Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
~John 8:32

I remember the sorrow; I remember the guilt; but mostly I remember the betrayal.

It only takes two weeks for the dream vacation to become a nightmare. Two weeks for darkness to fall and for hidden secrets to grow bigger and bigger until they blow up in your face.
From the outside, looking in, Costa Rica was perfect: our entire class of twenty taking a trip to a gorgeous county, parentless.
From the inside looking out... Well that's a different story: we were twenty "friends" together constantly for two weeks, with chaperones that, try as they might, simply could not keep us all out of trouble at the same time.
~~~
Memories are meant to fade with age, dull with time. Memories exist to be forgotten, but this one refuses to disappear. The memories I've tried so hard to suppress assault my subconscious mind.
The nightmares--the ones that wake me in the middle of the night with my heart racing, forehead damp, mouth dry--always begin with her whispering my name:

"Tyler?" A disembodied voice cuts through the black of the night.
"Uh huh?"
"I have something to tell you." She pauses, draws in a shaky breath, and launches into her story.
A few weeks ago, everyone in her family was asleep or out. The house was quiet. She crept down the hall to the kitchen. She turned on the water in the sink, turned out the lights, and rifled through the drawers until she found a knife--
I stop breathing; my heart picks up its pace.
--Until she found a knife. Slid a tissue-thin pajama sleeve away from a smooth wrist. Held it under the water and let her weapon dance a dangerous ballet across her arm. Created herself a bracelet of rubies until the jewels splashed down into a now pink sink--
I gasp for air. Bite down on my lip to keep from screaming. Bite down until I can taste the salty, metallic flavor of pain. Of suicide.
This explains the omnipresent ACE bandage, always looped around her wrist like a snake knotted tight. She hadn't sprained her wrist in volleyball; she was hiding a deep, dark, ruby red secret under a flesh colored band-aid.
She slides closer, slips her good arm around my shoulder in the too small bed we share. I pull away, press myself into the stained, cracked, whitewashed wall of the bungalow that we do not own in the country where we do not belong. Tears stream from my eyes, and I bury my face into a musty, white lace curtain. I try to remember how to pull air into my screaming lungs, wishing more than anything that I could escape this tiny room, barely larger than our too small bed, which was suffocating me to death.
"But I'm fine now!" she rushes to say, whispering urgently, "It's alright in the end. Please don't cry, Tyler..."
She tells me, stumbling over her words, how her mom had come home, saved her. Her story stops making sense, but I don't notice. I fall deeply into a sleep haunted by demons--and the next day she pretends she had never said anything.
Some things can't be discussed in daylight.
I remember the sorrow.
~~~
Jasmine Warmington had been my best friend for five years. She was everything I wasn't and everything I aspired to be. She was perfect.
Until she wasn't.
Beneath her smiling exterior, beneath the sweet façade she assumed around adults; beneath the heavily outlined, chocolate eyes, the mocha extensions braided tightly into her skull, the volleyball-toned, five foot ten frame: Jasmine Warmington was manipulative and dangerous. I didn't see it at first. I didn't see the casual lies carefully placed to cause scenes, the bitter sarcasm, the constant need to put everyone in their place. And when I finally saw it, it was too late.
It was too late because by then I knew. I knew she had divorced parents that didn't give a damn and siblings that came home drunk. By then I knew how hard she had to work for a crumb of affection, a spot of attention.

