge of the armchair and hugged her.

"Shall we dance?" Piotr extended his hand to Irka.

"With pleasure.

" "You know, I was telling my sister about you," he said at one point.

"Funny... I talked about you with Majka yesterday," she smiled. "

I'm glad we're here together. That you managed to reach me. That you allowed me to believe in people. And that you're my friend." His gaze wandered over her head. She looked at him, surprised. "Piotr so effusive? She'd never seen him like this." She snuggled up to him as they danced and replied,

"Me too."