Truth in love

“Never again, Sawyer Philips. Never again will I trust you!” Spinning away in order to hide the tears, Ashley turned from him. With a slight sniff, she continued. “Don’t you understand? All this time, all this worry and pain, and yet you throw it away. And why? Because you’re a coward….” That got a reaction from him. With him taking two steps towards me, I could almost see his eyes blazing with inner fire at what I had said. “I’m NOT a coward. But I’m no fool either. Can’t you see? I can’t help it! These people will murder me AND you if I’m not careful.” Turning to face him, I lightly ran my hand over his cheek. “No, Sawyer. You’ve got to choose. Do the right thing and tell the truth, or run forever from a foe even greater than the one you’re facing now.” “And who exactly would that be?” He took on a stance of one looking for a challenge. “Your conscience.” I stated boldly. I could tell he was trying to fight against that particular truth, but I knew I had struck a nerve. “No matter what, you’ll always know what you did or didn’t do, and you’ll be accountable for all of it. You can’t run from that no matter how hard you try.” His posture wasn’t so confident now. He seemed to know he was beat from the inside, and that’s what broke my heart. I could see the pain that was being inflicted on both of us, and I just wanted relief. Something to ease the turmoil I was experiencing because of his inner battle. The good and evil warring in his head and in his heart was tearing me up inside. It was then I knew. I had let myself love him deeper than just the physical or the superficial. I had let myself care more for his well-being than for my own. But did I really regret it? I couldn’t tell. Part of me said yes, it wasn’t worth the pain. Besides, he didn’t love me like that anyway. But a small whisper deep inside my heart told me that I would do it all over again. Something about him and something hidden away in my soul told me I had to love him. Or else he might just come apart. I had to hold him together and be his light, even if he never saw me as anything other than a friend. I needed to show him the right path to walk. It was like a deep-rooted necessity for my heart. So I kept walking beside him. The weeks passed, and we grew more casual. Yet our conversation was more often than ever. But it wasn’t serious. No, it was all just joking and teasing. Surface stuff. But I knew that locked away where no one could see, he was still fighting that battle. The never-ending battle that plagues us all until the day we die. Will we take the straight and narrow, with the promise of eternal reward, or the up-and-down, back-and-forth, wide and full of temporary pleasure path? It was a slippery slope. And I even felt myself inching down it from time to time…. But I had something strong to pull me back. God kept me rooted in the truth, even though I sometimes would be resistant to His ever-faithful pull on my heart-strings. Sawyer claimed to have that too, but something had changed. I knew that he was trying to get out of what he’d been told to do. He was running. But I didn’t understand why. Everyone around him could see that he was created for the job. Born for it. Yet he felt that he couldn’t do it BECAUSE of who he was. In my head I wanted to tell, him “My darling, you can do it because of who you are, and who you were made to be. You can reach people with your skills, talent, and personality that no one else could reach. They would listen to you because they know you understand. You’re not the guy who says one thing and lives another, but lives by the truth and goes through the struggles. After all, yes, He saves us, and we live to please Him, but we won’t be perfect till Heaven, and if anyone claims to be that while still on this earth, I don’t think they got much to say that’s worth listening to.” But I couldn’t quite bring myself to…..not yet anyway. So we just talked casually. We talked about almost everything, including some of our own sin issues sometimes. We would banter, tease, compliment, send heart emojis, and laugh. But the undercurrent was always there, threatening to pull him under the second he let go of the anchor that kept him afloat. And another current was also there, pulling at my heart. Does he love me? Not like a girlfriend necessarily, although that would be nice. But, does he love me enough to put aside himself? Does he care how I feel, and how his actions affect me? Or does he just want someone to entertain him and make him laugh? The only problem was I didn’t want to be his friend on the side. I wanted to be his best friend. I wanted to be the one he ran to if he needed a hug, or someone to talk to about the deep stuff. I wanted to be that person that he thought more of than anyone. But I suppose that that was asking too much. I mean, why should I ask for that? He tells me about the girls he likes, the girls who like him, and the girls who are being complete idiots to him. Like, he could pick from a lot, so why me? That’s the question I think I struggled with the most. Why me? Why did my heart have to care so much about him? Only explanation I know of is Jesus. The fact the Sawyer actually doesn’t push me away, which is strange in and of itself, but the fact that he actually misses me when he’s gone, and likes to talk to me every day. It all just makes me wonder. And when he tells me I’m cute when I don’t have an ounce of makeup on, and haven’t done squat to my hair, it makes me think he might think of me as something more. But then reality hits like a cold ocean wave on a November day, and I think that no, he’s just messing with me because I’m easy to talk to. Or because I’m available. He’ll make a rather mean joke, and granted, he is kidding, but still, emotions are not to be extremely beaten down and toyed with. All this floats through my mind in just several seconds. How fascinating life and the human brain is. What takes you time to read and write takes a mere half-second to fully circulate through your brain. And yet this life is like the chaff blowing on the wind. Here one second, gone the next. You never know if it’ll be your last day, or if you’ll live another twenty-five years. What seems so important in one moment seems to fade as the eternal comes into view.