A Far, Far Better Thing...Really?

Submitted into Contest #200 in response to: Write a story that includes the line “my lips are sealed.”... view prompt

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Drama Sad

A Far, Far Better Thing…Really?


                      “You should not honor men more than the truth." - Plato


Cursed by a moment, plagued by an image, and torn between two loyalties, the torment persists. Friendship, love, conscience, and truth swirled around in my brain, engaged in a debilitating battle that could have no winner. Why must I suffer for that which I did not do? Images planted in the mind take root, grow with the passage of time, and cannot be erased. The mantle of a Shakespearian tragedy will hang around my neck until my final days.

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“We’ll let you look at our pig if we can pet your dog.”

Those are the kind of deals made by nine-year-olds. My best friend’s dad was a minister at the church down the street, and the pig was destined to be the main course at their annual fall festival. The unsuspecting pig was spending its last carefree hours in a trailer parked in front of the church, and the dog showed up with the new neighbors moving in next door. The dog belonged to Carly.

It was a different time. Boys didn’t have many friends who were girls. I had one- Carly, a cute-as-a-button nine-year-old. It was more than the fact she lived next door. There is an undefined something that happens when two kids meet and immediately recognize they like each other. Is it a look, a smile, the first words spoken, some undefined chemistry that both can feel? It doesn’t matter. There is immediate comfort in the relationship that will last a lifetime. Carly and I were friends from the get-go, and the feelings grew stronger over the years. There were even times I forgot she was a girl.

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Simple things- counting cars in make and color competitions while sitting on my front porch; reading Peanuts comic books together; trips to the city library for quiet times of homework and study; occasional attendance at Sunday services, hers or mine; shooting hoops in my backyard. My mother had “issues”, so Carly would come over once in a while to help with the house cleaning; I would help Carly help us. It was an easy, pleasant relationship, without even the inkling of romance. Even as we entered our high school years, it all stayed strictly platonic; alternative thoughts didn’t even occur to me as she seemed like a sister to me.

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Matt lived three doors down from me in the other direction. His family moved in about the same time Carly’s did. He was my age, loved sports as much as I did, and we quickly became good friends. Touch football in the alley, basketball at the hoop in his backyard or mine, strikeout at the Junior High, fishing at the County Park lagoon. Once the great moment for teens finally arrived, and we got our driver’s licenses, our world expanded to include fishing excursions to nearby lakes, Milwaukee Braves games, afternoons at Bradford Beach on Lake Michigan, and occasional jaunts to catch the Cubbies at Wrigley Field where the vendors would gladly serve beer to anyone who could hold a cup. We were best friends throughout high school and beyond.

Matt was the high school Golden Boy- quarterback on the football team, a star basketball player, and a college scholarship to play baseball. Throw in good looks, and it was easy to see why Carly took an interest in him. Carly was such a wonderful person, so it was likewise easy to see why Matt was attracted to her. Matt and Carly became an item, as in “going steady”.

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It hit me at our Junior Prom when I saw Carly dancing with Matt. I would fail in any attempt to describe how beautiful Carly looked that night, and that is how I will always remember her- a simple black dress, hair in a bit of a beehive, and a radiance that made all the other girls disappear. I would call it her Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s look. She didn't seem to be the same girl I tossed a football around with just a few years before. For the first time, it occurred to me that perhaps she and I should have been more than friends; I should be dancing with her. After all those years I had another kind of feeling for Carly, another one of those things that can’t be explained; you have it or you don’t. As the evening wore on, I thought I caught her looking at me with my date, and I wondered if she had similar thoughts. I will never know.

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Janet was the female counterpart to Matt in high school; beautiful, head cheerleader, lead in the school play, and a straight-A student. Before Matt and Carly had become an item, Matt and Janet had dated, and rumors persisted that Matt was seeing Janet on the sly. I dismissed the gossip as I was close enough to Matt that I was certain I would have known…well, almost certain.

 Matt did have one noticeable flaw- Matt was a little too much about Matt. No one is perfect, so I adapted to him being late for planned events, or dropping them all together with little or no notice. He dabbled in the world of the selfish or inconsiderate, but he was my friend, an unbreakable bond forged in the childhood years.

I went out of state for college. It was a different time- pre-cell phones, pre-Internet. My dorm only had two pay phones, so communication with Matt and my other friends was spotty. But Carly and I corresponded by mail regularly. My new, different emotions were behind every pen stroke, but the words never betrayed my feelings. Matt loved Carly, she loved Matt, and I was a friend to both. Whatever role I played in their lives could not change.

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I knew the day would arrive, but it still came as a bit of a shock- Matt and Carly announced a wedding date. Happy for them, sad for me. I should have seen what was there ever since that first day I pet her dog and she recoiled at the smell of our pig. Counting cars, Charlie Brown and Snoopy, talking for hours about everything and nothing at all. It was now all destined to gather dust on the memory shelf of my life. Damn, I loved that girl.

