Leslie knelt at the water’s edge and bowed his head, remaining still as pain washed over his mind like a waterfall. Cold and stinging, he endured its brutal pelting, till his face and eyes were awash in tears.
“I only did what I felt was right and fair,” he whispered in the deepening dark, as weedy stalks waved tall as he by the water’s edge. “No other would touch this person, none but me—it was plain from the beginning that this rose was covered with thorns. No other seemed to consider the rose worth the thorns—but I prized it such. I took and held his friendship—breathed life into it patiently day by day, loved him—and now it is all lost.”
As a duck skimmed the surface of the pond, colorful ripples spread before Leslie. “Teach me, lord, to endure this pain. I thought him worth the price—I think him worth the price. I see him alone, friendless, and clearly tangled in his thorny resolve I see pain and loneliness. This pain I sought to heal. He tolerated me for a time—then used me for what he could get. Still—even now—I cannot believe that he could be so heartless. I am dumb, I fear, to the reality before my eyes. I thought I might help him find happiness. But now his misery appears beyond any I have witnessed—and he merely suspects me to be his betrayer. I wonder—I wonder what he would do if he knew to what extent I had truly betrayed him.”
All the light touched was tinged copper from the vanishing sun. Leslie remained quietly at the water’s edge, now self-conscious of his emotional outburst, feeling more foolish than he would even have dreamed possible. In the shadowy copse, he felt conscious of his own love, deep and sorrowful, enduring.
Poignant—as only love can be when it is thrown unwanted upon someone unworthy. Yet his love remained, an affirmation of his will some stubbornness in his spirit would not release.
Then, a voice whispered within him, this pain you will endure as long as you so choose.
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