Twelve Truths and a Lie (2 page)

“
Y
ou haven’t been
out in a while,” Maddie had said, driving to the bar.

It was Friday night, and I was relieved to be done with the work week. Believe it or not, middle school kids could be whiny, exhausting brats, maybe more so than kindergarteners.

“I could use a beer,” I replied. And to finally kick back with some friends.

I’d had one hell of a year. My teaching job had been deleted, which happened frequently in urban schools because of funding and staff turnover. Suburban positions had long waiting lists. I moved in with Maddie, because I didn’t even know if I’d make rent. Finally, over the summer, I got a call about a special education job in a school across town and accepted the position immediately, even though it was only a one-year contract.

“You all cool?” Maddie had asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“For sure,” I had said, almost defeated. “I don’t need any more trouble.”

When I’d caught my girlfriend cheating with one of my oldest friends last year, I went off the deep end. Dessa was the first person I had ever loved, and Mike had survived high school with me. I should’ve seen it coming, I suppose, the way they flirted with each other those last few weeks.

By the time I’d lost my job, I should’ve been done licking my wounds over my two friends hooking up.

Instead, I had gone out and done whatever the hell I wanted. Found any girl who wanted a one-night stand. Made sure not to tell a single one of them that I’d call them again. I was a mess and my friends knew it.

Maddie and Michael had done a mediation of sorts with me after I’d had a wake-up call three months ago. I had almost become a father. I should’ve expected as much when the condom broke and the girl had called me at my job. That was not fun.

I was ready though. I would’ve stood by her and helped raise that child. Turned out, it was a false alarm. My friends had put me on a ban, and I had accepted the challenge. No sex for six months. Get myself straight.

“Glad to have you back,” Maddie had said as he pulled in the lot.

I saw the gorgeous redhead as soon as I entered the bar. She was Nicole’s friend and had a boyfriend if I wasn’t mistaken. Not that it mattered.

“You remember my friend Aurora?” Nicole had said.

I nodded, attempting not to look into her bright blue eyes. Damn, she was pretty.

I took a seat across the large, round table from her. I ordered a beer and listened to the conversation. Michael was talking about his work on a big case as a prosecutor. He and Nicole had been together for a few years, and they had one of the strongest marriages I’d ever witnessed amongst our age group.

This set of friends had been meeting at this bar once a month for the past few years, and they were a cool group to hang around. I knew Michael from a men’s basketball league I belonged to.

“How long have you been a social worker?” I asked Aurora.

“About five years,” she said. “I have a couple of clients at your school.”

That was no surprise. Practically all of my kids had social workers.

“How long have you been a teacher?”

“About the same.” Nobody really understood the day in and day out with those kids, but she probably did.

I was a teacher in what was considered a self-contained classroom, which meant that my kids were diagnosed with emotional or behavioral disorders and were on Individualized Education Plans. This year, I had an active group, a few of them hardcore. Some rebelled on a daily basis, others responded to a firm touch or fear of suspension. Because depending on their home life, a firm touch could mean an abusive parent or an imposing authority figure. Suspension could mean endless days at home with possible repercussions.

“I’m new to Thomas Jefferson this school year,” I told Aurora. I didn’t want to instill fear in my students. I wanted to teach them respect and genuine empathy. So it had taken me a few weeks to gain their trust. “It’s been a tough couple of months.”

She clinked her glass against mine and got sucked into a side conversation with her friend Sydney while Michael asked me about next year’s men’s basketball league.

As the night wore on, I controlled my consumption of alcohol, limiting myself to two or three drinks. That’s where I had gotten myself into trouble in the past. The more I imbibed to forget my awful year, the more my inhibitions would leave me.

Aurora had walked over to the bar to talk to a former work friend who had waved her over. I found myself watching her out of the corner of my eye, which was ridiculous because she was definitely not a prospect. But there was something luminous about her that made me want to turn in her direction.

I stood up to stretch my legs, and finished the beer I’d been nursing in the process. On my way around the tables to place my empty glass on the bar top, I ran into Aurora heading back to our group. “I haven’t seen you around lately.”

“I come here once a month to catch up with my friends, but that’s about it,” she said. “Been on kind of a hiatus.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

She laughed. “You’ll think it’s dumb.”

Not if she heard my story. “Try me.”

“Well, apparently, I fall into relationships too easily,” she said, sweeping her hand across her body as if it would brush the ridiculous idea away. “But there might be some truth to that.”

So she didn’t have a boyfriend. At least not at the present moment. Come to think of it, she always did have some guy with her. Not always the same one.

