The Sterling Cross
Part the First
If I were to tell you that this is a story about me, I would be lying. This is a story about a girl I once knew…
Amy was the most beautiful person I had ever seen. It is not unreasonable, then, at sixteen that I fell madly in love with her. Infatuation was so strong a force and I could see no one but her. When I looked at the sky, which had previously held such blue peace, I only saw the waves of her long brown hair in the wispy clouds. Amy had such gorgeous hair. It was long and straight and perfect. I saw no other girls when I looked at her. In truth I saw nothing else when I looked at her. It was as if the world didn’t matter when she was there. It wasn’t surprising then that she caught a few of my glances.
It was the spring of my sophomore year when I finally mustered the courage to speak directly to her. It wasn’t that I was struck dumb by her presence, it was just that I feared I would speak words letting on to my true feelings. I feared that I would let slip the words, which I so painstakingly concealed. I fear that I have spoken a fallacy, for I did not muster the courage to tell her of my feelings. I merely let slip the words, which were so painfully welled in the lowest depths of my soul. We were friends up to that point. Nothing more, nothing less. It is funny how words, so few words, can change everything.
I remember how she looked that day. I remember her facial expressions. But I cannot for the life of me remember what was said. Whatever was spoken was powerful enough to forge a relationship that would change my life. Like a sword’s edge honed by a master smith, our relationship was forged in heat and hardened in ice.
The summer of my sophomore year was unlike any other that I can remember. I was happy. Trite, yes, but it was the truth. Amy made me happy; she made me feel like I was more that who I truly was. She gave me courage and strength to conquer any obstacle that has the gall to rear its ugly head in our presence. We were an inseparable pair, until she left for her vacation.
The two weeks that she was gone were the longest of my life. I was miserable and paranoid. What if she found someone else? What if she never comes back? Who is she with right now? Will her plane be safe? Is she thinking about me? Does she still love me? Oh, the question should have been “Was that which we had, to be called love or mere infatuation?”
I went to the airport to pick her up. Standing at the terminal I shook in expectance of her arrival. As her plane taxied off of the runway, I fixed myself to the tall windows if only to catch a glimpse of her. The twin prop engines died down, and through the din I was able to hear my heart beating with anticipation. When she stepped into the light an ethereal glow was cast from her chest, from her heart. It was the reflection of some sort, but I cared not what, for she was safe.
When she stepped into the terminal I embraced her and a warm sensation coursed through my veins. She was safe and unchanged. Her hair was longer, her complexion darker, but there was nothing noticeably different about Amy as she stepped of the plane. The reflection had been cast by a sterling cross, which hung from a Spartan chain. I gave it little notice, for my love was back in my arms – never to be let go again.
The summer was not time enough for our relationship. I felt that it would last forever, yet I held doubts that it had even started yet. When I embraced her, did she embrace me, or were her limbs listless in my arms? Often these thoughts occurred to me, and just as often I dismissed them as mere mental prattle. She loved me, like none had before, this I knew.
School began again in earnest, and I fear that our relationship was strained by the first few weeks. We talked now not for hours with silent interludes, but curtly and with purpose. I missed the philosophical discussions and the silence which preceded “What are you thinking about?”
I could not bear not having the time to speak with her, and thus I made time. School could wait for another day; I was living for the now. And the now was Amy.
Looking back now, I see that I separated myself from the others that I had been friends with for so very long. I let the relationships fallow, which had been cultivated for such a long time. I forgot my true friends, but they were of no consequence for I had Amy. Oh, would this have been the end of my story – rather the story of a girl I once knew, but I have not even begun to tell it…
I had always fancied myself a good judge of character, and I had held my friends to quite a high level of morality. Thus the character of a girlfriend had to be sterling. Indeed it was as sterling as the cross which hung from her tanned neck. I had few classes with Amy during the year, and this stressed me more than it did our relationship.
