Part II: XII

4.5K 165 39
                                    

There was a time when I wanted to know everything

Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.

There was a time when I wanted to know everything. When I believed that knowledge was power. I used to think living in the dark was something to be feared. Something to dread, and to hate. But now I see that the dark is bliss. Not knowing is a gift. People like to think the truth will set them free. Honesty and transparency is the key to solving all of life's dilemmas. And sometimes, it is.

But not always.

Sometimes, the truth is detrimental. The truth is the cause of the pain we try to free ourselves from. Because there is no escape from the truth. No distortion or relief from its weight, or its sincerity. None that I have ever found. And I spent the better part of my life searching for one. The truth is poison in the wrong situation. And this situation could not in any form be considered right.

They haven't said a word. Logan and Tyler were sitting in front of me, staring at my face with forlorn looks, not saying anything. I'd come out of the bathroom only a few minutes ago, but it already felt like a lifetime. I wanted them to begin. Needed them too. I couldn't be the one to start this when I knew I wouldn't be the one to end it. I'd just be the one to be hurt by it.

My brain was pounding. Like a sledgehammer was being taken to my cranium, and this time it wasn't because of my hearing aids. They had been the least of my problems today, and I wasn't planning on ditching them anytime soon. I needed all my senses for this conversation. I needed every advantage I could get this time. Logan was fumbling with his fingers in his lap, his eyes trained on my face as he sat in front of me. He didn't know what to say. Or he didn't know how to say it. He looked at Tyler. My oldest brother looked back.

"You wanna start?" He whispere.

Logan looked back at me for a second, a strangely hollow expression reflecting in his eyes, then shook his head at Tyler and waved him off. "You start. I don't know what to say."

Tyler nodded tentatively and took in a slow, deep breath as he turned his full attention to me waiting patiently in front of him.

"Well, where do we start? What do you want to know?" Tyler asked me.

I hesitated for a second. In truth, I wasn't sure what I wanted to know. It had been so much information at once, it was hard to pick out which part I needed to be clarified first. But every time I thought about this conversation, only one thing came to mind as a topic of discussion; My best friend. She was all I'd been able to think about for days, now, just in a very different capacity, and I knew I needed to know what there was to know about her for even the littlest bit of peace of mind. Not for me to be found. There never had been.

"Marley." I signed simply.

Tyler nodded and sighed again like he was working up the nerve to start this talk. We all were apparently.

"Well, we met Marley when she was 13. I was 21 at the time, in college, so not living at home but-but I was home for the summer when she came and that's when we met."

The World That Was Mine (Part I & II)Where stories live. Discover now