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Pain...it is as simple as that. They fear that once again they will be hurt and find themselves in that terrible place again. It's like you're at the bottom of a well. You're standing in freezing water up to your knees and you're shivering so hard that your muscles are in spasm. You want to rest but you can't sit. You can only stand there and suffer.

Then you hear a noise and you look up to see a small light far above you. It is hope and it is fleeting when you briefly catch a glimpse of the face...the face of the person that put you there. Perhaps they have returned. Perhaps they have realized how much they really do love you and need you.

But nothing happens. No rope is lowered. No voices of rescue and you realize that your only salvation is to climb from that pit yourself. You slowly raise one foot from the mud below and brace it on the well wall. You push with that foot and brace your back to the slippery wall. Then the other foot and slowly, ever carefully you climb that well wall towards that light above.

Several times you slip. Your back agonizes in pain as jagged stones push into your spine but you cannot relax. You must keep the pressure on or you will fall into that black oblivion again. Finally with tears of agony streaming down your face you feel the well edge with your fingers and with one last push you throw your arms over the top. Finally you are able to brace yourself across the top of the well hole and roll off of it to the ground. Then and only then can you relax...you can let your guard down.

Then you sleep and you dream. You're at a party and there is your friend. You speak to them and they smile at you and you wonder why you're smiling back. Then you remember. They were the one that tossed you down that well, who reached over and crushed your heart as they lifted you, screaming and kicking and tossed you down into that terrible place. Just the memory of the pain and heartache returns and you awaken...crying and sobbing.

Then you find your way home and life begins again. Each morning you go to your job and each evening you come home to no one but yourself. You pass the time with activities that bore you and each night you cry yourself to sleep.

Time passes and one day you realize that it was a good thing that happened. Better to find out then. You are glad to didn't decide to spend your life with them and then only later know of your mistake. Then one day it happens: you meet someone and you know there is a possibility but what if...what if this person is another? Another like the one before?

Can you take that chance?

Learn more about this author, S. Thomas Still.
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