I feared daily that I was wishing for too much out of the relationship that was still neoteric, but with each instance of doubt Amy was there to reassure me. Since I spent little time with her during the actual class periods, the time I spent with her during the breaks of the day were precious. I watched the clock only to see its hands beat ever closer to my liberation and reunion with her.
As the weeks progressed, our relationship had not faltered, nor had it encountered any setbacks. In retrospect this was due to the amount of time that I was dedicating to her. The fact that the time wasn’t wholly reciprocated was not a problem at that point, for I was so jaded by infatuation that I could not see the one-sidedness of my effort.
As the weeks progressed, my relationships with my other friends did suffer, though I was incognizant of the effects at the time. Friends whom I had known for ten years seemed to drift away from me, though it was I who was drifting away. The growing rift was unnoticeable at first, but then it grew to such an extent that even the preoccupation with Amy wasn’t distraction enough to keep me from noticing it.
Laura, whom I had known from early childhood, was the first to bring the rift to my attention. We had been the best of friends until this year, and I realized that this was because of Amy. Though partially right, but blinded by lust, I missed entirely the true nature of Amy’s role in the distance between Laura and me. I frankly thought that she was jealous, and she might have been, but the root of her argument was based purely on the friendship we once had shared.
The dialogue between Laura and I had all but stopped, with only a few cursory glances and salutations exchanged. It was Friday at lunch, the first occasion that year that Amy was not at my side, nor I at hers. Laura approached me with resolve and said, “Hey, Carter. We need to talk.”
“Sure,” I said in reply, “About what?”
“You haven’t been the same lately. Ever since… Well, you just haven’t been the same this year. We were best friends, what happened?” Her eyes were of a blue tint that I had never seen before, nor have I seen it yet in any other. It was so rich and jewel-like, that you couldn’t help but to stare at her eyes. I looked at her, my own eyes drifting from hers to the surroundings, all the while trying to formulate the correct answer. After a moment of impatient silence she interjected, “Well?”
“I don’t know, Laura, why we have grown apart. Was it something that I said, or did?”
“No, you didn’t say anything…” She trailed off in the end, speaking far more implicitly with her silence than with her words.
“Then it was something that I did.”
“I didn’t say that, Carter.”
“What did I do? What did I do to drive you away?”
“Me?” She looked up from the ground. She had been looking at her feet, lest her face tell more than she was ready to tell. The issue was a touchy one, and she didn’t wish her attempt to skirt it to be foiled by emotions. When she looked at me, I could see that she was hurt by the implication. “Carter, you haven’t driven me away. You are the one who has become distant. You don’t even acknowledge me when I pass you in the hall. You didn’t call me when I was sick – you always called me when I missed school.”
“You were sick?”
“See, this is what I mean. Carter you are so preoccupied with her that you have forgotten your old friends.”
“She has a name,” I said with a hint of sarcasm. “Do you not like Amy? I thought you two were friends.”
“We are Carter, great friends at that. But she and I are not the kind of friends that we were. I miss that.” She looked up to me for some hint of compassion. Hell, she would have settled with equivocation, but I was so enraptured by Amy that it was all that I could do to be civil to Laura. She wanted me to go back to the way it was, back before I found Amy. I couldn’t. If she was not so strong a person and so true a friend, my next words would have severed any friendship that I would have ever had with her.
“It can’t go back to what we had. I changed. You stayed the same. That’s just the way it goes. What Amy and I have is unlike anything I have ever experienced, and as a friend I thought that you would have understood. I was wrong.” She began to reply, but I had already arisen and was walking away.
Though unequivocal during my conversation with her, I was not so resolute in my own mind. As I walked away from her I thought of all the years we had known each other. I remembered the birthday parties and the classroom competitions. We were intellectual equals, and this brought me even closer to her. I remembered all the laughs that we had shared, and the one constant was that Amy was not present.