Jasmine collected friends like cheap jewelry. In a world where most of her "friends" used her as a stepping stone for their own climb of the social ladder, it was just easier to consider us disposable.
Jordan Burns and I were the only constants in her constantly shifting life. I became her best friend, following her with a childlike devotion and Jordan, originally adopted for his bad-boy reputation (a result of accidentally burning a hole in his previous school's bathroom wall), became her psychologist, helping her through life's little problems. He always knew what to do. And she would do as he instructed. People always did.
~~~
The dream continues with Jordan approaching me. He quietly asks if I've heard "Jasmine's thing" yet. I nod, faking nonchalance, faking confidence.
"Tyler," he starts, deeply in thought, "Tyler, what should we do?"
He asks me. As if I know anything.
What should we do? We should wake up from this horrible nightmare, release ourselves from this limbo of loyalty. Keep the secret and protect her pride or tell someone and protect her from herself?
"We're gambling with her life," Jordan says with utter authority, "We need to tell someone. We need help."

It's raining. It rains every afternoon in Costa Rica. There are different kinds: tiny droplets that mist your face and keep you cool in the insufferable heat and humidity or fat, bulging drops that soak you to the bone and leave you shivering in the cold wondering how the sun managed to simply vanish into thin air. This is a third type: a storm compete with flashes of lightning, rumbles of thunder, and heavy winds flinging sharp, stinging droplets at your exposed arms and legs that were enjoying the warmth of the sun just moments before.
The huddled masses slowly wander away from their half eaten meals to sprint back to their rooms. Dr. Lauria, our headmaster, sits alone under the awning at the lunch tables drinking a coffee. Jordan and I gravitate toward his elbow. Jordan stands tall, looks Dr. Lauria straight in the eyes tells him everything we know while I cower behind his shoulder, wishing I didn't exist. When we finished we wait for Dr. Lauria to spring into action. Wait for him to ask to talk to Jasmine, wait for him to email her parents; wait for him to do something.
"Thank you for telling me this," he says stiffly, robotically before picking up coffee and returning to his newspaper.
Thunder rumbles in the distance as we race away through the rain.
~~~
The night is a dark one. Mosquitoes are zooming around our heads as we whisper in the shadow of our rooms. Jasmine is crying.
"Tyler... Tyler, fuck this," she says, "I wish I was dead."
She turns on her heel and sprints away before I can stop her. Slams the door. Locks it. I listen to her turn on the water in the sink, turn out the lights, rifle through her backpack until—-

"JORDAN!" I scream.
It isn't my voice. It's the voice of someone drowning. Someone being strangled to death.
I tear across the rocky field between the cabins and the dining area. My feet, calloused and rough from so many days of shoeless exploring split open in rough gashes but I don't notice. My mind melts around the edges, blocking everything out but one thought, sharp as a knife: Save her life.

