“I don’t want you to do it for me. I want you to do it for you.”
I drew in a long breath. “We’re not going to be friends, Diana.”
“This isn’t about being friends.”
“Kinda seems like it is.”
She frowned at me. “I’d like to be your friend, I would. I can’t deny it. In addition to loving you—I’ve always just really, really liked you. So I’m not going to pretend like I feel the same way about you that I would about some stranger off the street. But that’s not what I mean when I say I want you to forgive me.”
I waited.
“This is about something far more fundamental than that.”
I waited again, as long as I could, before finally giving in and asking, “What?”
“This is about you finally setting down all that anger you carry around with you everywhere you go.”
She wasn’t wrong. I did carry anger around. Maybe not everywhere—but almost.
And it was a lot heavier than you’d think.
I could have lied then, I guess. Or gone up to bed. Or even fled back out the front door into the night. But I just didn’t. Did I want to set down all that anger?
Of course I did.
I let out a long sigh before saying, “I just don’t know how to do that.”
She leaned a little closer, waiting for more.
I’d already started. Might as well finish.
“I always kind of thought that forgiveness would come with time,” I said. “That the bitterness would slowly fade like a scar until I couldn’t even really find it anymore if I looked. But that’s not what happened. It didn’t fade. It hardened. Other things around it faded, but the memory of the day you left is still as sharp as if it just happened. I can still see your car pulling out of the driveway. I can hear the pop of the tires as they rolled over those seeds from that Chinese tallow tree. I can see the side of your face, absolutely still like a waxfigure as I banged on the window. I can feel every emotion I experienced that day in slow motion. If anything, the memories have gotten stronger.”
Those memories were tied to other memories, of course, and there was no way I was going to share anything more with her. But what I was saying was true enough. “I know that forgiveness is healthy. I know the only person you hurt when you hold on to bitterness is yourself. But I literally wouldn’t even know how to start. How do you forgive people? How does it even work?”
These were meant to be rhetorical questions.
“You’re in luck,” Diana said then. “I happen to be kind of an expert on forgiveness.”
“Who have you had to forgive?” I asked. As far as I could tell, she was far more likely to be the victimizer than the victim.
“Myself, for starters,” she said. “And then lots of other people. You don’t get to be my age without disappointments. My parents, in some ways. Various friends. Your dad.”
“Dad?” I said, like,Please.“Dad is perfect.”
“He’s hardly perfect.”
“He was good to you.”
“Yes, he was.”
“He was good to you, and you cheated on him.”
She snapped to attention. “I never cheated on your dad.”
I gave her a look, like,I know all about it.
“Is that what he told you?”