“I even had one steady boyfriend throughout high school.”

“Only one?” I swiped my fingers across my chin as I marveled at that revelation.

In high school, I had been one big ball of testosterone. Trying to rub one out almost every day.

She shook her head, her hair sweeping over her forehead. “Don’t laugh.”

“Scout’s honor,” I said, lifting two fingers. “So, what’s the hiatus about?”

“No dating for a whole year.” She looked over her shoulder at her friends. “I promised.”

I followed her line of sight back to the table, where our friends were laughing about something with the server who was delivering more drinks. “Your friends?”

She nodded. “And myself. That’s the most important part.”

I admired the idea. I was doing something similar, in fact. “How long are you into your promise?”

“Nine months.” The answer came too easily. Maybe she’d been counting down the days.

I tried not to let my eyes pop out of my head, because damn, that was quite an admirable undertaking. “And what do you get after this promise ends?”

“An abundance of alone time?” She winced. “Weeks of soul searching? Maybe a few cats?”

I chuckled because the idea of her as a cat lady humored me. “How’s it working so far?”

“Pretty darn good. If not kind of…” She shook her head. “I just didn’t realize…”

I felt a pang in my stomach, but I wasn’t sure why. “What?”

“Why am I telling you all this?” she laughed nervously. But it was pretty easy to talk to her, so I hoped she’d continue.

“I don’t know…” I shrugged, like it was no big deal. But the truth was that she was hitting on all my marks, as well. “But I really don’t mind.”

She tilted her head to the side, studying me. My neck heated up. “What about you?”

I broke eye contact. “What about me?”

“Why isn’t there a girl hanging off your arm?” she asked. “I’ve heard you are definitely a lady magnet.”

“Yeah that,” I said, scratching the back of my neck, which had become prickly. “I’m sort of on a break, as well.”

She frowned. “Why is that?”

“I just…I needed a time-out from some things, too.”

I was embarrassed to say to this girl what I’d become.

She stared me down, her eyes narrowed in thought. Her eyelashes were like reddish-brown wings that created faint shadows over her cheeks. They shuttered as she figured out my issue all on her own. “So you needed a break from sleeping around?”

I cringed. “Sounds awful when you put it like that.”

“Went off the deep end, did you?” she asked, her hand on her hip.

“Pretty much,” I muttered sheepishly. “Guess I was trying too hard to work someone out of my brain.”

“Huh,” she said, biting her full bottom lip. “We are a pair, aren’t we?”

I leaned closer. “We might need a support group.”

“What would we call ourselves?” she asked, tapping her finger to her cheek. “Hmmm…how about the Chastity Club?”

My face broke into a toothy grin. “We could even hold weekly Friday night meetings at Flanagan’s. We’d be a flagship group.”

“Right, this once-a-month shit won’t cut it,” she replied, and I cracked up.

She raised her glass in a toast and tipped it back.

When I held up my drink, which contained mostly backwash by this point, I noticed how she studied my glass and then my face very carefully. “To the group’s inaugural meeting.”

She grinned. “Our official launch could be next Friday. You supply the drinks, I’ll supply the munchies.”

Suddenly, the same work friend from the bar tapped her shoulder. She was an older lady with curly black hair who was with a group of lively men and women. “Do you remember Curtis from Social Services? He was asking about you.”

“They always tried to set me up,” she muttered as the woman attempted to whisk her away. “Apparently, even social workers need a reality check. No way do I need another unsettling relationship in my life.”

I watched as her former co-worker reintroduced her to this tall man with glasses at the bar, as I regarded what she had said. Maybe my ex had considered our relationship unsettling and that was why
she
had strayed.

Aurora looked over her shoulder at me and rolled her eyes. I smiled and threw her a goofy thumbs-up.

My conversation with Aurora had been one of the most honest I’d ever had. Right in the middle of a busy bar. The Friday club thing was all bullshit, I knew, but for one fleeting moment, I felt like I had an ally.

I
pulled
my coat closed and headed toward the exit to the parking lot, more than ready to go home and curl up in my bed.

I made it past the kilt guy as he threw me a flirty smile, the same one he gave to all the ladies. My hand on the doorknob, I heard the familiar scraping noise of a snowplow nearby, so I yanked the door closed before I was pelted good with an icy shower.

When I stumbled back into a firm chest, I gasped. Kilt guy was behind me.

But then I heard that familiar low baritone. “Good timing. You were almost a snowman.”

It was Cameron’s arms that had wound as a barrier around me, perhaps to keep me steady, and I reveled in their heaviness and warmth. I hadn’t had a guy’s weight resting against me in months. But these arms. These were nearly perfect.