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The moment. That which is seen cannot be unseen. Fate. How in God’s name did I end up at that place at that moment? I had put together a scrapbook of all the things Matt and I had done together. It would be a surprise that he would discover on his front porch a week before his wedding. Even though it was 4:30 AM, I parked halfway down the street to keep my mission as secret as possible. As I neared his house, I saw his side door swing open. Matt and a young woman were standing there, locked in an embrace. They kissed, the woman quickly left the house and hurried down the driveway toward the back alley. I hadn’t seen her for years, but I immediately recognized her- it was Janet.

I froze. I would have been less shocked had it been little green men from Mars. If any brain cells had still been functioning, I would have ducked behind a tree. But I couldn’t move. Matt took a quick look around as he re-entered the house, and spotted me standing there anchored to the sidewalk. Silence. We stared at each other, both wishing I were someplace else. Matt spoke in the voice of the guilty, the coward, the sneak.

“Charlie…what…what are you doing here?”

The most uncomfortable pause in my life.

“I think the question would be what was she doing here.”

We went inside and talked for hours. Matt gave a rambling, nonsensical, irrelevant “explanation”. I wanted to hit him. I really did. How could he do this to Carly? And a week before their wedding! I was as bewildered and angry, but I tried to keep the nasty comments to a minimum. The “What now?” was so much more important.

“Charlie, you can’t tell Carly about this. It would break her heart.”

I knew that it would. My first instinct was that I had to tell her. I couldn’t let her marry a guy who had just spent the night with another woman. But Matt went on to plead his case. The wedding plans were all set- invitations, responses, the church, the reception, plane and hotel reservations for the out-of-town guests, including her ailing grandmother. It was a stupid, weak moment. He would never do anything like that again, never do anything that would hurt Carly. He loved Carly. They had made plans for a wonderful future.

My head was ready to explode. Carly loved Matt and was excited about the wedding and their future together. How would Carly react? The news would hurt her deeply. She was high integrity and expected the same from those around her, and likely would call off the wedding. Or would she? She loved Matt. Would she understand and forgive? Telling her could risk her losing that wonderful future she and Matt had planned. Maybe Matt’s expressions of regret and remorse were sincere and they would live happily ever after should I not interfere. There was no good answer; there was no bad answer; there was no answer.

“Please, Charlie, you can’t tell Carly about this.”

I was drained. The response came out almost on autopilot.

“My lips are sealed.”

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Have you ever gone seven days and nights without sleep? It takes a toll. I thought and rethought the whole thing over and over again. I have to tell her, I can’t tell her, I have to tell her… I was a real mess. People are selfish by nature, and self-serving thoughts eventually wove their way into the picture. Matt doesn’t deserve her. I do. I would make her happy. He can’t really love her. I tell Carly about Matt’s betrayal, Carly dumps Matt, and I can finally reveal my true feelings for her. Hell, I’d marry her this Saturday to salvage all the wedding plans. I loved Carly. Carly loved Matt. Can I hate Matt after all our years of friendship? Forget everything. You can only ask, what’s best for Carly?

The struggle of conscience was epic. To whom do I owe allegiance? Carly was my friend. I owed her the truth. But could the truth do too much unnecessary damage? If Matt were truly sorry and committed to Carly, they could have a good life together. Why should she ever know?

The inner turmoil was compounded by the fact I would be Matt’s Best Man. I would have a front-row seat for the potentially disastrous event, and I would deliver the ring that would bind Carly until death did them part. I clenched my fists and bit my lip when the good Reverend asked the perfunctory question, “If anyone here has an objection to these two being joined together as man and wife, speak now or forever hold your piece.”

I felt a tremor, a tug of conscience. Say something, Charlie. I thought of where I was, all the people standing behind me. Courage, Charlie. Do the right thing. Then I saw Carly smiling, looking as happy as I had ever seen her. My heart and soul shuddered, and I remained silent; my lips were sealed.

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Carly taught 3rd grade at the same school we both attended. Matt worked any number of jobs, never lasting in any one place for more than six months. Most of the time he found it easier not to work. He had flunked out of LSU after a year and a half, and brought few skills to the table. He was having a hard time adjusting to life outside the limelight and away from the cheering crowds.

Matt played on three softball teams in the summer and on two basketball teams in the winter. Most of these teams are sponsored by taverns, and it was a post-game ritual to down a few beers with the boys. He was never officially diagnosed, but he had a serious drinking problem.

I could only observe. Talking to Matt proved fruitless, and Carly was too tough, too selfless, to burden me with her problems. She was unhappy but committed to making the marriage work.

Everyone has a breaking point. Carly found out one night, just four years into the marriage, that Matt had been cheating with another woman. We were right. It broke her heart, it broke her. She took off in a rage, and headed for her parents’ house. There was a terrible storm that night with heavy rain, thunder and lightning. Was it the slippery roads, poor visibility, or Carly's distressed state of mind? We will never know, but her car slid off the highway, bounced down an embankment, and hit a tree. Little damage was done to the car, and the paramedics were surprised that someone could have died in the crash, but Carly did.

I miss Carly so much and think about our times together so often that I don’t even have room to hate Matt. And I think of that moment, what I had seen, and what I did not tell. It tortures me.

