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Glory is South
An excerpt from
Cold Stone Silence.
This chapter was written in 1997.
I sat in my own world of self-hate and disgust. Holly came to me and knelt
before me and took my face in her hands and made me look directly in her eyes.
They'd never been so brown -- or was it blue? -- and warm as she looked at me,
serious, and said, "You are not to blame. You didn't kill Rachel. Rachel killed
Rachel. You had nothing to do with it. Nothing."
"I don't believe you," I said quietly.
She stood up. "Con, I'm your best friend, I wouldn't lie to you, I never
have," she yelled. "If you want to dig your own grave and go and die with
Rachel, then go. I won't stop you, I can't."
"But why?" I whimpered plaintively, a child, ashamed but unable to do
anything but be pathetic and pitiful.
"Rachel was a child playing an adult's game," Holly said.
"You don't really believe that," I said.
"Con, I wish I could count the number of times we all said to her, 'Grow
up.' She read too many books or something. Always the tragic heroine. Even in
death," Holly said. Cold steel. "I wish it wasn't true, but it is. It's the
truth."
I didn't believe her. To this day I still don't. I know I should. Holly
would know, but her reality is so easy and mine has to be so hard.
Holly came back to me and gathered me in her arms and held me close to her
and I couldn't feel a thing. "Con, don't kill yourself over this, I swear I'm
telling you the truth, I can't watch you do this to yourself. Don't make me."
My arms stayed motionless at my sides. "I have to go."
She pulled back and looked at me. "You're not evil. I see it in your eyes
-- you're looking for a reason to hate yourself and who you were. You didn't do
anything wrong."
I see her words hanging in the air. I see her in her doorway watching me
walk down the stairs. I don't look back.
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