Attached to a man that had been drinking himself senseless and fucking every girl that moved, according to my friend.

I broke away from his grasp. “The truck’s gone now.”

Turning, I spotted Maddie just behind Cameron. They must’ve driven together, hopefully not because Cameron had a tendency to get wasted.

Though his cheeks were now flushed, Cameron didn’t seem tipsy. Not that I studied how much he’d had to drink. I had spent the remainder of my time catching up at the bar with my former co-workers from my first job post-graduation.

“Have a good night,” Cameron’s deep voice responded. His gaze darted to the ground as he held the door open for me, and then he walked without a second glance toward the line of cars.

D
espite my misgivings
about that gorgeous guy, I found myself recreating my conversation with Cameron all week long at work.

More than likely, it was because I hadn’t allowed myself to have a decent conversation with a pretty man in ages. His inky black curls looked coarse from a distance, softer upon closer inspection. My fingers had itched to reach up and swipe across his smooth bronzed forehead where one unruly strand had escaped.

His eyes were a gorgeous, amber shade that pierced through you when they ensnared you in their gaze. Yet his eyes skirted away from me when he admitted he was on a break from dating as well. Like there was a storm roiling inside of him and if he allowed anybody a peek inside, they’d be trapped in a gale force wind.

We jokingly agreed to meet every Friday for our imaginary club, but that hadn’t been real, right?

If I showed up at that bar and Cameron wasn’t there, how much of a dork would I feel like? There was no way I could ask my friends for advice—that would be mortifying. And it wasn’t like we had exchanged numbers.

I shoved the thought out of my head as I focused on greeting my next client in our waiting room.

“Hey, Darius,” I said, as he followed me down the hall and into my office, which was painted a muted yellow. The idea, apparently, was to be soothing to our clientele.

My desk was on one side of the room and the therapy section on the other.

I pulled out a seat at the smaller round table. There was a large area rug beneath it in case the child wanted to sit on the floor and play while we talked. The idea being that kids were more likely to open up through a series of recreated situations, where they could have fun and act out scenarios.

But with older kids like Darius, romping around on the floor wasn’t cool anymore, so we did more talk therapy, while playing board games or making artwork.

“Have a seat,” I said to him as he sank down on the metal foldaway.

He mumbled something under his breath and removed the hoodie from his head. He had been a tough nut to crack from the very beginning, barely uttering any words at all.

Darius had been referred to me because, according to his school, he was prone to violence. Some of that impulsive behavior had been managed by ADHD medicine. He could be explosive and, according to his mom, had been physically abused pretty regularly by his dad at a young age.

My agency had an integral part in getting his father removed from the home after the worker preceding me found coiled scars on Darius’s thigh. They had been made by an extension cord.

In Darius’s mind, he had lost a parent. He loved him despite the angry episodes. Nothing was ever so black and white. And a child’s outlook on life was never a simple answer to the question I often got from strangers after discovering what I did for a living—why are these kids so messed up?

Instead of rolling my eyes at their blatant exasperation, I would explain that the answer was a conglomeration of many factors shaped by the child’s home life, social and emotional well-being, as well as temperament and societal influences. Inner city youth had an even more difficult struggle because of institutionalized discrimination and privilege they were shown on a daily basis.

If I had a quarter for every time I heard a parent warn their child to stay alert out on the street, to watch their backs, even from those sworn to protect them, I’d be rich.

I was grateful to have found a menagerie of friends who understood this, were vocal, and supported many causes to help make a difference.

“Want to play a game?” I asked, heading to the bookshelf filled with books, toys, and games. “Maybe Sorry or Trouble?”

He looked down and mumbled. “Can we color?”

He was ten years old, but he still wanted to color. Something he admitted he never really did as a kid. My heart squeezed for him. “Of course.”

I placed a pile of books in front of him and let him shuffle through to decide which one he preferred. He selected Marvel superheroes and got started choosing his crayon colors, lining them up in a neat row.

“Did you bring your chart from school?” He had been transferred to a new district this year, his mom considered it a fresh start, and placed in a self-contained classroom.

“Yeah, in my book bag,” he said, motioning to his backpack on the ground.

“Okay,” I replied, getting settled across from him. “Let’s color first.”

We sat side by side as he chose blues and reds and filled in the Superman
KAPOW
bubble at the top of the page. It was such a simple act but a powerful one.

One of the things we talked about when he first came to see me was what it meant to feel safe. And that included not becoming out of control himself.

