I never wanted her to know my choice. I never thought she would.
Perhaps that's why I'm so angry.
Peter will never be a traitor, he's bent his entire will to follow Aslan, through thick and thin, castle and small house in Finchley.
Even through his siblings' traitorous choices.
Lucy won't, either. She can't, because her heart is Aslan's, and she can't deny her heart. For most people, it's not safe for their hearts to lead. They love too many things they shouldn't, or love the right things the wrong way. But Lucy loves as she should, which is why her heart can always lead. To forswear Aslan would be to break her own heart.
But I never thought Susan would leave either.
How could someone love so much, so deeply, the way Aslan does, and not be His?
But it's love again, because Susan does love the right things in the wrong way…and now she doesn't love what she should. Her love for us is still there, behind the shiver-cold laughs and fluttering hands, but her love for Aslan…it's choked out.
I never wanted her to know this choice. I never thought she would.
I thought I was the only one who would choke his own right loves by fear and that devouring hunger, for something, anything, to drown out the fear. But she's making those same choices, and it shouldn't be her, I should be the only one…
But anyone can fall to temptation. I should know that better than most. Even Peter. Even Lucy.
Even Susan.
I write these words and my anger drains away, leaving only…emptiness.
If Susan falls, wiser and more loving than I was, if any of us could fall—what hope do we have?
But my mind laughs at that question, laughs, and the emptiness shrinks, because I know the answer.
I know there's a Lion, our God sinless and loving, who draws us back after we fall. I know He loves us so well He will not let us stay where we have fallen.
A walk on a sunlit morning, a conversation I can never forget, and that love—the love that I cannot deny, that breaks me, that builds me up again into a better man than I was. The love that teaches me to love the right things.
Susan, I never wanted you to know the emptiness of a traitor's choice. But I hope, someday, you will know the love that brings even the traitors back.