I had known Amy for the same amount of time as I had known Laura, but there was never a bond forged between us. She belonged to a clique that had not dissolved until the inception of our high school careers. It was thus that the infatuation grew, she was of a different stock. The waters were untested, and I wished so ardently to dive in. Falling in love with her was just the start, but getting back up was the hardest part of all.
I walked around the halls, searching for Amy, for I needed some solace after the exchange with Laura. I could not find her that lunch, nor did I find her after school. At the first possible opportunity I called her house. To my relief she answered the phone.
“Amy, are you ok?” I asked with trepidation.
“Oh, I am fine. I just got a little light headed. That’s all. I went home because I didn’t really have any more classes.”
“I was worried about you, love.”
“There’s nothing to be worried about. I’m just not feeling well.”
“Is there anything that I can do? Is there anyone taking care of you?” I asked, feeling quite useless.
“No, but I’ll be fine. I just need to rest.”
“So, am I to assume that we won’t be going out tonight?”
“Were we meant to go out tonight…Oh, Carter I am so sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. After all it’s not your fault that you are sick. We can go out another night. Do not fret my love, just get better.”
“Thanks. I will call you tomorrow.” With that, she hung up.
She didn’t call…
I did not hear from Amy the entire weekend, and none of my messages were answered. I was genuinely worried, and so I drove up the country to her house. I came to the driveway where I fully expected to see her car, and it was empty. Fear swept my consciousness. I could not but fathom what had happened to her.
Amy’s parents had split up when she was thirteen, an unlucky age to say the least. Furthermore it was an unexpected split and the devastation it wrought was inconceivable. She still went through therapy, and her mom had told me that I was the best thing that had happened to her since her father left. It was a touching sentiment, but her mother was an alcoholic, and her father was little worse.
I
waited for three hours that Sunday night, hoping that she had only gone out for
a moment. She didn’t return,
however, and reluctantly I drove home through the darkness.
Never had we been separated for so long since the vacation, and we were
much closer now than we were then. I
called Laura to ask if Amy had spoken to her, or even given her the slightest
intimation where she could be found. She
was none to pleased to be roused from bed at
“Carter, do you have any idea what time it is?” she asked in an invective tone.
“I know, and I’m sorry. But it’s about Amy.”
“What, did she spurn your love?” she asked sarcastically.
“Don’t joke. I haven’t heard from her in two days. Laura, I’m worried about her. This isn’t like her to just cut herself off from me. Have you talked to her lately?”
“No, not lately. The last time I talked to her was on Friday before she left. She said she was dizzy.”
“Did you get any idea where she was going?”
“To her house, I imagine. Carter it is two in the morning, and you and I both have to wake up and go to school tomorrow. If she doesn’t show up there, then you have grounds to worry. Just go to bed.” With these words she hung up the phone.
“Just go to bed, she says. Oh, if it were only that easy,” I said out loud as I paced impatiently in my room.
I must have fallen asleep a short time after I called Laura, because the phone still remained in my hands as the cacophony of the alarm clock ushered in a new day. I hastened to dress, and skipping breakfast I darted out of the door. Why I did so, I know not, because on a bad day I arrived at school before Amy. I only knew, as I sped down the narrow and winding road to the campus, that I was worried about her and I missed her. I was shaking in anticipation, and more than once a spasm struck me which caused the car to jerk to the right or left.
Her car wasn’t in its accustomed spot, but this was to be expected – as it was thirty minutes before she usually arrived. When she did arrive, I watched her get out of her car and all the fear and trepidation was gone. At once my nervous shivering ended, and as I walked to her the spring in my step and the confidence in my gait returned.
“Amy!” I called out her name as much to get her attention as to hear myself say my beloved’s name.
“Carter, I missed you…” She was going to say more, but I interrupted her.
“And where have you been young lady?” I asked her in a superficially jocular tone. I believe however that she received the stern undertones, which arose from my period of worry.
