Reminders of the Past

It's been three years, she thought as she walked to her table. From the drawers, she pulled out a big, green bookbounded scrapbook. The plastic that encases it was torn, the skin of the book was weathered. She placed the bulk onto the table and opens it to the first page. She smooths out the folded sides of the page and begins flipping through it - an album of a time never to be retrieved again other than by memory.

As she turned the pages, faces flashed before her. Events that seemed, at that moment, to have meant to last forever. Clad in high school uniforms, she and her friends were carefree children, unwary that time would eventually succeed in pulling them, one by one, apart. But one memory remained to haunt her despite its already long conclusion. One picture of a boy was left, which she was forcing to ignore, for it holds far more hurt and pain than any other photograph could store.

It was the picture of the downfall of her pride and the captured image of her embarassing shame. She loved the boy in her youth, (Had she really loved?) but her heart was rejected after a month of hopefulness. She was too eager, she reprimanded herself. Too eager to give, and too eager to love, too eager to get hurt.

It was her birthday, she thought, when closure became evident. It was only at that time, that he did admit to her friend of his loss of feelings. He had avoided her for days since Christmas, a month before her birthday, not giving her any defined reason for his behavior. After he had wooed her into believing his affections, he disappears. In circumstances when they meet in school, he shunned away, pretending to be unaware of her presence. Where did she go wrong she asked herself repeatedly. Her friends rescued her from her sorrows, whisked her away into short-lived joys to keep her mind away from his betrayal.

She was grateful for her friends, despite their loss of patience to hear her spit out his name in complaint after a month of perserverance. Their efforts have been intense, watching her continuously like a mother does to her sick child, giving her warm advice that further strengthened their bonds. She was grateful to be in the midst of such heroic allies, her friends who have saved her in her most pitiful despair. And at last, she is grateful to have moved on.

But, has she moved on?