Where Is The Edge

Chapter 19

It was such a simple thing to point fingers and condemn those we didn't understand, and to destroy them without first asking ourselves if it was justified. And no matter how hard I tried with words, they were so overrated. We all have to face it, they are never enough.

Stefan did not judge me for what I did, and I had a hard time believing that that moment when I confessed my crime to him, really happened. Before that, he has made it clear to me on several occasions that if in a hypothetical case, I was the guilty one, he would understand my reasons completely. He even understood why I decided to hide it from him.

This was not me, for like my mother during her last years, I allowed the worst in me to take over my judgment, the only difference was that I knew how to shift it to the right person. Did I regret it? I will say it again, no.

What I did actually saved twelve hundred employees from going through what my mother went through, thus sparing their families what I would have liked to have spared myself. Also, apparently Peter's daughter —my sister— took over the reins of the company and people couldn't have been more thrilled with her kindness and leadership.

Was what I did really wrong? I guess not, but my way of dealing with it cost me the love of my life.

Marcia met me when I was at a stage where the waters were beginning to calm and normality in my life seemed to resume. What used to be a thousand demons torturing my mind day and night, became a little devil on my shoulder that was just a minor annoyance. Yes, just like in the cartoons. That's when I met her.

By that I mean, she never had to pick me up at my house in the middle of the night when the fights my mother always managed to bring up, seemed to take on a greater degree than I was used to. She never had to stay up at night making superhuman efforts to get me to calm down. She never had to hide or throw away all the sharp things in her house. She never had to lock into the cellar of the pharmacy with me to cure the cigarette marks over my skin. She didn't help me get rid of that need my mother instilled in me, which was to punish me every time something bad happened.

Marcia Clark didn't have to do any of that, because by the time she came into my life, someone else had done all that for me.

However, she had brought a new approach to my life. I knew only black and white, chaos and serenity, hot and cold. I was aware that there was a middle ground in between, and she brought that balance I once longed for. I could find that balance again on my own, make it happen myself, but honestly, I didn't want any of it if she wasn't by my side. I didn't want to find it anywhere else or in anyone else but her.

The older woman also taught me that the experiences we once took for granted could be regained as long as we were alive. What was wrong with being an adult and enjoying the amenities of Go Karts like the kids did? Absolutely nothing. It was evident that other adults in the various places we visited, took great pains to look like they hated being there, perhaps because they preferred to look mature to other adults they would never see again in their lives, rather than join their children and have a great time anyway. That's what I loved about Marcia, she knew perfectly well that nobody cared, and if they did, there was no way it would be her problem. She would never deprive herself of being happy and thus making her children happy, just to avoid a look or a gesture from a third party.

I saw a lot of myself in those kids, and they might enjoy going for walks or playing all afternoon, but it was inevitable that, from time to time, it would cross their minds to wish that their mother was with them, and to do something different and more fun with her. Not only did I heal my inner child by somehow reliving my childhood, Marcia also allowed me to help her so that her children really had nothing to heal in the future. I loved those children, I have long loved them as if they were also my own.