An Unexpected Betrayal

An Unexpected Betrayal

by Henley Hall

Time and time again I could feel the riveting thought slide through my mind for just a split second at a time. That's what happens when you are trying to forget something that is permanently planted into your train of thought. I will never forget the time I left my mark on the world. Not an expectation , just devastation.

It had been four years since I last saw my mother , Evelyn Rain Landrum. The same woman that raised me , cared for me , taught me right from wrong , and made everything in my troubled teen life make sense , was the same woman who wrecked my world. I never saw it coming. The desolation. It felt like the end , but little did I know , it was just the beginning.

"Don't ever forget the person I was , the person who loved you , and never let you down. That is my only selfish request." those were her last words to me as the judge ruled her guilty and applied the rusted silver handcuffs to her now fragile wrists. I will never fully understand why , but I do understand how , and that is the evil in it.

I sit in my quaint apartment and pull out my "sympathetic belongings" , belongings of which were my mother's. Anytime I look at a picture of her with my father , I wonder "How could they have ever been in love?" For the very instant that I remember them it's not a glorious and spontaneous moment of which I will remember for years upon years , it's something malicious , dishonorable , and heart-wrenching that I will spend years upon years trying to forget.

I remember the way he grinned , the way he softly laughed , every small phrase he would read to me as I fell into a delicate slumber. Sometimes it hurts to think of these things , because he is gone , and I know it. I was only thirteen years old. I wasn't ready for a life changing moment. I wouldn't have ever been.