My Cross Borne
James,
The last time I saw you was in fourth grade, if I’m not mistaken. The last memory I have of you was outside room 19, hurt fairly badly. I can still remember every detail of that day’s encounter with you and how little compassion I felt when I’d upset you. Indeed, such affliction was the intended effect of what had transpired only earlier.
You see, you were always bothering me, picking on me, laughing at me. All I wanted was to be left alone. I didn’t realize that what you were doing was very normal for children our age with crushes as I had grown out of that phase a full three years prior. I had little empathy for others; all were like me or were deviant somehow in their actions. I’d tried hitting you, calling you names, telling you to leave me alone, but you seemed impervious to my efforts, as it affected you as though each insult were but water droplets rolling off a duck’s back.
When you said, “You know what, Sara?” and I, not particularly interested, puffed back, “What, James?” to which you pluckily replied, “I love you,” it was as though you, for some reason incomprehensible to me, had shown your weakness to an enemy. I did not hesitate to administer the coup de grace.
So there we were outside, you in tears and I, not simply not ambivalent, but vindicated. I’m so sorry.
You disappeared some time after this happened and, while I never forgot that which had transpired, it took a long time for the gravity of the result of my haste to injure you to inspire an epiphany. Perhaps, nay, certainly it was a taste of my own medicine which brought to fruition the deep regrets that I have borne for nearly nine years.
About three years after what had transpired between us, I fell into an unrequited love with a friend of mine. Not having the courage you did when you were merely a year younger than I was at the time, I wrote an anonymous note and hid it in his backpack. That very evening, at a church function, he was laughing and showing the letter to the others and yelled, “Hey, Sara! Nice letter!”
I was, obviously, mortified. What followed in my relationship with that person were to be two years of a traumatic love-hate relationship, blossoming into depression, and an eventual attempt on my own life. I’ll spare you most the details on these matters, only including that which pertain to yourself.
At the end of the aforementioned love-hate relationship, I sat alone in my darkened room and made a solemn promise to never inflict such pain on another as I had experienced. In that moment, it was with a rush of insight that I realized that I had already done such a thing to another: you, James. I wondered if this pain was the fitting punishment which the universe had selected for me for what I had done to you. You, surely, were innocent of my great crime and, hence, undeserving of the horrible way in which I had treated you.
Soon after this new awareness overtook me, I began to search for you in order to somehow make it all right to you. I searched periodically for you for years, to no avail. That is, until last night. I finally found you and yet I feel worse than ever.
I am not seeking forgiveness as I am in no way worthy of the peace such a thing should bring. I want to know if there is any way I can make up to you what my miserable, wrathful nine-year-old self had put you through. I don’t know exactly how deep your feelings were for that little girl, James, but if they were anywhere near as deep as my feelings were for my friend, what intense grief I must have caused you! I am sorry! A million times over, I am sorry!
Even now, I sit here drying tears on a rough piece of paper towel, I realize that the small amount of peace I may find for having finally said these things comes unmerited. I only hope that finally having read this may bring you the bit of peace I still long for from another. Perhaps you have long forgotten how that awful little girl made you feel that day thirteen years ago, having either become a numb place deep inside or maybe it has even turned to dust and blown away in the wind? Either way, you deserve my sincerest apology. If there is any way I can make this right for you, please tell me.
Sincerely,
Sara
