To Tell You The Truth — Part 1/2

You were somebody once.

 

Awards, panels. Interviews that felt more like coronations. 

 

You told other people’s life stories better than they could. People quoted your publications, said your name like you mattered. 

 

Now?

 

Now you flinch when the mail comes. 

 

Eat cereal out of a mug. 

 

Lie to your aunt about how the writing’s going. 

 

Live underground—in a borrowed basement, in a borrowed name, in a borrowed skin.

 

You tell yourself it’s temporary. 

 

That you came back here for a reason. To the town your aunt’s always lived in—that sleeps too long, despite the sun. 

 

 

~•~

 

 

Then, one day—she knocks. 

 

Three times, like she’s always known the rhythm of your pulse.

 

Not frantic. Not polite, either. Just… certain.

 

You peek through the peephole, then open the door, desperate, like you’d been expecting a package you forgot you’d ordered.

 

Rain in her hair, she jumps as you open the door, sleeves too long, a binder in her arms. A woman you’ve never seen who, for some reason, feels familiar. Like Deja-vu. 

 

Perhaps in passing? A fan from a book signing? 

 

“I’ve read your work,” she says. “I think you might be the one to tell my story.”

 

You like the way she looks at you when she speaks, eyes unflinching. 

 

As if you are still someone.

 

Not the man who can’t finish a paragraph. 

 

Not the man who drinks cold coffee and watches the news.

 

Just—the writer. 

 

The one she’d apparently come all this way to find.

 

You tell her to come back tomorrow. Same time, same place. 

 

She says she will.

 

 

~•~

 

 

You clear the stack of unopened letters off the table. 

 

Rinse out the mugs, find two that match. 

 

You don’t want to look like a man who’s made of thread. Not in front of her.

 

You’ll shower, spritz some air freshener. 

 

Light one of your aunt's candles, maybe. 

 

Make sure she stays in her room with a warm blanket and her favourite soap on TV. 

 

It’ll be fine. It’ll be perfect. 

 

 

~•~

 

 

The next day, she comes back. 

 

Same binder in her arms. Same rain-frizzed hair. Different sweater, too blue—but still, too big. Her sleeves swallow her arms, to the knuckles.

 

“You don’t have to write everything,” she says, sitting down across from you. “Just the parts that matter.”

 

“W-w-what m… matters?” you ask, head down, eyes flickering with the effort to speak. 

 

She opens the binder. As if she didn’t notice. 

 

A single photograph is taped inside the cover: a girl standing at the edge of a dock, arms spread like wings, eyes squeezed shut.

 

“Start with her.”

 

You don’t use a laptop. Not for this.

 

Just by hand, in a dollar store notebook, like you used to. Pen heavy in your fingers. 

 

The ink skips sometimes. She doesn’t seem to mind.

 

“I grew up by the river,” she says. “Near the bend where the trees hang low enough to scrape the tops of cars.”

 

You know the spot. Everyone does. 

 

Kids used to dare each other to jump from the bridge there. 

 

You never did, though. She doesn’t say if she did.

 

“My father worked nights. Always came home smelling like metal and gasoline. He used to say the worst thing a woman could do was tell the truth.”

 

You scribble the quote down, not sure if it’s for the story or for you.

 

“My mother never really came home at all. I mean, she was there. But not really.”

 

You nod. 

 

She’s still looking at the photograph she’d brought, her thumb tracing the girl’s shape as if keeping her from falling into the water.

 

“Any s… siblings?”

 

“One brother. Gone—left as soon as he could. But he was always leaving, in a way, even when he was still there.”

 

The silence that follows is weighty. Not awkward—just full.

 

You let it breathe. Then: “W-w-what do y… you want th-them to know?” you ask, whisper, trying to quiet your nerves, pacify your stutter. 

 

Her eyes shift to yours. “That I survived it. Even if I didn’t walk away clean.”

 

At the same time you close your notebook, she closes the binder. 

 

The scent of the candle fills the space. Ocean breeze. 

 

It’s only the first session. But you already feel like you know her.

 

You ask her to come back next week. Same time. 

 

She thanks you, and agrees. 

 

 

~•~

 

 

In this time, you’ll prepare—compile the notes, try to make sense of them, test a sentence or two for the draft, revel in the opportunity. 

 

And wonder if, perhaps, this will be your comeback. 

 

 

~•~

 

Next week, another knock at the door. Heavier than hers. 

