I could hardly breathe when I heard the news. For countless moments I stood there, alone, watching as the movements around me halted. My dear friend’s words echoed in my ears making them ring with disbelief. The trip of my heart beat reminded me to breathe, but when I sucked in for air, nothing filled my lungs. The knocking of my knees became uncontrollable and soon they were unable to hold me upright anymore. I tumbled into a sitting position. My boney fingers gripped the leather sofa beneath me as if this rage, this embarrassment I felt gave me the power to tear it into shreds. I could see nothing that was real; I could feel nothing that was real. All I felt was their wickedness. Everything I heard was their voices mocking me, ripping years of memories and laughs and bonding right out of my soul making me feel worthless.
The fibers in my brain began to tunnel my thoughts toward those memories and laughs and bondings. To a place where awkwardness swallows the life of a thirteen year old girl and spits her into a seventh grade science class where, conveniently none of her other friends had been spat. This was where I met them, instantly we became best friends…forever. We told each other everything from our “relationship” drama with boys to our difficulties find our ‘place’ in the social hierarchy. We passed notes in class, we gawked at Zac Efron in magazines, we danced, we made inside jokes, we shared our deepest darkest secrets and vowed that we were all misplaced at birth because there was no way God hadn’t meant for us not to be sisters. We stuck together because that’s what family does, right?
An urgent but gentle hand locked onto my shoulder, shaking it until it brought me back to reality. I blinked through the haze gathering in my eyes and drew in a rattled breath.
“Caroline? Caroline, don’t worry about them…” my dear friend was trying to comfort me. I knew she was. Her intentions were to show me love. But, I felt nothing. The image of the words she spoke stung so deep inside of me that I was numbed. A sense of lonely panic swept over me and once again I replayed over and over what my dear friend had revealed to me. How could something this awful be true?
I recalled vividly each time a camera was lifted to snap pictures of me and the girls who had been my shoulder to cry on. There were so many wonderful times captured on film. We’d stare at the pictures for hours giggling and engraving those moments in our minds. No wonder I could see it so clearly now… I felt a stabbing sensation in my stomach making me gag. My whole body began to shake uncontrollably. I struggled to curl myself into a fist as tears flooded from my eyes. The tears poured out as rivers on my cheeks, dumping onto my shirt, thank goodness it was black so no one would see the stains. My thoughts became an old tape recorder whispering my dear friend's words over and over again until I had them memorized.
“Well, her birthday party was yesterday…it was cold so she had a bonfire. Caroline, I really don’t want to tell you…”
“Just go on please…I’m begging…”
“Okay, well, when it came time to start the fire they just got some wood and started it and I thought everything was going to be fine. But then your name came up…and they started making fun of you and…Caroline, it wasn’t me! I can’t tell you the rest.”
“Keep going.”
“ Fine…after they started talking about you it just kept getting worse and worse and they were all sharing how much they hated you. And-and- and then they went upstairs. I thought it was all over but after a while they came back…and- oh my gosh this is terrible, Caroline. They-they had every note you’d ever written to them and every picture they owned of you…and as a celebration they put them in the fire.”
I shuddered, I wept. I focused on breathing. I tried not to let the image of my face being consumed by devilish flames control my mind. It was too late for that. It had made a monster of my mind.
* * * * *
I guess you could say I laid there on the couch for months hiding from the rest of the world because the wounds I had endured from it were too severe to overcome. And for a while, they were. Here and now, however, I look back on that moment and wish I could see what good has come from those lonely months on the couch aching in pain. I wish I could go back, take my face into my own hands and say, “You stop that crying and you stop it right now, missy! Look at you, child, you’ve got family, friends and a God that loves you more than anything else in the world. What more could you need? If you think these people were ever your friend, you don’t know a thing about friendship. You don’t know one single thing. Because if you did? You would run as fast as your little legs will let ya until you ran into the people who love you back.”
The image of my face burning in a fire is a painful one I can never forget. And it’s true that I may never be able to forget those girls and what those girls did. But I can never thank them enough for breaking me down low enough to realize that no matter what, I can never let myself forget I have an army of supporters behind me. I may not feel anything, see anything, or hear anything. But they see me, they hear me, and they will never go away.
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