"Put it down. Put it away. Forget about it." My heart pleaded.
"I can't help it." I said.
Those eyes. Her eyes. That sweet face pulled me backwards through time into decades long forgotten. She was the picture of innocence. She still is.
My heart spoke again, "I can't take this, please, I'm begging you. Stop looking at it."
I flipped the picture over. Someone wrote 1988 on the back in blue ink. Kodak paper. My heart slowed its tremors but my stomach was churning. I almost hadn't notice that my fingers were pale and a bit unsteady. I wandered the house for a moment, book in one hand, her photograph in the other.
The book was Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and the photograph was a girl that I once knew. I finally found myself outside, sitting on the back porch. The sun was setting behind the cornfield, casting a golden glow over the impending twilight. A cool breeze drifted over me. I felt feverish.
There are things in this life that are hard to admit and there are some that you simply cannot admit. I am struggling for words. The book slips to the floor. The photograph is curled in my hand. My heart begs me to leave it alone, but I am a fool, a glutton for selfish punishments.
I look out over the golden twilight. It is a gift to be alive, to see such things as this set against a backdrop of crickets and emerging stars. I have come so far... only because I... This is what drives my guilt: with every glance at that photograph, I see someone who got hurt, someone who never deserved a thing that was pushed on her, someone who was changed forever. I see a girl I left behind.
How do I make amends for that? Tell me now, heart of mine. What am I supposed to do for her now? You beg me not to look at her face, her eyes... but doesn't she at least deserve the acknowledgement? Tell me now. All the days and years that have grown between then and now... my eyes are older and sharper. My stomach drops at the sight of her. It tears me up inside. What am I supposed to do?
I opened my hand. The photograph remained curled. Somewhere in the distance, I heard an owl. I closed my eyes.
"I'm so sorry."