The summer we turned thirteen (Published)

Chapter fifty-four: To make amends

Harlee

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"You're setting it on fire?" Rachel asked me, her voice astounded.

By "it" she meant the photo album of James and me that I was about to burn to ashes.

It was a few days after the Fourth of July incident, and she and I were standing in my living room by the fireplace.

I had a lighter ready and wood piled into the fire bowl.

In just a few seconds, all of James and my memories would go up in flames.

Symbolic, I supposed.

"Yup. And after that, I'm wiping all the photos of us from my computer and phone. I want no memory of this friendship." I told her then tossed the book into the fireplace and turned the lighter on.

Ignoring the voice in my head telling me that I'd regret it, I leaned forward towards the fireplace to set the book ablaze.

Then I realized the voice wasn't inside my head.

"Wait, wait, wait, just wait, Harlee!" Rachel said.

I turned the lighter off and raised my eyebrows at her. "Wait for what?"

She used that moment to take it from my hand.

"Time, reconciliation, anything!" She held it behind her back out of my reach. "It's only been three days." Her eyes pleaded with me.

I wasn't giving up that easily, though.

"The boy has lied to me for almost our entire friendship, and I'm supposed to just excuse that because he says he did it out of 'love'?" I asked her, my tone full of frustration.

She'd been trying to get me to be more understanding toward James ever

since I'd confided in her about what had happened, and it was really starting to bug me.

"Y-Yes, no, I don't know!" she stammered. "But what will setting the photo album on fire accomplish?"

I hardly had an answer for that.

I knew I was reacting out of anger, but I didn't care.

"It'll burn the proof we were ever friends is what it'll do," I replied lamely.

Rachel sighed, "Maybe, but you can't get the memories out of your mind...or your heart either."

I felt defeated because she was right.

But I was too hurt by James to forgive him again, especially so soon.

"I just don't know what to do; how am I supposed to respond to him saying something like that? And how am I supposed to feel now after everything he's done?" I asked her.

"Let's try and analyze everything he did to hurt you," she said, "From the beginning."

I nodded my head, but I didn't know where to start.

James had hurt me in so many ways; it was hard to try and list them all.

I started with the thing that had hurt me the most.

The lying.

"Well, first, he lied to me for years," I said, walking over to the couch, and taking a seat on it. Rachel nodded for me to continue as she walked over and took a seat beside me.

"Then he ended our friendship with no explanation and ignored me for weeks," I went on.

"Mhm." She nodded again.