I can't breathe when I finally crash into him on his way out for a night hike. I hyperventilate, the faces in a semi-circle around me sliding in and out of focus. I only see one. One face, pale and lifeless, sprawled on the floor in a crimson pool of her own—-
"—Jasmine—"I make out, still gasping for air.
"Get a teacher," he commands. They do what he says. They always do. Jordan can help her. Jordan will save us.
He runs toward the cabin, leaving me all alone with the ceiling spinning, fading to black, starting over again.
I don't know how long it takes until Dr. Lauria flies past. I do know that in my semiconscious state, my first inclination was to laugh. It was quite a change from his usual in-control, authority walk: head high, shoulders back.
I know that my second thought was to follow. Tipsily I walk after him, concentrating on not collapsing.
"Open this door." Dr. Lauria said, his in-control voice touched with a note of hysteria. "Jasmine, open this door right now."
She does. He slides inside. Jordan begins to follow—
"I think you've done quite enough." Dr. Lauria says, his disciplinarian voice back with a vengeance, now that things are going his way again.
Jordan disappears. I stumble a few yards to my room, realize my roommate had the key, drop to the ground, leaning heavily against the doorframe, fighting off the inky haze that tries to swallow me whole-—
They grab me by the arms. Pull me inside. Sit me gently down on a bed. Whose bed?
"Tyler." A low, tremulous murmur. "What's going on?"
Two girls from my class pace back and forth as they wait for me to say something; everything; anything.
I cry instead.
Deep, shuddering sobs rip my lungs apart. Sadness comes gushing out of my eyes in rivulets, spelling out the words I'd never dare say across the pillow.
Minutes, hours, years later they release me from my prison. Let me escape the chain of their oppressive "love." I creep to the hammock on the back porch. Lay down.
I am out of tears. Have no more strength to fight. Stare at the sky, at all the stars I never could see in LA. They wink at me, never missing a move in their awesome cosmic dance, chanting their eternally optimistic messages.
A breeze flutters by, cooling my red face. The leaves shhhhh my worries away, the ocean lulls me towards an evasive sleep. A bird calls in the distance. For minutes, hours, years at a time I can lose myself in the rhythm of Costa Rica's breathing. From the outside, looking in, Costa Rica was perfect.
Until it wasn't.
I don't remember what wakes me. The scream of a bird's doomed prey, the too-loud crash of a wave on the beach, or the creak of an old door being stealthily eased open. All I remember is that when I open my eyes, the stars are flashing warning signs at me. Run away. Save yourself. All I remember is that when I look up, there she is.
A white towel replaces the usual ACE bandage on her wrist. I search for the blood, the evidence of her most recent suicide attempt. The scarlet symbol of my innocence, the sign that I was right to have called for help.
She walks toward me slowly.
"What the hell?" she spits her words like venom. Like acid, burning my skin away where they hit. I barely feel it. My senses had melted around the edges, blocking everything but a dull ache in my chest where my heart is beating out an impossible tempo. "What the hell is your problem, Tyler?"
I start a million half-sentences. Can't think straight. Was I right? What will happen if I wasn't? Did she try to kill herself? Or...
"We're through." She whispers. She drops the towel on the patio and raises her left arm. ACE bandage off, her forearm is smooth and unblemished. The towel is clean and pure white.
I remember staring into the eyes of my former best friend. Hers are full of hatred. Disgust. Blame. I know then that she will never forgive me. I know I will never forgive myself.
Because she hadn't tried to hurt herself tonight
Because. I. Was. Wrong.
I remember the guilt.
~~~
Jasmine leaves me speechless on the porch to return to her room. I go to find Jordan, my life preserver, to keep me from drowning.
I feel numb, as if I'm already dead. I am a ghost as I float toward his room, hiding in the shadows around the dining area.

"Where do you think you're going?"
Mrs. Lawshe. Our other chaperone. She handled all the social issues at our school. Two girls fighting? Send them to Mrs. Lawshe. Let them work out their problems through the magic of "moderated discussion." Then let them go back to the playground and back to their old ways.
Chapped lips part gently. Can ghosts talk? I struggle for a moment then manage to exhale:
"Jordan... I need to talk to Jordan."
Her eyebrows rise in the center in unwanted pity. Eyes soften. I do my best to look pathetic. I've lost all respect for myself already; why not see how very low I can go? I squeeze out another tear from my dry, burning eyes.
"Okay. Fine. I'll get him." She turns and walks away, casting another glance over her shoulder. I sink into one of the benches. Is it possible that just a few hours ago, this had never happened? Please let this be a dream.

"What's wrong?"
So much. Where can I even begin? Out of the corner of my eye I see Mrs. Lawshe settle into a chair to eavesdrop. Or to "moderate our discussion" as she would call it. I lower my voice. She leans in.
"Jordan. She didn't do it."
"Excuse me?"
I look down at my hands, twisting each other into grotesque contortions.
"She didn't try to kill herself tonight." My voice wavered in the end. I swallowed.
"What do you mean? That doesn't make any sense. What are you talking about?"

Mrs. Lawshe closes her book. A pathetic prop for an even worse actress. She stands and meanders toward our table.
"She didn't hurt herself tonight." Mrs. Lawshe says, slowly and clearly as if she was talking to a foreigner, a deaf old man, a mentally disabled, badly behaving child. I want to hit her. Had I not just said that?
She continues in a bland, bored voice, "She has never cut herself."
"Excuse me?" I whisper, my voice jumping an octave and a half. "No, that doesn't make any sense at all. She told us—"
"She has no scars. No cuts, new or old. Maybe you misinterpreted what she was trying to tell you." She says this smugly. As if we are supposed to suddenly grasp onto this completely foreign concept.
"But—-"
"She was lying about—-"
"Stop interrupting me!" I scream.
She looks as if I had slapped her in the face. I feel bad, but not enough to apologize.
Jasmine was lying. She was lying. She had been lying. For how long? Why? She was lying? Everything started spinning again. Her stories never made much sense. They were broken, they were confusing. She was lying?
She had never cut. Never tried to kill herself. She'd been lying.
Mostly, I remember the betrayal.

Jordan stands up slowly. "Thanks, Mrs. Lawshe, but I'm really tired now. Can I go back to my room?"
"You may." She says, smiling benevolently like freaking Santa Claus giving us our Christmas presents. Your friend's a liar! Merry Christmas!
I watch him walk away. Mrs. Lawshe comes to help me up. Begins to walk me to my room. Past my room. Walks me to a table under a bright light where Jasmine sits. No makeup, pajama shirt askew, for once she actually looks her age. Jasmine is fourteen.

She only says one thing, in a voice soft as the down of a baby bird. Opens her mouth, looking down at her left hand tracing patterns into the dust on the table. Looked at her scarless wrist. Ducks her head, clears her throat.

The nightmares--the ones that wake me in the middle of the night with my heart racing, forehead damp, mouth dry--always end with her whispering my name:
"Tyler... Why?"
"Jasmine," I sigh, "I thought I was saving your life."
I remember the sorrow; I remember the guilt; but mostly I remember the betrayal.

Memories are meant to fade with age, dull with time, but this one will not leave me alone.
I never confronted her. There will always be questions in my mind, begging to be resolved:

How much of this elaborate nightmare was true? How much did you make up?
And why would you lie?