I was just a little girl when it started. I was just a little girl when I first began to see the truth. Of course the truth wasn’t very clear to me at first. The truth was startling. The truth was frightening. The truth was what one would consider a nightmare.
I was only seven years old when I experienced what was probably the worst night of my life. My mom and dad were fighting and yelling a lot. I heard them downstairs, and they sounded really angry. They kept mentioning ‘Angelina.’ I didn’t know who Angelina was, and I didn’t understand why she was making my parents mad at each other. Whoever she was, I didn’t like her.
When my mom and dad finally stopped fighting, I built of the courage to go downstairs. My mom was crying. When I asked her why, she shook her head and said it wasn’t important. But even though I was just a little girl, I knew it was important. If it wasn’t important, why would it bother her so much?
“Who’s Angelina?” I asked her.
“How do you know about her?” she asked me in return.
“I heard you talking about her,” I told her. “A lot. I don’t like her.”
My mom smiled a bit. “I don’t either, honey.”
“Why not?” I asked her. “Did she say something mean to you?”
“No. She . . . this really isn’t something you need to know right now.”
“I want to know,” I told her. “Why were you and Daddy fighting?”
She sighed and patted her lap. “Sit down,” she told me. I sat down on her lap and wrapped my arms around her neck as she began to explain. “Daddy did something bad,” she said. “You know how I get mad at you when you do something bad?”
I nodded. How could I forget?
“I got mad at Daddy in the same way,” she said. “He . . . he’s been with another woman, Maria. He’s been with Angelina.”
“What do you mean?” I asked her. “Has he been talking to her?”
“Yes,” she said, “and more. He’s been kissing her and hugging her and doing those kinds of things with her.”
“But he does that with you,” I pointed out. “I didn’t know he did that with anyone else.”
“He’s not supposed to,” she told me. “That’s why it’s bad. And wrong. That’s why I’m mad. You see, Maria, your father lied to me. He was unfaithful.”
“Unfaithful,” I echoed, trying to get used to the word. “So what will happen now?”
I heard my mother sniffing back tears. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s complicated, honey. I just think that Daddy and I might not be right for each other, so he might have to leave.”
“Leave?” I sounded in horror. “Where will he go?”
“I’m not sure,” my mother said. “Anywhere he wants. He’s going to go be with Angelina now, and we aren’t going to be together anymore. We’re going to separate.”
“Separate? What’s that mean, Mommy?”
“Break apart,” she said. “Daddy and I are breaking apart.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. I began to cry, myself, when I heard that news. “I don’t want you to,” I said.
“I know,” my mother agreed, “but it’s for the best.”
“If you break apart,” I said, “who will I be with? You or Daddy?”
My mother started to cry harder. “I don’t know. I just don’t know, Maria.”
The next week was a terrible week. I remember that there was an incredibly uncomfortable hostility in the house. I wasn’t old enough to understand what hostility was and what it meant, but I was old enough to know that I didn’t like it. I didn’t like hostility, I didn’t like this Angelina girl, and I most definitely did not like the thought of my parents breaking apart.
One night a few nights after the big fight, I was lying up in my room listening to music and reading my latest detective book. There was a knock on my door and I chirped, “Come in!” happily.
My daddy opened the door, and the first thing I noticed was that he was wearing his jacket. When I looked closer, I saw that he had two bags sitting at his feet. “Where are you going?” I asked him.
“Away,” he said. “I’m leaving with Angelina.”
“I don’t like Angelina, Daddy. I like Mommy. You should stay with Mommy. You shouldn’t leave.”
“I can’t stay,” he said. “I like your mother, but I don’t love her. Not anymore. Do you understand the difference?”
I nodded. I was surprised that I did, but in that moment, the distinction between like and love was very clear for me.
“I don’t know when I’ll be back,” he said. “Maybe never.”
“Never?” I shrieked.
“That’s right,” he said. “I’m sorry, Maria.”
“Can I go with you?” I asked him. “I could go for a few days and then come back to visit, Mommy. Then you could come back for Christmas.” I thought I had a very good plan, but my daddy shook his head.
“It doesn’t work that way, Maria,” he said. “This is an end.”
“An end?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
“Because it has to be.”
I sighed, giving in. I was too young to comprehend what an end this truly was. Had I been older, I would have managed to stop him.
“It’s not because of you, Maria,” he said, “so never blame yourself. This is something between me and Mommy, okay?”
“Okay,” I whispered.
“I’ll always love you,” he said. “No matter what.”
