14: Truth

I set the phone down carefully. I had a strange smile on my face, and I didn’t know why. The kid bothered me. Why did I ever give him my number? He was just trying to get with me.

He was trying to get with me, and he had never met me.

Maybe I thought I was nice.

He had never seen me, either. He had known me for just a short amount of time. The poor kid. 

Still, someone was noticing me, even if I wasn’t the prettiest. Maybe I’d get with him. Maybe not.

Probably not.

Still, he had wanted to, and that was more than ever before. I wasn’t a virgin, not by a long shot, but something about this kid was different. It made me feel worth something. It made me feel like I had a price on me. Like I was something high-class. 

I wouldn’t call him. No, I wasn’t that type of girl anymore. Now, I was a new me. I was Ida Cambell, not from New York, but the one from Maine. I wasn’t about to subject myself to something as low as that.

Still, he seemed nice.

I put my dreadlocks back and drew on my eyebrows. Even though I planned to sit inside today, I liked drawing them on. It made me feel like more of a person. I was less ashamed. Besides, when I drew them on, my peircing actually had a noticeable brow to rest in.

I walked out of my room, and into the kitchen. My aunt was still out, but she had been coming home at around two o’clock recently, and I planned to be out before she got back. 

It wasn’t like she would notice. She never did. No one ever did. They wouldn’t ever notice if I killed myself.

I looked in the fridge. Moldy cheese.

What was wrong with this lady? Did she not have any nostrils? More importantly, did she not have any eyes? The cheese was sitting out on the top shelf. Almost half of it was black. Suddenly, I felt sick, and remembered eating the chicken. 

I closed the fridge back up, and ignored the growth. 

Suddenly, the door opened, and slammed shut. Damn. She was back. I actually had to face her, which I tried not to do.  She strolled into the kitchen, and dropped her purse in the doorway.

“Oh, Aunt Tracy, here. Let me get that.”

Yet she remained frozen. 

“Tracy?”

“Yes?”

“Are you alright?”

“Who are you?”

“Aunt-”

“Who are you, and why are you in my house?!”

“I live here!” 

“Get out! Get out of here!”

Was I in a dream? Was she not my aunt? Was this some sort of prank? Suddenly, I felt like I was in the wrong house. Frantically, I looked around for an explanation.

“Burglar! Nasty, horrible brute! Horrid witch! Get out you, you, you scum! You bum! Go feed off of someone else you leech!”

“Tracy!”

“How do you know me? Get out!”

“Tracy! It’s me, it’s Ida! I-D-A! I....da! Cambell! I’m a Cambell!”

She froze once more. The fright left her eyes, and she looked around. I was breathlessly backed up against the far counter. 

“Ida?”

“Yes!”

“Why are you... I... oh, wait.”

A light bulb lit above her head.

“Oh, yes, I almost forgot. Your father... he...”

“Yeah. He did some... uh, bad things.”

“Did he now? Why, I remember the first time he met your mother.”

I felt the red hot alarm creeping into my face.

“What?!”

“Yeah. He knew her for quite a while. They grew up together.”

“They did?!”

“Yeah, come sit down.”

I helped her over to the stool at the counter, and sat across from her.

“Could you get me some tea, dear?”

“Yeah, sure Aunt Tracy.”

“I do love my tea. Honey sweetened, though. Nothing’s worse than sugar sweetened tea.”

“Alright. Now, what about dad and mom?”

“Huh?”

A puzzled look came over her face.

“How did they meet?”

“Oh! Yes! Well, he was near thirty when he was born. Actually, he was a teacher at her school when she was ten.”

“He was a teacher?!”

“Yes, dear, just let me talk. I hate interrupters.”

“Sorry, aunt.”

“Now, I was still working at the bank. He came over and talked about this girl in his class. He said she was the nicest girl he had ever met. She was smart, too. And she claimed that he was the best teacher in the world. Your father loved pleasing his students, you probably know.”

“No...I didn’t.”

“No interrupting!” she snapped. “Anyway, we both lived out in Alabama then. Actually, we were only a town away from each other. Only about a thirty minute drive. He came over whenever he had a student that liked him. That was his world back then. He loved every single one of them, so, naturally, he visited me often. This one, though, this girl, she loved him. She brought him an apple everyday. Then, she moved on to the next grade. And the next. And the next. Soon, she was a fourteen-year-old in highschool. It’s funny, because he never forgot about that child. Every time they saw each other there was a big reunion. 

“In her freshman year, she was having a lot of trouble. In school, she was nearly failing. He helped her. A lot. In fact, she would come over and visit him for help often. Something wasn’t right. I remember thinking that. I knew something was strange about her relationship. Then, she was pregnant. She didn’t believe in abortion. Actually, I was one of the only ones who he told that he got her pregnant. You should have seen us.

“We were the two closest of the siblings. We were the oldest, so it made sense. Your father was one of the sweetest mans I knew.”

“Then he raped my mother!” I shouted out without any prior thought.

“That is not nice! Sit back down and listen, girl!” Once I obeyed her, she went on. “He wasn’t like another sibling. We never got into fights the way others did. We always joked around about that. Never. We were two of the same thing. We were almost like twins. Actually, we were mistaken for twins, even though I was so much older. I was always short, and he was always tall. He was so nice! He’d share his toys, for one. He helped me through highschool, and even tried to tutor me through some of college. Your father was one of the smartest men I’d ever known. 