You open it to a man with a paper in his hand. 

“Oh! I didn’t know Sherry had a son.”

“She-sh-she’s my aunt,” you say. 

The man laughs. “My apologies. Her mail got mixed in with mine.” He hands you the letter. “No peeking!” He laughs again. “Alright. Well, have a nice day.” 

As he leaves, he glances back at you a couple of times. 

Suspiciously? No. Pityingly. 

You’re sure of it. 

 

~•~

 

The woman arrives a few hours later. 

She’s carrying a paper bag. Banana bread inside, still warm. You wonder how long she’s been holding it. 

Absorb the stain of her lips—blush pink, smooth. 

“I figured you don’t eat much,” she says.

You don’t argue. Just split the loaf down the middle and give her the bigger half.

She doesn’t open the binder right away.

Instead, she says, “Do you believe in hauntings?”

You pause, mid-bite. “Like g… ghosts?”

She shrugs. “Not just ghosts. Places that echo. People that… leave things behind.”

You think of the basement, now yours. 

The way your aunt’s oxygen machine clicks and sighs in the night. 

The way your skin sometimes itches for no reason.

“Sh… sure,” you say. “W-w-why not?”

She smiles like that’s the right answer, bright and affirming. 

Then, she flips open the binder. This time there’s a map tucked inside. Hand-drawn. 

On it, a narrow stretch of river, a house marked with a tiny X, and scribbled in the margin: where it started.

You glance up. She’s already watching you.

“W-w-what st… started?”

She leans forward, voice low. “There’s a room in that house with no door. No windows. Just four walls and a hatch in the ceiling. 

“You wouldn’t know it’s there unless someone told you.”

“Did s… someone t… tell you?”

She smiles a little, blinks. “No. I remembered.”

A small prickle at the base of your skull. 

She doesn’t say anything else.

Just waits.

So you write.

You draw the map, line for line. 

Sketch the girl at the dock again—but this time, you put her nearer the trees. 

You shade in the river, making it appear thick enough to swallow.

She watches you do it.

And when she finally leaves, she forgets the bag. Banana bread crumbs and all.

 

~•~

 

That night, you dream of her voice.

 

Not the words. Just the timbre. Like a song you half-remember from childhood—the kind someone sang while you were still too young to know what to fear.

 

You wake in the dark, air thick with vinegar and mold. 

 

Your aunt’s oxygen machine exhales like a beast sleeping too close.

 

The mug with her lipstick print is gone. 

 

You check the sink, the trash. Nothing.

 

You think about the photograph. 

 

The way the girl’s arms spread wide, as if trusting the water to catch her.

 

 

~•~

 

 

In the morning, your aunt is seated in her recliner. Wrapped in a shawl, mumbling about angels. 

 

Her nails are stained orange from cheese dust. 

 

You sit with her anyway, even though the smell of her meds make your stomach turn.

 

“You got a girlfriend now?” she croaks, without looking.

 

“No,” you say, too fast.

 

“She used to sit right there. You remember?”

 

You say nothing. 

 

“Such a good girl—I don’t blame you, no. You always were soft. Lonely, too.” She says it with kindness.

 

You help her to the bathroom. Reheat soup. Empty the trash. 

 

There are used syringes in the yard again—not hers. The landlord, maybe. Or the last tenant, finally unearthed. 

 

Or from someone who’s been using at night.

 

You don’t say anything about them. 

 

Instead, you clean. Light another candle. 

 

And rehearse what you’ll say when the woman comes back.

 

 

~•~

 

 

The moment you open the door again, everything you planned to say scatters like dry leaves.

 

She’s in a different sweater this time—forest green, pilled at the cuffs. Her hair smells like rosemary and rain.

 

“I brought this,” she says, handing you a page. “I wrote it this morning. Before I changed my mind.”

 

You unfold it carefully. 

 

One paragraph, half-legible. It reads:

 

There was a man once. Older than me, but not by much. He made me feel like I was glass—beautiful, fragile, crafted and clear, but only if I stayed still. If I made noise, if I asked questions, if I shone in ways he didn’t light… he’d get angry. So I learned to be quiet. Still. Opaque. I thought that was love.

 

You glance up, but she’s not watching you. She’s looking past you, at the flickering candle on the kitchen counter. Vanilla today, soft. 

 

“I can stop,” she whispers. “If it’s too much.”

 

You shake your head. “No. G… go on.”

