The Lives Of Others: 3i On Campus To the outsider he looks serene; face turned up to the sun, stretched out on the grass soaking up the warm rays. But from their distance they can't see the lines on his face which give away the internal struggle raging away inside. He looks like a the stereotypical post-gap-yah student. Travels funded by mummy and daddy have given him a new outlook on #life. A 'cultural and spiritual awakening' have lead to and trade-in of Ralph Lauren polos for hemp shoes and cotton shirts. But thats just on onlookers impression. He knows people judge him on how he looks but he doesn't mind. It's easier if people judge him wrongly than take in the truth. Easier for him and easier for them. And to be fair to them some of the judgements are true. He is from an affluent family, he did get to have the fabulous gap year that all his friends had dreamt of but it wasn't his utopia. There are some kinds of guilt which can't ever be erased no matter now much time passes and no matter now often everyone reassured you that they don't blame you. Even if everyone else has forgiven him he doesn't find it so simple to forgive himself. University was meant to be a new start but he is beginning to realize that some things just can't be outrun. When all the other students were getting to know each other he was sitting silently to the side praying that no one would ask him about his family. He didn't want to lie because hiding the truth made the guilt even worse but the truth was almost unbearable to share. Sitting here in the sun he could almost begin to forget for a few glorious moments the sound which haunted him. The gentle rays warmed his heart and the guilt began to slip away until a birds call disturbed the quiet of campus and the scream which always followed the sound once again engulfed his mind, reaching into the very corners of his memory and almost threatened to spill over his lips. His scream, She hadn't even had a chance to make a noise. He managed to stifle it, only letting out a guttural choking sound. He remembered the sight of the puppet body falling to the floor, a burgundy stain trickling down its neck from a crater leaking #life and soaking it through. How could he start this new #life with this old weight keeping him down? How could he let anyone get close to him when he could no longer trust himself? After he returned from travelling he had pushed all his friends from prep school away and retreated into his shell. The move to university had been made reluctantly at his fathers insistence that he couldn't “let everything come to a holt, guilt cannot define you”. It was hard though, guilt was defining him and all he could was think was that he deserves for his #life to be a shell of what it used to be after what he had done.