“Then, he got a job as a teacher. I’m not sure. I guess their relationship was wrong, but they seemed like a good couple. Even though she was fifteen, and he was about forty-five. They seemed like it was meant to be. Have you ever wanted to live in the fifteenth century, or some other time period?”

“Yes. The sixties.”

“You feel like you were born in the wrong time period. It was like that. It was as if one of them was born at the wrong time. They felt that way, the both of them. I mean, when he told me about it, I was revolted. I stopped talking to him. That was about the time that I moved out here. He told me he had a little girl and named her Ida.”

I smiled a little. But that didn’t change anything. He had raped her. No, they had a relationship. No, he had raped her. He was forty-five. It was sick.

“I remember I came back out for a week to see you and your father. That was when things got a little messy. See, no one was supposed to know that your father was actually your father. I wasn’t aware of that. I was so stupid. Things slipped, and there was a big trial. Your dad was going to be put into jail. Actually, he was put into jail. I took care of you, because... well, I think you know.”

“She killed herself?”

“Yes. She did. She even left a note. I can’t remember what it said anymore. Poor girl.”

“Wait, she killed herself because they found out? He raped her?”

“Your father never raped anyone. Consensual, it was. And he loved her. You couldn’t even imagine how devastated he was. He was in jail, his baby’s mother was dead, he had lost his job, and he had lost any jobs in the future.”

“Wait... then what?”

“Well, then he got out of jail. He fought for you back. He managed a job at a restaurant. You probably don’t remember any of this. You were just so young. Anyway, we stopped talking after that. I got a couple of late-night calls from him. He was always drunk. That was the only way he would call me.”

“I remember that part.”

“I’m sorry dear. Your father... he was the most amazing person ever. The law ended that. It ended it harshly and turned him into a drunk. A murderer. They never should have done that. Yet it happened, and it destroyed him. It destroyed her, too.”

“How did my mother die, exactly?”

“Pills. Lots of pills. They did everything they could. They pumped her stomach, they... God, that was so long ago...”

“Oh.”

The talk died, and the room fell to silence. It was not a peaceful, calming silence, but the kind of tension-filled silence that slowly ate away at you.

Things were different than I thought. I broke out into a sweat as the realization hit me. I stood up, and shakily said:

“Excuse me, I’ve got to go to my room.”

“Are you alright, dear?”

“F-fine. Just fine.”

“Alright. I’ll be here. I remember the first time I met your mother...”

I rushed into my room, and slammed the door behind me.

“Ida? Ida, what’s going on in there?”

I put a chair under the handle, locking the door. I put my hands on my temples, and screamed at the top of my lungs. I didn’t care if she head anything. She’d forget by the next day anyway.

I stabbed the walls with my eyebrow pencil. I punched them. I kicked them. I screamed, and banged my head against them. There was a point where you completely lost it. You lost control. It slipped, and a glint of the craziness inside of you flashed through. Maybe more than a glint. Maybe the whole thing.

I cried until black make-up smeared all the way down my face. Then, I put my head into the pillow on my bed and I screamed some more. 

Everything in my life felt like a lie. In truth, it probably was all a lie. I had been completely wrong about my past, and about my father and my mother. I realized that he had not raped her, but they had loved each other. Strangely, yes, but love nonetheless. 

I realized that my dad wasn’t trying to just have sex with some young girl and leave. He was in love with someone who was thirty years younger than him, and someone who loved him back.

I realized I didn’t know anything about my mother, and probably never would. I never had any memories of her. That might have been the worst part. I’d never know a mom. Never. 

I grabbed a piece of broken mirror from under my dresser, and I pulled my pants down. There. A spot where Juliet didn’t have to see it. A spot where I didn’t have to see it. I set the edge to my thigh, and it tore jaggedly through my skin. 

I screamed out in pain, and my aunt banged against the door. My face turned red hot, and I slammed my fists into the ground. 

Damn this. Damn it all. Damn the roller coaster. Damn that infernal cycle that Austin was talking about. Damn Cheyenne. Damn  Leeland and his diseases. Damn Charlie and his fiancé. Damn Charlie and his faith. Damn that f*****g Louis. He was a horrible doctor, or therapist, or whatever he was. Damn it all. I hated it. I wanted it to end. 

For a minute, I reached for the phone, and was ready to call Austin. 

No. I wasn’t about to do that. Austin was just some kid. I had never met him. Besides, I could handle my own problems alright. 

Slowly, I sank down, as the roller coaster took another nose dive. Diving into the ground. Diving into the shadows. The truth hovered over me; it’s twin was depression. Truth. Poor truth. Why couldn’t the world be lies all of the time? There was just enough of a gap between the vast amount of lies in the world and the small amount of truths that you could see through. You could see into the truth, and then all of the sudden, the lies that were built around you shattered. Why couldn’t it all be a wonderland? Why not? The truth stung like a b***h. There was just enough of a gap that you could see through the shattered illusion. 

I cried. And then my tears dried. I punched and slapped the cuts, and more and more blood came out. Then, the blood slowly dried, and the day passed on around me. Eventually, I calmed down enough that my aunt walked away, confused. Thank God, I’d bet she’d forgotten already. 

Truth was truly a horrible thing to have on top of a world built on lies. And that was exactly what I had.