There is a thing in law called “proximate cause”; a person is responsible for harm caused only if their actions could foreseeably and directly result in the harm. Matt’s affair didn’t cause the accident. My sealed lips didn’t cause the accident. But in my heart, I will forever believe that if I had told Carly what I had seen that early morning, she would be alive today.

Try living with that.










June 03, 2023 03:14

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17 comments

Delbert Griffith
14:57 Jun 11, 2023

Wow! Superb tale, expertly written. Murray, you spun a riveting tale, and you ratcheted up the suspense in the right places. I couldn't stop reading. The narrator had no good choice to make; someone was going to get hurt, no matter what. And now, well, he has to live with his decision. That last line was epic. Nicely done, Murray. Nicely done indeed. Cheers!

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Wally Schmidt
20:08 Jun 05, 2023

This line in the beginning so perfectly describes how a 9 year-old boy would view his friendship with a girl "There were even times I forgot she was a girl". It is that kind of authenticity that runs through the story and makes it great. The poor narrator is conflicted on numerous occasions throughout the story and it creates an unsettling tension that keeps you reading. The fact that you did not label this story creative non-fiction attests to your talent as a writer as it really pulled the heart strings and seems so infinitely believable....

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Murray Burns
21:36 Jun 05, 2023

Thanks...and I think you were right on the invitation to participate. I always remember the reader's choice in The Lady or the Tiger and debated with myself ...in or out. But I agree- the reader would already be thinking about it. The story was almost creative nonfiction- instead of getting killed, the girl finally divorced him after six unhappy years...(.and I wasn't the one who knew of the infidelity...It was a mutual friend who kept silent). An interesting side note...they had a daughter...at her wedding years later...Someone did object...

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Wally Schmidt
21:50 Jun 05, 2023

Wow. That's a lot of interesting background. I have always wanted to be at a wedding where someone objected. Just for the pure scandal of it, not for any malicious reason. Great fodder in these details for a future story

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Lappy Kite
16:24 Jun 05, 2023

Wow! I kept telling myself "He's got to tell her! He's got to tell her!" When he didn't I was a little disappointed, but nothing could've prepared me for the ending. I absolutely did not see that coming and I loved it. Amazing story and writing skills! :) First read of the day, definitely worth it.

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Murray Burns
17:07 Jun 07, 2023

I appreciate your reading the story and your comments. Thanks!

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Murray Burns
17:08 Jun 07, 2023

Oh...and I love the name...Lappy!

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Mary Bendickson
06:01 Jun 04, 2023

It's late Sat night. I decided to read just one more story before bed. Yours was the one up on my activity feed. Now I am crying. Can I sleep well tonight? After writing about my sister's accident last week then reading this I was praying it wasn't true. Thankfully the fatality didn't happen but the betrayal did. I was screaming for him to tell Carly. I think Carly would have loved Charlie for telling her the truth about Matt. But I have high hopes like that. I am but a reader of your poignantly told love triangle. Well done.

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Murray Burns
13:28 Jun 04, 2023

I woke up at 3:47 AM this morning, and for no reason checked my email...then, again for no known reason, I checked the Reedsy site. I read your comment. Then, I re-read your story. Then I had trouble sleeping.

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Murray Burns
15:36 Jun 04, 2023

And...not that it really matters, your story was at least ten times better than last week's "winner".

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Mary Bendickson
15:40 Jun 04, 2023

Thanks for your vote of confidence. Let this not start rumors we have trouble 😴 sleeping together😳😜😏

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Murray Burns
23:30 Jun 04, 2023

Very good. I am always mindful of the words of college basketball coach Jim Valvano spoken as he accepted the ESPY award for courage sometime in the 1990's- the poor guy was dying of cancer, had to be helped on and off the stage, and he listed the 3 things a person must do every day - the first thing was to laugh. I don't always get mine, but you gave me one today. Thanks.

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Mary Bendickson
23:33 Jun 04, 2023

👍 Wonderful!

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Lily Finch
14:25 Jun 03, 2023

The old act of omission and co-mission strike again. Poor Charlie. To be true to himself he didn't remain true to the truest of his friendships. If he loved Carly he should have probably backed with the winning horse - Carly and dumped the loser Matt. Clearly his emotions were deeper for Carly than for Matt. Such a tragic story Murray. Not like any of your others lately. A couple of spots that may need attention. She took off in a rage, and for her parents’ house. - maybe remove and? There was a terrible storm that nightwith heavy rain,...

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Murray Burns
15:13 Jun 03, 2023

Thank you!!

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Murray Burns
15:53 Jun 03, 2023

Except for the girl dying, the story is pretty much true. The guy who lived 3 doors down from me did marry my next door neighbor, and he was with an old girlfriend just a week or two before their wedding! She didn't get killed in an accident...she was just unhappy until their divorce. I didn't know about the illicit rendezvous until long after the wedding, but other mutual friends did.

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Lily Finch
17:07 Jun 03, 2023

He's the epitome of pathetic. LF6

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