I wanted to believe him, but something in that moment made it so difficult. I looked into his eyes, and it was the strangest thing. I saw lies, and through lies I saw the truth. “Yeah,” I said, skeptical. “I know.” The truth was, I didn’t know. He was lying, and a part of the younger me was mature enough and responsible enough to carry that knowledge.
After my dad left, things got bad. Really bad. My mom started drinking heavily. I was ten years old when she had her first major alcohol related incident. She was so drunk that she robbed a convenience store with a few friends without thinking about it. She was later arrested and thrown in jail for a week. I stayed home by myself for that entire time, scared to death for myself and for my mother.
My fear for my mother only continued to grow. As her drinking intensified, so did her arrests and her strange behavior. When I was twelve, she slapped me, and it hurt. When I was thirteen, I walked inside and found her passed out on the kitchen floor. She almost died. It’s awful, but a part of me wished she had died then, because the last year was the worst.
From then on, my mother had nothing to do with me. I was fourteen years old, and I had to do everything. I had to prepare dinner. I had to do the household chores. I had to pay the bills and run errands. I had to do all of this while trying to maintain my education. I had no friends because I didn’t have time for a social life. I spent what little time I did have being the mother while she was the child.
When I was fifteen, I got a call from the hospital. They said that they had my mom and that she was in critical condition. “She’s probably not going to make it through the night,” they told me.
I took a taxi up to the hospital and rushed to my mother’s bedside like the loyal daughter I was. I didn’t talk to her, because she was unable to talk back. Even if she could have spoken, I doubted she would. She had worked so hard to be completely distant from me over the years.
She breathed heavily and shakily that entire night. I never left her side. I sat there and rested my eyes and wondered when it would be over and what I would do when it was.
At 5:36 that next morning, my mother opened her eyes and opened her mouth. I could tell just by her expression that she was breathing her last breaths. When she noticed me, she actually smiled. “I love you, Maria,” she said.
I wanted to believe her, but I couldn’t, because I once again saw the truth. She loved alcohol more than me. She was dying because of alcohol, and she was leaving me once and for all.
She died seconds later.
After my mother’s passing, I tried the emancipation thing. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a lawyer. They were all charging too much, and I had no money. I packed up some things and tried doing the runaway thing for awhile. The runaway thing sucked, and I quickly grew tired of it.
I got on a bus to Santa Fe on the day of my sixteenth birthday. I was desperate for someone, anyone, to help me any way he or she could. I arrived in Santa Fe and called my brother.
My brother, Justin, left home when he was seventeen before he graduated high school. He got involved with drugs and some bad people, and I watched his future go down the drain. He was in his mid-twenties at this time. I can’t remember exactly what age. Anyway, I really didn’t want to call him and ask for his help, but he was the last family member I had left.
To my surprise, Justin let me stay with him. He had a really crappy apartment that smelled like cat pee all the time, but it was better than being out on the streets. He smoked pot around me all the time and even asked me if I wanted to join. I always politely declined.
When Justin’s friends came over, they would usually go into his bedroom and do things that involved a lot of grunting and screaming. I knew they were having sex, and I hated hearing it. The strange thing occurred only a few months after I had started staying there. Justin’s friends came over, and they didn’t go in his bedroom. They stood in the corner and talked about things quietly and kept glancing my way to make sure I wasn’t hearing them.
“We’re going out,” he announced that night. “Stay here. We’ll be back.”
I did as he said. I stayed. I turned on the television and watched cartoons the entire night while doing my homework. I was watching “Animaniacs” when a special news report cut in. The report dealt with a local robbery at a gas station not far down the street. I watched with interest and with fright when I heard that the robbery had turned violent.
“One man is dead,” the news reporter said. “He was apparently shot five times and killed instantly. The shooter has been taken into custody and identified as Justin DeLuca.”
My mouth dropped open in horror. Justin . . . what? My brother? He was a bad guy sometimes, yeah, and he did a lot of bad things, but I didn’t know that he was capable of this, of killing someone.
Justin soon confessed to police that it had been an accident. He was sentenced to twenty years in prison for his crime, and I was once again without a single family member and without a home.
I contacted Justin’s defense lawyer and asked for help. I needed to become emancipated so that I could have my own place. Justin’s lawyer was very helpful to me. He found me a lawyer that helped me to become emancipated.
The night before I moved into my own apartment, I went to visit my brother behind bars. He looked angry and pissed off and cold. It was scary to see him. When he looked at me, all I saw was darkness.
We picked up the phones and spoke through the glass. “I got emancipated,” I told him. “I’m staying with one of my teachers tonight, and I’m moving into my own place tomorrow.”
