Kaylie and Carter are dating, and have been for a year. Out of necessity the relationship has remained underground. Lauren is Kaylie's best friend who has had a crush on Carter since grade school. When Lauren finds out about the relationship she works to subversively sabotage it. Meanwhile, Carter feels like he's taking second place to Kaylie's other legitimate priorities. The combination of Lauren's jealousy and Carter's discontent lead to a drunken hook-up at a party. When Kaylie finds out she dumps Carter and swears she will never again befriend Lauren.
Carter, who loves Kaylie desperately, resolves to wait. Lauren gives up her sneakiness when she realizes Carter won't change his mind. Kaylie keeps Carter on a string for months--alternately needing him and pushing him away until she resolves to forgive him. Things seem fine for a couple days, until another situation (this time innocent), leads Kaylie to shut Carter and Lauren from her life again, despite their reasonable and truthful explanation.
The next day Kaylie sees the light and calls Carter to get him back. But it's too late. During Carter and Kaylie's months-long yo-yo separation Carter and Lauren became friends. Lauren showed compassion on Carter when he was kicked out of his house, and listened to him when he had no one else to talk to. Lauren hadn't made any advances on Carter for a while, but after the second rejection Carter decides to leave Kaylie and turn his romantic sights on Lauren.
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It seemed so wrong. Lauren was the one who slept with her best friend's boyfriend. She was a bad friend and a saboteur. She manipulated both Kaylie and Carter to advance her agenda. So why does she end up with the guy? Carter and Kaylie are supposed to be soul mates. They maintained a loving relationship for over a year. Of course Kaylie is jumpy about anything involving him and Lauren, so how can he leave her now, just when things are starting to work themselves out? Carter has completely turned the tables.
It seems so right. Despite the unscrupulous hook-up, what Carter and Lauren have forged is a real friendship. She has been there for Carter while his world was crumbling and his ex-girlfriend was busy asserting her righteousness. After a while Lauren became a real girl, someone with the capacity to love and deserving of love. And that's what Carter appears to be ready to give her.
Watching this saga unfold caused me rethink forgiveness. It's tempting to hold offense over the heads of the offenders, to make them crawl up the steps of our approval on their hands and knees. But no matter how severe the offense, the statue of limitations will eventually run out. The other person will forgive themselves and move on. We will lose the presence of the offender in our lives for good if we do not decide how much we really need them.
Maybe we don't need them at all. Then forgiveness can come slow. It can rise in our hearts at its own pace as we adjust to a life without them. Then the process is less about the person who wronged us, and more about healing the abscesses left behind. But maybe we do need them. Righteous indignation is justified only as long as the indignation is righteous. Eventually the saint's shine will wear away, and we will be left with a decision. Our relationship just might be something we wouldn't choose to live without. If so, we need to make up our minds to begin the process of forgiveness.
If we want their friendship, we have to be a friend. Friendship is based on trust, or at least honesty about how much trust you have. Friendship can't bear constant suspicion; it can't or be held on a string, or operate under the sustained leverage of a past situation. At one point or another we are all victims, and we have to learn to let those around us improve, or let them go.
