text: We just spoke last week, my friend and I. It had been quite a while since we had spoken on the phone, though we frequently texted and sent voice messages. She talked about her life and career, her new girlfriend and being stuck inside still. I talked about problems at my work, comically awful dates I had been on, and the hobbies I had. We had also talked about that place, the one where we had met. It comes up in every conversation - even if it seemingly has nothing to do with our current lives. The memories of that place are so strong that they affect us even still. We talk about people who have met who remind us horribly of the ones in that place. We joke about how we want to run away or smack these strangers who vaguely resemble them. Laughing has become our way of keeping back the terror that we still feel towards even vague reminders of that place. For beneath our mundane conversation, the effects of that place surface still. I am afraid of making new friends, still scarred by the ones I knew, and so stay at home away from it all. I tell her how I am looking for a new job. Although I say it is because of coworkers now, the hours, etc., I realise deep down that it is because of that place. The job where I work is similar to the one I had; the career I had always wanted to do has become stained with the tragedy of what once was. Doing the same tasks reminds me of the ones I did before. Sitting at my desk working on a similar document brings back memories of time spent at a different desk, feeling as if I could not breathe for hours on end. She is one of the few people I can speak to about this, and yet, I can’t imagine that we would have met or even been friends in a different life, one where that place never existed. I had already been in hell for a year before she came. Even writing this, it is still hard to talk about that place. Perhaps this is cathartic, to write out these repressed memories I had tried so very hard to forget. That I still try to forget. I often try to let them flow out in small amounts, at certain times, in order to let the poison that has taken root in my veins be free. It is odd in a way, because talking about hell to people who have never been sounds delusional or insane. How do you explain how you looked into the eyes of someone in the guise of a human, and saw that they enjoyed your pain. How do you explain a person who manipulates others so delicately, that you don’t even realise until it is too late. How do you explain someone who makes you and those around you believe the worst of yourself. How do you explain when you sit at your job and feel so nauseous that you go into your bathroom and shake and shake until you feel like you can’t breathe. It is something that is too cruel for good people. It is something that is too abstract to explain - no, it’s not a death, no, it wasn’t an illness, no, no, not those. Nothing you could see and everything you could feel. I watched as we all aged inside and out. As the light that had been in us went slowly out. As people I had considered friends tore me down to push themselves up. People who I had considered friends that believed the worst that was said about me, about others. It is a sad, cruel thing the way people are. Perhaps this is why those who had light in them stood out that much more. She only came in the second half of my second year, and we were not friends at the beginning. We had different interests and wildly dissimilar personalities. She was outgoing, always dating someone new, and became friends with everyone she met. I was quiet and nerdy (and happily so) and madly in love with a boy I knew. It wasn’t until a few months later that we became close, when her own personal tragedy brought us together. She needed someone and I wanted to help. Yet, as tediously cliché as it sounds, she did end up helping me much more. Having someone with whom I could escape, through late-night talks in the park, drinks downtown, and exploring the city, made that the best part of those two years. We would sit and talk for hours about anything and everything - religion, politics, economics, the boy I loved, the men and women she loved. Odd looking back how much we ended up having in common after all. Even though we loved different people and held different beliefs, we both cared about others at our core. We both respected each other enough to listen, even if we did not agree. That in itself is rare - finding someone who can listen to ideas they do not believe. That bit of hope at the end of it all helped me recover as I knew that despite the frighteningly blatant darkness that I had seen - there was someone who was good. I have only seen them briefly since then. I went home for several months, to cry and sleep for hours and days and to repress what happened. It is not until now, almost two years later, that I can begin to talk about it - and then only sparingly. There are few people in my life that I trust now but her, I would trust with my life. After you have been through something like that you know exactly the kind of person they are. Monsters in books beget either heroes or villains, but at that place I found that it is not always so clear. There are things I did that I am ashamed of, things they did that I hated. Yet, both of us found the hero in ourselves and stood firm against the monster, in our own way, in our own time. To have someone who knows. Who went to hell and back with you; that is worth more than can be said.