❝Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.❞
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Alissa Cameron was just an ordinary high scho...
[ The Human Condition ] Chapter XXIX: Are You Your Own Worst Enemy?
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❝We are all mistaken sometimes; sometimes we do wrong things, things that have bad consequences. But it does not mean we are evil, or that we cannot be trusted ever afterward.❞ Alison Croggon
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**Songs of the Chapter: A New Kind of Love by Frou Frou, Starting Line by Luke Hemmings
Forgiveness is a lot like a warm hug on a winter day. You don't know you need it, but when you're on its receiving end, the world goes alight with fever. The tingles fade, and your soul thaws. You never know how badly the cold is affecting you, how badly the guilt is eating at you, until that warm hug swoops in, pulling you through arctic cyberspace. Embracing you like an old friend.
You can breathe again.
I didn't know I needed forgiveness. I didn't realize the guilt was tearing me apart.
There was always the now, never the then or the after.
I didn't know I was shivering or that my digits were numb. I didn't realize I was going under, sinking beneath the weight of an anchor.
Until I was greeted like an old friend.
❀
The responsible parties trickled in, and I could never guess who I would face next. First was Paul, of course. Less than an hour after I arrived back in La Push with Dad in tow, he was throwing rocks at my window, eager for a reunion. When we touched after what felt like years of separation, I felt like depravity personified. He was a warm hug. Paul, I mean. And there was nothing said about stupid me, stupid this, stupid that. Stupid everything. Paul was mad, but his anger wasn't directed at me. His anger was circumstantial.
He was worried. Worry didn't translate to rage, indicting me for a crime I possibly deserved a life-sentence for. He forgave me wordlessly, like a mother would her runaway son.
The next morning, Paul left. I was fast asleep at the time. He didn't leave a note or rouse me for a conscious farewell, but I knew without question just where he was going, what swept him from my shore. Paul was going to Sam. Maybe he had patrol, or maybe he was acting on a previous order, potentially the order to tell Sam anything and everything I mentioned about vampires.
I got up, took a shower, towel-dried my hair, put on a change of loungewear. I laid back in bed in the exact spot Paul had vacated. Both me and Paul were left-side people; I was gracious enough to let him take the left side when he stayed over. It hadn't been much of a pressing issue last night but the positions remained as they were, anyway.
