Pride

"It is ok, you know. You can just back out now, you've made no promises to anyone."

"I can't."

"Is it because of them?"

"Yes."

"Because of what they will think?"

"Yes."

"Ok.. I'm sorry, when did you start to care?"

"What do you mean 'start to care'? I've always cared!"

"Well, yeah, you've cared if someone have gotten hurt and you're somehow at fault, you've cared when you've felt that it has been your responsibility to help someone and you would care if someone sprained their ancle. But this isn't that."

"Really? Ok then what is this?"

"This right here, what you're saying, is that you're not backing out because you are attempting to live up to the expectations and hopes of perfect strangers that you barely even knew excisted a few months ago.
Hopes and expectations that they had no right to place upon you, no not place i mean shove down your throat and choke you with, and that we both know are never going to be met.
Not because you couldn't do it!
I'm not saying that. I'm saying, and you know i'm right, this is demands dreamt up from a fantasy of what they labeled you to be! So what you're saying right now is that, for the first time in your life, you are going to clench your teeth together and keep going with something that makes you miserable.."

"I'm pretty much always miserable anyways."

"..because it will require you to pretend to modify yourself just so as to not have people you have no obligation to, that don't even want to know YOU and that are actually only orchestrating this so as to not have to deal with the real problems at hand... You're telling me you're doing this so as not to make that kind of people feel let down?!"

"Ok, so that's not the reason."

"Well i'm glad to hear it coz' that would've been stupid, people like that will just suck the life force out of you and move on to the next victim.
So what is the reason?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"I don't know."

"Seriously?"

"Well actually i do know. But i don't want to know. So i'm trying not to think about it."

"Ok, it's late so how about you just tell me so we don't have to go through the extra 45 minutes where i restart my brain and try to decipher what you mean."

"You'll think it's stupid."

"You know i wont give up before you've told me."

"I know."

"So tell me."

"Ok.....It's not because of what they will think... It's because of what i will think."

"You're going to have to do better than that explanationwise."

"Well let's face it, it's not like i have a lot to hold my head high over at the moment."

"What? I can not believe you! You have more going for you now than you've had in years!"

"Well yes. But try and see it from my perspective. If you take away those couple of good things that i've been dreaming of, let's face it, since childhood. If you take that away i'm just.... i'm still just Napoleon on his exile island!"

"Napoleon?"

"Yeah. This place, no matter all the good things and intentions and so on, it's still an island of shame were i've been sent because i lost the war."

"That's ridiculous! You have nothing to be ashamed of, you have done nothing wrong, you weren't sent there! And you didn't loose anything, you managed to get yourself out of a bloody mess that someone else created for you and even kept most of your dignity. You should get a medal not an island!"

"I know! But then why am i here?"

"Again. You don't have to be."

"Yes i do."

"Why?"

"You'll think it's stupid."

"Oh c'mon!"

"It's because...many years ago i looked at myself in the mirror and came to terms with the fact that a lot of people have called me a lot of things over the years."

"And?"

"And i promised myself to never let that thing be coward, if i know that they're right."

"And if you back out that will happen? They'll call you a coward and you'll think they're right?"

"Yes it will. And they can say whatever they want, i will call myself that. And i'm not a coward. I make it a point not to be that kind of a person and i don't run from something when it gets a bit difficult."

"Your crazy."

"For sure."

"It is kind of endeering though."

"That is kind of what i'm going for. Short and cute, just like Napoleon."

"The Napoleon thing doesn't make any sense."

"I know."