From the forthcoming novel, River’s Rowan

..

This isn’t an easy to do. Don’t they say nothing important, nothing worth doing, ever is? Still, I’m surprised just by how hard this is. I’ve known it was going to come, this mess, for some time.

I’ve thought about what to say and how to say it for a long time. I’ve put this off, and put it off, and put it off until I can’t put it off anymore. Time is running out. Besides, the longer I put it off, the longer you go without whatever comfort or closure or understanding this may bring you. It might bring you none; it might cause more grief, but I hope it doesn’t. I hope you’ll know causing you pain is not the intent. You’ve felt quite enough of that at my expense, haven’t you? I still dream of it: the first day I saw you… each of you.

Beautiful. Each of you. Beauty matters to you. Oh, you pretend it doesn’t: you say it doesn’t. But you are young and spoiled; beauty, to you, is the same as acceptance. Beautiful people get the date. Beautiful people get the friend. Beautiful people get the job. Beautiful people get the chance. It’s why you’d spend hours getting ready, agonize over the color of a dress, spend money on getting your nails or your hair done. It wasn’t that beauty for the sake of beauty was important: it was what beauty could get you. Like I said, spoiled. Spoiled can also mean naïve. To be clear, I said spoiled can also mean naïve, not innocent. Those are two different things. Someone who’s innocent is pure, guileless. You are not pure or guileless, are you? You’ve kept secrets. You’ve hurt people I love. And you did it on purpose. So, that’s not innocent. But I do think you are–or, at least you were–naïve. To be naïve means you lack experience or wisdom, and I think that’s something we can both agree you were. Spoiled people often lack wisdom and almost all of them lack experience. Live long enough and you can’t help but be knocked down off the high beam.

Figurately, of course.

Your beauty did stand out. Even for New Hannah Cove, where everybody’s beautiful. Not all of you are from New Hannah Cove, of course, but no one would have known she wasn’t, not with her eyes the color of emeralds and auburn hair. I saw her smile and, even though it wasn’t a real smile, but one of those oh-I’m-supposed-to-do-this-fake ones, it was a powerhouse. Shame I never saw the rest of you smile—I tried, but there are some things you just have to accept you’ll never get. Anyway, I know beautiful things. Katie was beautiful. All of you would have thought so. Long hair the color of sunlight, eyes the color of the ocean, a turquoise blue that made people stop and stare, the hourglass figure that made her model material. I’d get so angry with her because she took that beauty for granted. But she was naïve; she lacked experience and wisdom. Just like you.

The United States spent one hundred thirty-one billion dollars on education last year. One hundred thirty-one billion. Most of that budget was for scholarships and student loans for college; school aged kids, the budget was just twenty nine billion. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services found a six billion dollar budget earmarked for substance abuse prevention. Sounds like a lot of money but, given the opioid crisis in the country, with more than three hundred people dying a die from overdosing on drugs, you’d think it might justify more than four percent of the funds being used to educate the youth on something that might actually save lives instead of two plus two and the differences between reign and rain. But they don’t and so the naïve kids are left to figure it out by trial and error. Thank God I found Katie and turned that around before it was too late. In the end, though, I couldn’t protect her from herself.

“To heal is to shatter the skin, to shatter the self.” She said that all the time and I thought she was crazy. In the end, though, maybe she was right, after all. I’m not doing a very good job of comforting you, I know. What I’m getting at, what I’m trying to say, is that what you went through allowed you to see the full picture. Just like eating the fruit shed Eve of her naiveté, the Radical Redress disrobed you of yours. Now, you see things, especially yourself, as they really are. What color is the world now? What does the idea of spending half the day deciding on what to wear feel like? What about the idea of laughing at a party with drunk friends? I’m wagering none of that fills you with anticipation, excitement, not like before. The wildness in your eyes, the day we first met, excited me because it showed me what you were capable of. None of us want to settle, none of us want the bare minimum out of life: we want the stars, the moon and the sun but, to hold the sky is to get burned by the flame. Some of you–really, all of you, in different ways, surprised me with your rawness, your sheer will, your strength.

Close your eyes.

Picture a lake: one that’s beautiful in the traditional sense: lots of trees surrounding it, walking distance away from the main house. In the middle of the water is a single swan: white as snow, tall neck, fluffy wings. Think about that swan. What’s one word you might use to describe the swan? Now, instead, Africa; the savannah. Staring at you is the King of the Jungle: a golden haired, healthy and vibrant lion: an apex predator, capable of bringing down a massive elephant, scarred by more than one life or death battle. Think of a word to describe the swan, the lion. Between the two, which animal would you call the beautiful one, the strongest one? That day I first saw you, I knew each of you, whether you saw it then, or whether you see it now, or not, housed the fierce heart of the lion, each of you had something the swan didn’t: strength.

See, now?

Ain’t honesty better than a dream?