"Let's run away together."

Out of the all the things from all the people in the world, I never expected to hear it from her. She is always the strong one, the kind one, the smart one. The one I go to for everything, anything and nothing- my best friend.

"I'm tired of this- of hiding, of being scared of being everything. Can't we just disappear?"

Maybe it was because she is so strong, so kind, so smart I never considered how it might be affecting her. How war was affecting her. How under all the pressure and expectation she might be cracking too. How this was also her burden to bear and I was selfish to think it was just me.

"Don't you feel it too, the hopelessness? How everyday it creeps closer and closer until you feel like you're suffocating? "

Every minute, I've felt it since I was eleven years old. Since I understood what my role to play was... but she made it easier. With her I could forget the entire world rested on my shoulders, I could forget I wasn't different or special. She was the strong one, the kind once, the smart one and with her the darkness stopped, as if frozen by time. How stupid could I have been to think she never felt the same?

"...But you know you know you can't give up because everyone is relying on you to always be there?"

I do. I never realised how much I do.

"I'm only seventeen...How much can they expect?

Seventeen... seems too young to know the horrors of war and the hatred of humanity. It seems too young to know the sound of orphaned children and broken families. It seems too young to know the wrath of prejudices and the consequences of intolerance. She is so strong, so kind, so smart, but she is only seventeen...I am only seventeen.

How much have we sacrificed for this...How much more will we have to give?"

Everything. Even someone like her who is so strong, so kind and so smart must give up everything they have or will have. They have taken our childhoods, our families, our innocence and sacrificed them on the altar of "the greater good". Why is it I never realised she gave up just as much as me, for me?

"I'm always the strong one, the kind one, the smart one. Can't I just be me?"

Don't you realize? Being the strong one, the kind one, the smart one is you.

"Let's run away together."

This time she says it like a wish. Because she knows someone like her who is so strong, so kind, so smart can never run away. That the world needs people like her make it better, to get rid of the bad guys and then clean up the mess they left.

She won't run away because I need her.