“I was at my dad’s house. Didn’t I tell you?” she asked.
“No, no you didn’t. Amy, I was worried sick about you. I called you a hundred times at your house and on your cell phone. Hell, I even went to your house to see if something had happened to you. I was so worried…” I trailed off, and in truth I was almost in tears from the whole weekend. To have such a thing as love hang in the balance made the worry so much greater.
Embracing me, Amy said, “Oh, Carter, I am so sorry I didn’t call you. It slipped my mind, and I know it shouldn’t have. I was feeling sick, and my mom was out of town. So I went to my dad’s house to get better. When I left for his house, I must have forgotten my cell phone. I was really disoriented.”
“You should have called though…”
“I know, and I’m sorry. I won’t let it happen again.” She tried to sound serious, but she was too happy to feel better that the deep seeded sorrow I had hoped for was absent. That moment in the parking lot would be the last truly happy moment that Amy and I shared together…
It had been only four days since Laura and I had spoken to each other about our friendship, and the three hours that I spent waiting at Amy’s house had afforded me plenty of time to re-evaluate my friendship situation. In truth it was I that had drifted away from Laura, and the realization of this fact enabled me to be able to apologize to her about my words. And I would do so that day, at lunch.
As the lunch bell resounded through the halls, I sought out Laura. I caught her fluorescent eyes at the end of a hall way, and it seemed that she was seeking me also. We met in the middle, and I spoke first. “Laura, there is something that I need to say to you.”
“Fine, but before you do there is something that I have to tell you. I…” Fully assuming that she was about to apologize for the way she acted on Friday or Sunday, though I found no fault, I stopped her before she said any more.
“Wait, I really need to tell you that I am so...” I tried to say, though she interrupted me.
“Carter your girlfriend’s a drug addict.”
“Stunned and angered, all that I could think to say was “What?”
“God, I hate to say this to you because I know how much you love her, but Carter I saw her in the restroom with the silver cross. She was…”
“What the… You know you have got a lot of damn nerve to come up to my face, when I was apologizing to you no less, and tell me that my girlfriend is a drug addict. I know you are jealous of what we have, but this is…this is just sick Laura.” I was so angry that one of my so-called best friends would say such slander to me, about the love of my life.
“Carter, I don’t want to upset you. I just thought that it would be better to hear it from someone you trust rather…”
“Someone I trust? Laura, I don’t even know you. You were my best friend. What happened?”
“Carter, I am not your enemy. I just wanted to help you. She has changed. Carter, she has changed you. If you don’t trust me, next time you are holding her in your arms look into her eyes and tell yourself that you can in fact see the soul of the same girl you fell in love with.”
“How can you say that she has changed? Where do you get off telling me that the person I am closest to has changed? We all change; hell, it’s the only constant. You need help Laura. You need help.” As I walked away, I knew my life had forever changed. I had either abandoned the only true friend I ever had, or I had brought into question the perfection of the girl that I loved. I couldn’t question what I felt, and the cocktail of anger and love is a dangerous one.
Laura stood there in the hall as I walked away, silent and mourning the loss of a friend. Whether or not what she had said to me had been the truth was moot in the face of an infatuation as strong as the one, which I had with Amy. I had to find her, not to tell her what had been said, only to see her angelic complexion and her sterling visage to set straight the awful lies. Despite everything that had been said, she was still perfect in my eyes.
Visibly shaken, I approached the bench, on which she sat and took a seat next to her. As I looked at her face, she had changed. She had grown thinner, but by no means was she emaciated. She was still beautiful, but the luster, the radiance that had once surrounded her was now less, like the light of a waning moon.
She looked at me with an emotionless stare, and said “What’s the matter, babe?”
“Nothing is the matter. I just had another ‘talk’ with Laura.”
“What did that tramp have to say to you?” I had never before heard Amy speak of Laura in such a contemptuous tone. In truth they had been great friends up until this year. Therefore it startled me that Amy would speak of her in such a negative manner.
