Luminescence

In this fuzzy eyed world, she came to me. My heart was pounding, my fists were clenched, a deep inexplicable anger welled up inside of me as she walked towards me and asked me if I was Erika.
But her words hit like sweet honey, and began to slowly melt away my anger. We walked and talked slowly, not sure what to say to the other — not sure why SHE was the one who had to come for me.

Two strangers brought together by one terrible thing.

When I arrived at my new home, I was still confused as to how all of this had happened. How I was going to live with these two people. How I was going to watch love unfold in front of me. I had hated without knowing why. I had loved without knowing why. Each of them, and now here I was.

As the days in this hazy land continued, I was unsure of what to do with myself. I had thought someone else would be my savior (I had someone very specific in mind), but every time, no, there she was. With a hand outstretched. Part of me still wanted to hate her, but another HUGE part of me wanted to explore her, to know her, to see everything beautiful she had to offer and to see what made her something I could never be.

One night I did something terrible to her. Why I did it, I don't know. It wasn't physical harm, I didn't say anything to her, but it's what I didn't say, and it is what my actions said more than anything. I tried to steal the most precious thing in her life away from her... and I almost did. Ultimately, she won, and that is the way it was supposed to be.

Instead of shunning me, instead of hating me as she should have, she accepted me. She wanted to still be my friend, she wanted to understand my pain. And the next morning, when I awoke feeling alone and ashamed, she was waiting for me. I walked downstairs to see her standing in the door way, a heated summer breeze blew her golden locks around her crystal sea green eyes and the sun almost eerily shone on her dress making it translucent and casting soft, beautiful shadows on the wooden walls of the room.

She beckoned for me to come, and I did, although I could not understand why she could smile at me or love me after what I had done. For so long I thought she had been the one doing wrong, but the more I thought about it, the more I really looked at what I was doing, the more I realized I was completely wrong. I was terrible, I was awful and she forgave me without me even asking.

I began to cry and tell her all of this; she wiped my tears and smiled at me and told me it was ok, that I should stop this, and that we should be grateful for and enjoy our friendship and not fuss over the small things.

But this did not seem like such a small thing, but to her it was. To her, the value of friendship and forgiveness meant more to her than this sin, this crime. She saw the beauty in the dirt, and she picked me out of it and still held on to me. She considered me precious, and I considered her the same.