After 3

Chapter 229.

Hardin's POV.

I scan through the pages of the small notebook, my eyes move across the words quickly as I decide where to start. It's a journal from her religion class, it took me a minute to figure out what the hell it was because each entry is labeled with a word and a date, most of them having nothing to do with religion.

Pain. The word catches my eye and I begin to read.

Does pain turn people away from their God? If so, how?

Pain can turn anyone away from just about anything. Pain is capable of causing you to do things you would never consider doing, such as blaming God for your pain.

Pain.. such a simple word that holds so much inside. I have come to learn that pain is the strongest emotion one can feel. Unlike every other emotion, there is no upside to pain, no positive notion that can make you look at the pain from a different perspective, there is only pain. Lately I have become very well acquainted with pain, the ache has nearly become unbearable. Sometimes when I'm alone, which is more often than not as of recently, I find myself trying to decide which type of pain is worse. The answer isn't as simple as I thought it would be. The slow and steady aching pain, the type of pain that comes when you've been hurt repeatedly by the same person yet here you are, here I am, allowing the pain to continue, it never ends. Only in those rare moments when he pulls me to his chest and makes promises that he never seems able to keep, does the pain disappear. Just as I get used to the freedom, my freedom my self inflicted pain, it returns with another blow.

This doesn't have a damn thing to do with religion, this is about me.

I have decided that the hot, burning, inescapable pain is the worst. This pain comes when you finally begin to relax, you finally breathe, thinking that the pain is yesterday's problem when in fact it's today's problem, tomorrow's, and every day after that. This pain comes when you pour everything into something, into someone, and they betray you so suddenly that the pain crushes you and you feel as if you are barely breathing, barely holding on to that small fraction of whatever is left inside of you begging you to go on, not to give up.

Fuck.

Sometimes it's faith that people hold onto, sometimes, if you're lucky enough you can confide in someone else and trust them to pull you out of the pain before you dwell in it for too long. Pain is one of those hideous places that once visited you have to fight your way out and even when you think you have escaped you are permanently branded. If you're like me, you don't have anyone to depend on, no one to take your hand and assure you that you will make it through this hell. Instead, you have to lace up your boots, grab your own hand, and pull yourself out.

My eyes move to the date at the top of the page, this was written while I was in England. I shouldn't read any more, I should just put the damn book down and never open it again but I can't. I have to know what else was written in this book of secrets. This is the closest to her I fear that I will ever fucking get. I turn to another page labeled "Faith".

What does faith mean to you? Do you have faith in something higher? Do you believe that faith can bring good things into people's lives?

This should be better, this entry should knife the ache in my chest. This one couldn't be related to me.

To me, faith means believing in something other than yourself. I don't believe that any two people can possibly hold the same view on faith whether their only faith is religion based or not. I do believe in something higher, I was raised that way. My mother and I went to church every single Sunday and most Wednesday's. I don't go to church now, which I probably should but I'm still deciding how I feel about my religious faith as an adult without my mother's influence.