We all have an embarrassing childhood story from elementary school. You can’t say you don’t have at least one. Most people are lucky enough to leave those memories buried in the past forever, but for this 17-year-old, unfortunately, hers came back 9 years later.

She reconnected with her childhood crush, became friends, and found out a secret from the past: her older sister had tried to set her up with him because she was too shy to talk to him herself back then. Like many playground stories, she approached him during recess and confessed her sister’s love, even though it wasn’t reciprocated. But they were children. It was an ambitious matchmaking attempt, okay, but it was still sweet. 

The thing is that now the older sister won’t apologize because it happened nine years ago. It’s old information for her, but for her sister it’s fresh news. She just found out. You may think it’s childish of the older sister not letting it go, and that’s probably right, but it’s just as childish of the younger sister not to apologize for something that’s bothering her. It’s about letting her sister know she cares about her feelings. After all, a short and simple apology won’t hurt her much.  

Does she want to be right or to be a good sister? Those are different things. If your sister tells you that you hurt her, you don’t get to decide that you didn’t. You can judge her, alright. But that doesn’t make her feelings less real. So you decide what to do with it. And if you do something bad and get away with it at the moment it happened, does that mean you would never need to apologize if the other person finds out years later?