He talked quite a bit over the months while he was coloring, almost like he forgot when he was in session with me and that he was supposed to keep up his tough and aloof persona.

He’d shared all kinds of things. How he felt like he needed to be the man of the house—since his dad had to leave—so he could take care of his two younger siblings.

The man of the house at his age—mind-boggling.

How sometimes he became so angry that he took it out on others, like his classmates. That was how he’d racked up so many school suspensions over the last couple of years.

I had conducted a family session a couple of months back where he had a breakthrough and shared how afraid he was of his mother relapsing after so many years of being sober. How sometimes that fear would keep him awake at night. I understood that dread completely, having been raised by an alcoholic parent who was thankfully on the wagon for most of my childhood.

Sometimes Darius would show up tired and cranky at school, unable to complete his work because he’d been tossing and turning, his anxieties getting the best of him.

But today he looked well-rested and alert. He was even humming a song under his breath. “What do you think?” he asked, holding up his picture. Looking for any amount of reassurance, praise, or acceptance. Even though he’d never readily admit to that.

“Perfect,” I replied. “Can I hang it somewhere?”

His eyes glowed and he nodded.

“Then I need your signature on the bottom,” I said, pointing to the sheet as he carefully tore it from the book. “Just your first name.”

Sometimes I felt plenty of guilt about coming from a halfway decent family where we always had food on the table and a roof over our heads. My mother was a mess for portions of her life, but my childhood compared to some of my clients’ was a cakewalk. If I put myself in Darius’s shoes for only one day, I’d see how much this ten-year-old was holding inside of him. So right now, his ghost of a smile was perfection.

The thing that kept me going day after day was hope. For kids like Darius. There were few rewards in this field because there were many setbacks, and it was tough to see the sunshine through the clouds some days. So sometimes one word, one small action, one…
something
would resonate and carry me through.

“So, your school report?” I asked as I affixed his picture on the wall behind my desk with tape. He reached for his bag and then handed the paper to me. He bit his bottom lip as he waited and that’s how I knew what I thought of his performance in school mattered to him. I glanced down at the chart where the teacher wrote daily notes home and Darius’s mother was required to sign it.

His week consisted of good days mixed with some defiance and a near blowout with a classmate. “Better,” I said, nodding and gripping his shoulder briefly.

I noticed the new teacher’s name was Mr. Miller. Why did that ring a bell? But Miller was such a common name, so I must’ve come across him before with another client.

I walked Darius out and called my next client into my room. I made a quick couple of additions on Darius’s file at my desk while the child chose a game to play on the rug. I made sure to carve out my last hour of the day for more detailed client notes, because falling behind was not something I could afford.

It was busy the rest of the week, so when Friday evening finally rolled around, I was beat. I had plans to go home and snuggle up with a good romantic comedy.

After a quick trip to the grocery store, I made myself a microwave dinner and ate it on my comfy couch cushions. The purchase six months ago had been pricey but worth it. I occasionally fell asleep on the brown velvet pillows in my living room while watching a favorite show. Something I had never done with a boyfriend around. I even forgot to scrub off my makeup some nights. I didn’t even recognize this new person I had become.

I flipped on the television but couldn’t get it out of my head that Cameron might be sitting at Flanagan’s tonight waiting for me. What was the harm in going to see if he had shown up for our mock Chastity Club?

I stood up determined to do a good deed and not leave somebody hanging. I checked my lipstick and slipped into my black riding boots and wool coat.

On Fridays, we usually dressed down at the office, so I had on my skinny jeans and tunic blouse. I looked decent enough to be out on a weekend night. Besides, it wasn’t a date—that was for darn sure—it was hanging out with a friend of a friend. Companionship. In a bar, where he could drink his fill. Just like he’d been doing, according to my friends. When I thought of it that way, it sounded outright ridiculous that I would meet him.

Nicole would probably say if I didn’t want to date Cameron then maybe I was trying to fix him. Just like all the other guys. But I was done being somebody’s personal therapist or babysitter for that matter. Cameron was free to make a mess of his own life. That thought alone was so liberating, I practically glided out the door.

I ignored my haywire thoughts and drove to the pub, which was about ten minutes away from my apartment. My hands felt clammy as I walked through the crowded doorway. We didn’t even mention a time or a place. I just assumed it would be similar to what we normally did one Friday a month.

I trudged through the aisles around the tables of people feeling more regretful by the minute. He wasn’t here. I was so stupid. I made it all the way up to the bar and decided it was so much better to be alone on my couch in this frigid end-of-winter temperature.

So after throwing one more glance around the place, I got the heck out of there.