“Tramp? Why did you call her a tramp.” I asked
“She just is… I mean if she can make you feel so bad about yourself, when you have obviously done nothing wrong… There has to be something wrong with the girl.” Amy spoke without finishing her sentences, and I chalked this up to anger. Anger I could understand at a time like this. “And you know she gets around.”
“Really? I had heard rumors; but then again there are so many rumors about you and me that I have a hard time believing them.”
“They’re all true…that is to say, the ones about her.”
“Well, that just goes to show who you can trust around here.”
“You really look upset. What did she say to you this time?”
“Oh, it’s not important.” I did not wish to repeat what I had heard to Amy, lest I upset her. Moreover I did not want to intimate in the least bit that I believed what Laura had told me. Though, if Laura was telling the truth, Amy most likely would have seen her in the restroom.
“I want to know what she said to you.” Amy’s tone of voice had changed entirely from that of her previous comments. The change in tone and attitude struck Carter for a moment, but then he dismissed it as mere hallucination.
“Really it was nothing. So how is your day going so far…”
In the days that followed that fateful Monday, I could not bear to look directly into Amy’s eyes. I feared that I would see exactly what Laura had seen – a changed person. The conversations that we had were stunted like those which I had so carefully constructed months before. The conversations were stunted so because I did not wish to let it be known that I was cognizant of what had or had not transpired in the restroom between the two.
Days passed, and I did not treasure Amy’s companionship as I once did. I still loved her, rather I was still infatuated with her, but there was the nagging stigma of doubt surrounding her every move. In my heart I knew that Amy could never do such a thing as Laura had implied, but in my mind I doubted her more as each day slipped away into the next.
In my doubt, I grew away from Amy, in much the same way I grew away from Laura. While we spent the same time together, I was not the romantic zealot that I once was. If she would leave for a weekend, I no longer waited for her call. I resigned myself to the fact that she would, like the night before and the one before that, not call. My distance came not as a result of my inundation into another person, but into myself. The introspection which resulted from the growing distance between Amy and I came as a direct result of my troubled introspection – it was a vicious cycle. Though physically present, I was never truly “there” anymore. It is said that great hate is nothing more that great love rejected. It is appropriate to say then that great confusion is great love doubted.
For the longest time I was truly confused. In fact it was two months after my last conversation with Laura that I came to see the light. Amy and I were still a couple, primarily because of convenience and secondarily because of comfort. We had become accustomed to spending each Friday and Saturday night together at dinner or at the movies. Amy was a crutch for me, as I was a crutch for Amy. Though our relationship had entirely changed, there were still glimpses of love and adoration.
As mentioned prior, each Friday night was spent together, and the Friday, two months after the last mentioned one, was no different. As per usual Amy’s mother was out of town, and so I drove up the country to her house for an evening of dinner and movies. When I arrived at her house, her car was in the driveway as it should have been two months prior. When I rang the doorbell, and no one answered I took it upon myself to go around the back in attempt to catch Amy’s attention.
Upon reaching the back door I found it wide open, and sensing that something was amiss I rushed into the house screaming her name.
“Amy! Are you ok? Amy!”
I became frantic when she did not answer my many calls. Having searched the entire downstairs area, I ran upstairs to her room. The door was closed and again I yelled to her.
“Amy, are you in there?”
With no answer I began to open the door, and then the bathroom door caught my attention, or more aptly the light emanating forth from below it. I opened the door and there she was sprawled on the white tile floor, sterling cross in hand.
At once I rushed to kneel at her side, and as I did I could see that there was blood around her head. Had she fallen? I was frantic, and my heart began to beat faster as I checked for any signs that hers still beat. Her pulse was weak, but she was still alive. I picked her up and took her down the stairs and placed her in my car.
