Shadow Rescue

A day with you pervades my mind;

I remember.

I had to think about it when it came needling into my mind, because I second-guessed at first; I thought, no that memory couldn’t possibly be you–but it is. 

It is perhaps the only untainted memory I have of you. We were young, so young and so free. And you baffled me, because no one else had ever spent time with me before just for the sake of spending time with me–at least, not very many, and not anyone who knew me. You came in and you were different. You weren’t there when I was written off, you didn’t come from a place where boys were gross. I forgot–if I ever really knew before this moment–how deeply I feel about that day, because I was for a few precious hours no longer on the outside of a clique.

What happened between Then and Now–between Then and Pain–I wish I didn’t know. We became the clique, and it divided us. It wasn’t you and I anymore, because even in a clique I was never really ‘in’–I never really wanted to be, I just craved not being out.

I saw your picture today, and then I remembered what I had so easily left buried for 15 years because the gold in the dark side only hurts when it falls on your head. It hurts in a different kind of way today, because I know my memory has only ever had honour for you, my friend; and today I am healed, and you are redeemed.