DEAR ABBY: Back in second grade I was friends with "Jessica." A girl named "Kristy" started at my school, and I became friends with her, too. She didn't want me to be friendly with Jessica, and before long I began to pick on Jessica with Kristy. It reached the point where Kristy and two other girls wrote some mean things about Jessica on the blacktop. I didn't write anything, but I got in trouble, too. I knew I'd made a mistake and hurt her, and I felt bad about it.
A year or so later I apologized for what I had done. Jessica said it was OK, but I continued feeling guilty over the years for having teased her and not resisting peer pressure. When I was in high school, I sent her a message online and apologized again. Although she said again it was OK, I feel she still holds some resentment, and I don't blame her.
We're both adults now, and I see her when I shop at the store up the road from my house. Each time I'm in the checkout line she's working in, I get a cold attitude. I have told her I was wrong and have tried to make it up to her. Do I leave it alone or keep trying to reach out to her? -- HEAVY HEART IN MAINE
DEAR HEAVY HEART: Find some other way to expiate your guilt. Jessica has told you twice that you're forgiven. Leave her alone because for you to keep bringing up what had to have been a painful (although closed) chapter in her life at this point is creepy. If you can't do that, then please, shop someplace else or stand in a different checkout line.