Frozen in a lie

Sara flipped through the photo album with the gentleness of a mother holding her baby for the first time. She wasn't sure why she bothered, each picture was laminated and strong. Maybe she was afraid of tearing the memories within the picture, or perhaps it was for another reason that she was unaware of. Either way, as she continued to turn page after page she became even more careful still.

After a time, she was just flipping through the pages in a repetitive motion not really looking at the pictures inside. It took a while for her to realize this, but the moment that she did, her hand stopped halfway to the next page. For a moment she just stared down at the picture of her mother and father. They were smiling their arms linked, looking happy, almost as if nothing in the world could break their joy. Pictures were a lie.

A droplet of water landed on the laminated photo, rolled down to the bottom of the page, and fell to the carpeted floor below. Sara didn't realize that the droplet of water was actually a tear until she felt another one roll down her cheek, but once this reality sunk in the tears began to flow down her face faster. Tasting salt in her mouth she leaned forward and stifled a sob. Pictures were lies.

In the photo, her parents had looked happy, but in reality, they had been far from it. The picture had been taken only a month before they had gotten a divorce. Sara remembered coming home to see the picture framed and sitting above the fireplace. She had looked at it for a long time, back then her parents hadn't smiled like that at all, at least not in front of Sara. It was around that time that she first realized that photos were merely trinkets, something to be shown to people outside of a family to make people believe that you lead a happy life. They were meant to reveal a little bit of someone's life, but only what the person taking the picture wanted to reveal, even if it wasn't true. Pictures were fake, not true, a lie.

Anyone could fake a smile, some were better at it than others, but anyone could do it. Sara's parents were masters at faking smiles, better even than Sara herself, and she had practiced for years. Looking back on it she wished that she had only smiled when she truly wanted to smile. Faking a smile was a waste, meant only to trick people into believing your feeling one thing when you're actually feeling another. A fake smile was another form of a lie, a lie that Sara had used often. Her lips were used to the motion of forcing themselves up into a grin and letting fake laughter slip past. It wasn't worth it. She realized that now, but she was too slow.

She wished that she had learned this lesson sooner, now it was too late. Her father had died the week before of a heart attack, and Sara hadn't been able to tell him some important things. He had died not even knowing that Sara didn't like seafood. She had told him she liked it because he had liked it, seafood had been his favorite. They used to go out for seafood once a month, and Sara would clench her teeth and do her best to eat all of her meal. One day though, Sara wasn't sure how or when, her mother found out that she didn't like seafood, and had told her father. They had argued a bit and then Sara's father had called her mother a liar. Sara had been able to hear their yells from her room. Two weeks later they separated.

When Sara was younger she had believed that it was her fault, now that she was older she knew this wasn't true. Her parents had fought all the time, sometimes behind closed doors and sometimes right in front of Sara. Still, the fighting had begun to die down when the seafood incident happened and the fighting had begun again like it was fresh. It had been the straw that broke the camel's back, sometimes Sara would wonder if she had just told her father the truth would her parents have been able to mend their broken relationship. She had lied about such a small simple thing, but it had been enough to make everything worse.

Now it was too late for her parents to get back together, and Sara couldn't tell her father the truth. Someone had once told her that nothing was ever too late, but she had a feeling that the person would never have said that if they had gone through something like she was going through. There always came a time when everything was too late. Now she was too late and there was nothing she could do.

Wiping the tears from her eyes she stood and walked over to her bookshelf, setting the photo album gently on one of the shelves. If anyone else went through the album they would see a happy family taking pictures to commemorate happy parts of their lives. All Sara saw was a book laced with lies and tricks. The pictures were a facade meant to make people believe that the life of this family was normal.

It had been almost funny seeing the looks on some people's faces when Sara's parents had separated, but she hadn't laughed. She hadn't really laughed at anything in a long time, and her practice in tricking people told her that this was not an appropriate time to laugh. Instead, she had stood with her hands folded as her parents walked away from each other, her little shoulders slumped with all the lies that she carried on her back. The weight of those lies still weighed down on her shoulders and she had to haul them with her wherever she went. One day she hoped to relive herself from the pain of carrying around her parent's wrongs as well as her own, but maybe it wasn't to be.