I cannot remember the roads I took to get to the hospital, or the conversation I had with the emergency operator. I think I told them that Amy had fallen and was unconscious, but bleeding. In retrospect it is all a blur. I remember only pulling into the hospital, and carrying her to the gurney which the paramedics were unloading from an ambulance. The doctor at once whisked her into a closed room and saved her life. When he opened the doors to the emergency ward my heart was nearly at the breaking point.
“Is she all right?” I asked the doctor with an ardency only brought on by trauma.
“She will be fine, son.” His reassuring gesture of placing his hand upon my shoulder was quickly foreshortened by his next comment. “Son, she nearly overdosed.”
I looked ad him and I sank back into the emergency room’s chair. So, she did have a drug problem. I buried my face in my hands. God, Laura had been right all along, and all that I did was call her a liar.
"What! I exclaimed in disbelief. Composing myself I said, "Are you sure, Doctor?"
“Yes, quite sure. Were you aware of any drug problems?”
“No.” I could not come to grips with the fact that the girl whom I thought I loved and who I trusted implicitly had lied to me. I had forsaken all of my friends for her. To spend a moment in her arms was like spending a year otherwise. Whenever I felt bad I turned to her. It was all a lie.
“Son, I realize that it is hard to come to grips with, but you must understand that with help she will be fine. Here she comes.”
There she was. A tall orderly wheeled her out of the emergency room towards my chair. Looking at her was one of the hardest things that I had ever done. Before I had a perfect image of the girl that I loved, and now as she sat before me in the wheelchair, the mental photograph of my perfect girl was shattered.
Her long brown hair was disheveled and it covered her face like a blanket of shame. In the medical gown I, for the first time, realized how thin she had become. Her skin clung to her bones. Her jaw was as gaunt as a corpse. Too, she was pale. Her vivacious complexion was replaced with the wan visage of mortality. I did not know the girl who sat before me in the wheelchair. No longer would I be a crutch for her, nor her a crutch for me. At that moment the infatuation was gone, and in its absence no love lingered.
She looked up to me, searching for my eyes, but I refused to look at her. “Carter,” she said, “I am so sorry.”
“Well, you should be. Who…who are you?”
“Carter, it’s me. I just made a mistake. You must forgive me.”
“You made a mistake? You didn’t make a mistake; you chose to walk down this path. You chose to ruin your life. That’s not a mistake. The only mistake was that I trusted you. It was a mistake to fall in love with you. It was a mistake to forsake all of my friends. And for what, a coked up girlfriend?” At this point I had arisen from my seat and with raised voice and arms I was pacing in front of her.
“Carter, don’t yell, I will get better.”
“Oh, I am sure that you will. I am sure that you will find a substitute addiction; that you will find someone who understands you, that you will shake the habit in a few years. I am sure that you will get better, but not with me.” With those words I took my coat and left her there in the wheelchair in the hospital.
Driving home was a twofold experience. I was so very angry at the betrayal, yet I pitied her. A part of me wanted to drive away and forget that I had ever known her, but a part of me knew that I would always remember the way she made me feel. She would have to make her amends with herself and with her forgotten friends, and if she did so she in fact would be all right.
As I slowed at a stoplight it struck me. Amy was like a drug to me. I came to her when I felt down, and she picked me up like no one else. I became so dependent upon her that I forsook my friends, and doing so resulted in the ultimate betrayal. As she entrusted herself to the powder in the silver cross, so did I entrust myself to her. As she lied to me, so did I lie to the one true friend that I had, Laura. As she betrayed herself with happiness cut with lies, so did I betray myself with her.
I knew at that moment that I needed to atone myself to Laura, for I had betrayed her like Amy had betrayed me. I realized then that in order for Laura to forgive me, I must also forgive Amy. If I did not forgive Amy for her addiction I would be a hypocrite asking for Laura’s forgiveness. Though I realized that I ultimately had to, I did not know if I would be able to face Amy to forgive her
As I said before, this is the story of a girl I once knew. Her name was Laura. When I came to her bearing the truth of Friday’s events she was there to forgive me. She truly was the best friend that I ever had. I approached her tentatively for the last time we spoke I had dealt a crushing blow to her. She looked up from the book that she was reading and I at once was caught by her sapphire blue eyes.
