Not Quite Dead

She shook her head, eyes cast down.

"Of course I knew..." She trailed off a moment. Looking back up to meet the accusing eyes. "I always knew it was a game, I just had hope is all. I just hoped that maybe the game would end."

One of the things people forget is that not everyone is playing, or playable. 

She knows the game.

Recognizes the game.

But chooses not to play.

But she loves the game players, and keeps hoping that one day they will realize that not every pawn is unaware. Not every pawn is making the expected moves.

 

"Don't you think if I had something to hide I would have reacted differently?" She asks.

The answer "I guess you're right." Comes slowly.

The dawning of realization that perhaps she knew all along that so many lies had been told, to her, about her, surrounding her...yet she was still here. Waiting to be stabbed, one more time. Why not?

She wasn't quite dead yet. 

And if she was worth using, worth stabbing, worth being lied to and about, then maybe her role in the cosmos wasn't quite played out yet.

It isn't that she can't be controlled...more that she prefers the illusion of being moved across the board.

Because she's still here.

She isn't quite dead enough to accept that someone can't learn, can't grow, can't be seen as they are and loved any way. 

And she does...love any way.

Because the tears she sheds now and then are not because she doesn't KNOW that she's being played, used as a pawn in someone else's game...the tears she lets fall are from the shattered hope that once again someone thought her too stupid to know what's up.

Their choice to lie to and about her stung because there wasn't any need to, and they couldn't see that. Their anger, not from the lesson they chose not to learn, but from being caught once again, was like the breath of life being snuffed out.

"It doesn't matter." She says.

"No?" The question sounds hollow, yet she knows what the intention behind it is, and she sighs.

"No, I don't mind being used for the greater good. I have broad shoulders and a strong back."

She doesn't mean this to sound martyristic, even as she knows it does.

She isn't quite dead yet.