 

Her sleeves fall past her fingers again as she opens the binder. There’s more now—a list of names. Scribbled out in some places. Circled in others.

 

“I’m not saying they’re bad people. Just that I didn’t know how to be a good person around them.”

 

You understand that too well.

 

She talks about her brother next. 

 

How he once stole a necklace from a gas station just to make her laugh. 

 

How he left without saying goodbye. 

 

How their mother pretended not to notice.

 

“He used to deal sometimes. Not a lot. But enough to keep the lights on. And sometimes I… helped. I didn’t want to. But there were times when it felt like I didn’t have a choice.”

 

You think of the burnt spoon in the kitchen drawer. 

 

The way your aunt’s hand trembled once, when she’d asked you to be a dear and check under the floorboard for her stash.

 

You hated her then. And you hated yourself even more for saying yes.

 

Now, as this woman speaks, your hand writes on its own. 

 

As though her story is already inside you and just needed a voice to draw it out.

 

“I used to want to be clean. Like other kids. Like they were born with some kind of filter I never got.”

 

You remember your ninth birthday. How your mother sold your gift for pills. 

 

How you smiled anyway, just to keep her calm.

 

“You remind me of him.”

 

You pause. “Your… br… brother?”

 

“No,” she says, tracing the names with her finger. “The other one. The boy I used to know.”

 

She doesn’t explain further. And you don’t ask.

 

You just write.

 

 

~•~

 

 

The third time she comes, it’s raining harder than before. 

 

She shakes out her sleeves and apologizes for the rain puddle at her feet.

You offer her tea instead of coffee today. She accepts without question or comment.

You open the same notebook. Keep it tucked beneath your pillow at night, like it might slip away.

She runs her finger along the edge of the binder, over the masking tape on the spine, where her name hides in blocky, blue, smudged ink.

“I don’t like this part,” she says. “But it matters.”

You nod. Wait.

“I was fifteen. He was older. Not by much—just enough to make me think it was normal. That what he did was… some part of love I hadn’t earned yet.”

You keep writing.

“He’d wait until I was alone. Tell me I was his secret. That I was special. That girls like me didn’t understand what men like him needed.”

Your hand stalls. You pretend you’re just trying to revive the ink.

She doesn’t look at you. Her eyes are somewhere else entirely. “Sometimes I let him. Sometimes I didn’t. But it never mattered. 

“He always got what he came for.”

 

~•~

 

You want to scream. Say you believe her. But instead, you stare at the page. 

She sounds far away. Like a voice in water.

You remember your aunt’s boyfriend. Remember standing in the kitchen, ten years old, hearing her say, “He didn’t mean it. He was just drunk.”

Eras of injustice. 

You remember deciding that if you ever became a man, you’d would be a different kind.

Your fingers are cramping. 

But you don’t stop writing. 

“He said if I told anyone, he’d show them what I was really like. That no one would believe me anyway.”

Silence settles like a film. 

You want to tear the page out and eat it. 

Swallow it whole before anyone sees what it says.

Then she looks up. “Maybe I should leave all of this out. Should I stop?”

You’re not sure which part of you answers.

“N… no. Please. Go on.”

 

~•~

 

The following night, your aunt spills her pills on the floor again. 

You crouch beside her, picking them up one by one while she mutters something about reruns and burnt spaghetti.

You tuck her in. Leave the light on. 

As you turn to leave the room, she says, softly, “I heard you talking to yourself in the bathroom today. You whispered a name, over and over. Like a chant. I think—yes, I remember her. A girl, long ago. Is that right?”

You leave without a word. 

And sit in the hallway, just… breathing.

Later, you step over the damp hoodie the woman left by the door.

You pass the mug she always used—the chipped one with the little blue house on it—still sitting on the table. 

But it’s dry. Too dry.

The bathroom mirror fogs, even though you haven’t used the shower in two days.

Her scent, that faint mix of river water and rosemary, is still on the blanket she wrapped around her shoulders during your last session. 

You tell yourself that that’s what it means—that she was here. 

You tell yourself it’s real.

You edit your notes—rewrite everything she said. Word for word. Even copy the pauses.

In the margins, you find yourself writing her name over and over with a light hand, as if afraid to see it fully. 

You know you should be tired, but you’re not. 

You’re wide open. 

Like a man on the edge of something too big to name.

---

Photo by Fang-Wei Lin on Unsplash (Free to use under the Unsplash License)

Part 2/2