“Hey, Carter, what’s wrong?”
As I walked towards her I tried to be strong and diplomatic, but when I looked into her eyes I felt weak. “You were right.” That’s all that was needed to be said, for my tears evinced the rest.
“Oh, Carter, I am so sorry.”
“How could she lie to me like that? I gave her everything I had to offer, and she just took it without giving it a second thought. I thought I loved her.”
“She wasn’t right for you. I know that you thought so, but Carter I saw what she made you do. I saw how she treated you. I saw how she ruled your every move. I saw how she changed you.”
“The thing I hate the most is that I hurt you, and I know that it seems trite, but losing you was like losing a part of myself. I never noticed it, or more so I chose not to notice it.”
“What made you realize that you had lost her?”
“Her eyes.”
“Her eyes?” she asked.
“Yes, when I saw her at the hospital she looked so pitiful. She was a shadow of her former self, but I told myself that within the emaciated figure lies the immutable soul of the girl I so loved. But when she looked at me, and I at her, I saw that her eyes has lost their twinkle. In truth all that the only thing about her that gave off any light was that damn silver cross, and its light was only the reflection of happier environs. I looked into her eyes, but there was no soul to be seen. All that I could see was that she was lost.”
Laura looked at me, and with a glance told me that everything would be fine. She always had a way about her that could kill you with a frown or lift you from the deepest depths of sorrow with a smile.
“Laura, can you ever forgive me for the way I treated you?” Before she had the chance to answer me I implored her, “I never should have doubted you, and that is so very obvious to me now. You must understand, though, that I couldn’t see the truth, for I was so infatuated. In the innermost chambers of my heart, I knew that you were my truest friend, but I could not bring myself to walk into the chamber without Amy first having broken down the door.”
“Carter, you hurt me, you know that.”
“I know, and I am truly sorry.”
“As long as I can always trust you, and you can always trust me, we will forever be friends. It was painful that you didn’t believe me, but I know that if I were in your position I would have had my doubts about you. I never want to doubt you again.”
“And you never will have to.”
“Then, you are forgiven.” We hugged and nearly everything was right in the world.
I could not trust Amy anymore with my love and adoration, and thus it was difficult to fully forgive her. She took away from me more than I can ever be cognizant of, and thus I can never regain some of those things that she took. I once looked at her as an object of a teenage crush, then as the object of a love-lined infatuation, but now as she walks towards me I look at her with pity. The sterling cross, once so furtively concealed beneath her expensive clothes, now hangs from her neck to be viewed by the world. No longer does modesty remind her of her honor.
As Laura and I grew closer, I watched Amy wither away. The separation between us was not like the schism that had occurred between Laura and I, for it was Amy that was pulling away. Once I supported her like a crutch, and she me; but now it seemed that I had healed, and she was unable to walk. I offered help and advice, but she was as open to my compassion as I had been to Laura’s months before. The more I tried to help my old friend, the more she withered away.
Like I said, this was a story about a girl that I once knew. Looking back I should have seen the signs, but love – or more precisely infatuation – makes you blind to many things. I once knew Amy, but with one action she took it all away. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, but with a single lie she withered away into nothingness. I look at her now and only see a doppelganger, a shadow of her former self. The only constant remains her Sterling Cross.
I’m beginning to wonder,
Why you are who you are.
You can’t quite see your future,
No you can’t quite see that far.
You take your courage to drown away,
The fear of living another day.
You’re jonesing for that better day,
To help you maybe break away.
And the answer to your question,
Is not too far to be found.
But ain’t that a bitch,
When you can’t quite see the ground