It was shortly after my wreck that I began to see what Brent was doing. How long he had been carrying on his campaign of deceit and sabotage, I don’t know, but I like to think that it was a new thing- that way the rest of our friendship wasn’t a lie.

As it turns out, when Brent would make a mistake at the warehouse he would blame me for it. A few things turned up missing at work. Brent insisted that I was the one who stole the stuff.

One morning we came into work and one of the small warehouse windows up at the roof level had been broken. Brent climbed up onto the roof to see which way the glass had fallen, so he could prove to Tom that I had broken it from inside the warehouse. Of course, the window had been broken from the outside, but I could see a streak of pettiness emerging. I didn’t understand why he was acting this way, but for someone reason he felt that to impress Tom Hammond he needed to make me look bad. After that, I was the bad guy. If something went wrong, I was the one who got the blame.

One of the neighboring businesses asked us one day if they could borrow our forklift. I asked Tom, and he gave his permission. The day came and went and the neighbors never came to use the forklift. I didn’t think anything of it until I got a call at eight o’ clock the next morning. As I had cleared with Tom the previous day, I was on my way out to an early doctor’s appointment.

"You promised the neighbors that you would unload their shipment and I didn’t know anything about it," said Brent. "I want you to get down here right now and unload it for them."

I told Brent what had happened and he told me I was lying. I hung up on him and went to my doctor’s appointment. Brent appeared to be on a power trip and I didn’t want to be the one he was riding.

Now my problems at work began to spill over to the activities I was attending at the Baptist church. Tom Hammond was often involved in leading the youth groups and both he and Brent began treating me as though I were inferior; not worthy to be in their presence. I guess what really made me feel unwelcome is when Tom Hammond stood up in youth group and called me Satan.

The youth group was having a discussion about setting an example for others with the way you live your life. We were in a casual setting and I made a small, and, what I thought was, a harmless and inoffensive joke, as others had been doing throughout the evening.

Suddenly, Tom Hammond stood up and pointed at me. "I’ve got to