“That’s great,” he said.
“It is,” I agreed, “you know, since everyone else in my family has ditched me. It’s nice to know that I’ll be responsible for myself and I won’t have to deal with anyone else.”
“That’s great,” he said again.
“Are you even listening to me?” I asked him.
“Yeah,” he said. “Maria, you might not believe it, but I do listen to you, and I see you, too. I might not have said it enough or ever, and I might not have shown it at all, but you’re my sister, Maria, and I love you.”
I saw it with him too. The lie. I hung up the phone in a hurry and rushed out of that place, eager to get away from him.
Things started getting slightly better for me after I got emancipated. During my senior year of high school, I had a boyfriend. His name was Ryan, and he was a good-looking, athletic guy. He was really into me. Really. I was very close to having sex with him one time. Very.
We were at my place. The music was playing and the candles were lit. He was being super romantic. He was telling me how beautiful I looked and how I was the only woman for him. The only woman.
“I want you,” he said, moving his hands up under my shirt. “Maria, I love you.”
I didn’t see it in his eyes. I heard it in his voice. I heard the sounds of deceiving and the pronunciation of betrayal. I pushed him away from me. “What did you just say?” I asked him, just to be sure. I didn’t want it to be true.
“I love you,” he repeated again.
I shook my head and moved myself away from him. “No,” I said. “You don’t.”
Ryan and I were over after that. We broke up right before the Prom, which was really unfortunate, because he was voted Prom King and I had to watch him dance with his new girlfriend, who had been crowned the Prom Queen.
I wondered if I would ever be with anyone. I wondered if anyone would ever feel genuine things for me. I wondered if there would ever be a time that I would look in someone’s eyes and see real love, or a time that I would listen to someone’s voice and know the reality of real.
I didn’t think this would ever happen. I had been close to a total of four people in my entire life. My dad, my mom, my brother, and Ryan had all lied when they told me they loved me. I didn’t believe that I would ever hear or see the truth from anyone.
And then I met Michael Guerin. He’s really strange. He does whatever he wants when he wants. He doesn’t care what people think about him. He just is who he is, and he is the most intriguing, fascinating person I’ve ever met in my entire life.
Things between us escalated quickly. There was a spark, a certain chemistry, from the minute we laid eyes on each other. We didn’t go out on dates or anything. We had a few brief conversations, and then we were waking up together in the same bed, unclothed and vulnerable, desperate and blazing.
Sometimes we fight, and I wonder if it will be the end of us. I wonder if it will be the last fight, but it never is. Michael always comes back begging for more. He begs for the banter, the disagreements, the arguments, and the questions. He begs for the spark, the chemistry, and the undeniable passion that exists between us. I beg for all the same things, because I need them. I need Michael. I know it sounds like I’m addicted to him, and that’s probably because I am. I’m okay with that. I’ll stay addicted just as long as I never have to break apart from him.
“You’re not that hot,” he always tells me.
“I’m not?”
“Yeah,” he says. “You’re just a high school girl.”
“I’m about to graduate,” I remind him.
“Still,” he says, “college girls are way hotter.”
“Then why don’t you go be with one of them?” I ask him. “Crawl into their beds at night instead of mine.”
“No,” he says.
“No?” I echo. “Why not?”
“Because,” he said. “That’s why.”
“Because? That’s not a very good reason.”
“Yeah, well, it’s good enough.”
“I want better,” I tell him. “Honestly, Michael, just tell me. I mean, I know you’re with me ‘cause of all the outrageous physical stuff, but is there more to it?”
“More? What more could there possibly be?”
“Emotional,” I said. “Is that there?”
He doesn’t answer my question. I wish he would. I need to hear it, and I need it to be the truth. In that moment, though, he says something completely unexpected, something I never thought I would hear him say. “I don’t love you.”
I see the truth. That’s what I do. I see a lie, and therefore I see the truth. The thing about Michael . . . he’s a liar; and I’m the lie detector. When he says he doesn’t love me, that can only mean one thing.
“Right,” I say. I decide to keep it a secret that I know. I watch as he storms out of my apartment, and I know that he’ll be back tomorrow night. I wonder if he’ll lie again. I wonder when he’ll tell the truth.
THE END
Story Notes:
Disclaimer: The characters mentioned in this story belong to Melinda Metz and Jason Katims. Blah . . .
Just a short and kinda weird little fic. Feedback is greatly appreciated!
Just a short and kinda weird little fic. Feedback is greatly appreciated!