Samantha Lee Week 144: Locks on a Gate

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Samantha Lee’s Picture Choice: One

Title: Locks on a Gate

So.

My best friends lied to me. Surprise, surprise. I should have seen it coming. Should have expected it. People, whatever form they might take, are liars at their core, pure and simple, and you'd think that by this point, I'd have learned that lesson well enough.

And yet.

And yet here I am, screwed over so thoroughly I've made an appointment at the medical clinic for an STD test.

Ugh, I feel like such an idiot. You'd think I'd know better, that past experience had some sort of impression, but, nope, here I am, betrayed, my heart crushed, my life in ribbons at my feet. I should have known better. Gods be damned, I should have known better.

It started...it started with one lie. One of my friends - she wasn't who I thought she was. No, turns out she's someone else entirely, a long lost princess in fact. Oh my gods, she's freaking ROYALTY, and for years - YEARS - she's slumming it with us, pretending, lying. She used us as a smokescreen, hiding in my house. Paid rent in cash. Didn't need to have her name on any bills. Didn't even have her name on the lease. Used us...used me...as camouflage, like a mask or a Halloween costume she pulled on while it served her purposes. I thought she was my friend, thought she cared about me. I used to talk to her, like REALLY talk to her. I told her about my dad. Told her about the boarding schools. Told her about...everything. I trusted her, LOVED her, and so I let her in and told her...told her everything. All of my secrets, all my dreams, everything. And all that time, she didn't even bother to tell me her real name. Hell, I didn't even know she and her boyfriend were actually MARRIED until he let slip about them eloping in Vegas. Over a century ago.

My other friend...turns out she's weak. Bad things happened - impossible, horrendous things - and what did she do? First she watched, then she ACCEPTED them and moved on. Moved. On. My life was RUINED - my friend's little masquerade fell apart and it me - ME - who paid the fucking price and what does my other friend do? My other friend whose own life got spun around by those needless, stupid lies? SHE ACCEPTED THEM AND MOVED ON! Like it didn't matter, like it was no big deal, like...c'est la vie, hakuna matata, que sera sera. My whole world was a crumbled ruin, and she tells me, she looks at me and she tells me, "We can't change the past, Ro; what's happened...well, it happened, and there's no changing that. But, Ro, when your life catches fire you can either let it burn you to ash, or forge you into something stronger."

Platitudes. Everything's gone to hell because of one friend's lies and what does the other offer me? Solidarity? Support? Strength? Nope. She sides with that lying witch and offers empty platitudes.

You want a platitude? Here's a platitude for you: secrets are like locks on a metal gate; but enough up there and sooner or later the gate's going to fall. My friend...she thinks she can lie, can manipulate, can do whatever it is she wants so long as it serves her warped idea of a greater good...well, she's wrong. Dead wrong. And, sooner or later, she's going to find that out.

Is it too cliché to say I'm going to make sure of it?

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