To Tell You The Truth — Part 2/2

The next week, you leave the TV on for background noise and sit at the kitchen table, waiting.

She’s late. 

You tell yourself it’s just traffic. Or weather. Or grief.

You check the time. Then the window. Then your notes.

You read something she’d said: “Even if I didn’t walk away clean.”

You read it again. 

Underline it. 

As if maybe, this time, it’ll explain itself.

 

~•~

 

Then, the segment starts.

The newscaster’s voice on the TV—calm, steady, the same voice you’ve listened to for years while eating soggy cereal—says her name.

Not her first name. The full one. 

Like on a missing poster.

It must be her. Her picture is also displayed, serious yet soft. 

Your pen falls from your hand.

Missing since last month, a week before her first three knocks. 

Last seen near Oakridge Avenue, not this town. 

Yours. From before. Your writing days. 

Friends and coworkers say she vanished without warning. 

Police urge anyone with information to come forward.

The photo on screen is an old one, a school ID maybe. She looks younger. Straighter hair, black sweater. No binder in her arms. 

Still very much her. 

But, when you look closer, you think maybe… it isn’t her. 

You’ve never seen the sweater before. Or maybe you have. Months ago. When it was yours. 

You wait for them to mention you.

They don’t.

You wait for her to walk through the door.

She doesn’t.

 

~•~

 

You don’t sleep that night. 

You glance at the door again and again. Still no knock. Still no scent of rosemary. 

You just sit there, the notebook on your lap, pages open like a mouth mid-sentence.

 

~•~

 

The knock comes late the next afternoon. 

Firm, deliberate. Almost like hers.

But it’s not.

You pause at the foot of the stairs. A floorboard creaks. 

Then, your aunt’s faint but rhythmic voice drifts down: “He was here, he was here, he was here…”

You open the front door. 

It’s a detective. Hair tied back. A notepad in one hand, badge already flipped.

She introduces herself and says neighbors saw the woman coming and going from your house. Did you know her?

You nod, too quickly. “Sh… she h… hired me. I mean, I w-was h… helping her. I’m a writer. Former. Just—just a wr… writer.”

“Do you mind if I come in?”

“Of c… course.” You step aside. 

She walks in, slow. The kind of slow that says she’s cataloguing things.

The table is set like it always is: your notes, your mug, her empty chair.

But the binder is gone.

So is the sweater she left behind. The half-drunk cup of tea.

Even the pen she borrowed and forgot to take back.

“Sh-she, she used to s-sit right there—right th… there.”

The detective doesn’t answer.

After a beat, she asks, “Anyone else live here with you? Anyone who might not want to be found?”

You hesitate, glance at the staircase. Your aunt is upstairs, sleeping now, you hope. “N… no.”

Then, the detective asks if she can see the notebook.

Again, you hesitate. Then hand it over. 

She flips through a few pages, eyebrows twitching, but says nothing.

When she returns it, her face softens. Almost pitying. Of course, always pitying. 

“You’ve been through a lot,” she says. “If you remember anything else, even if it seems small…”

She leaves her card on the table.

You nod, as if you will.

But the moment she’s gone, you close all the blinds and lock the doors.

You sit back down. Open the notebook.

The pages are still there. Her voice in ink. Her story in fragments.

But now… you can’t remember what her voice actually sounded like.

And when you try to picture her face, all you see is the missing poster.

You press your hand to the table, right where she always sat.

Nothing.

Not even warmth.

You pick up the detective’s card. Stare at the number.

You don’t call.

Instead, you whisper the only truth that matters now.

“I know sh… she w… was here.”

And if they can’t find her—

You will.

 

~•~

 

There’s a teacup in the sink.

You swear you didn’t put it there.

The water’s long gone cold, the bag limp and burst like something gutted. 

You fish it out and smell the lip of the cup anyway.

Jasmine. Her favorite.

You check the door. Locked. 

Check your phone. No messages.

You stare at the notebook. Her story ends mid-sentence. 

She was about to say something, you think. Something she’d never told anyone before.

Your mind claws at the last session—what was she wearing? What was the last thing she said? Did she touch the cup?

You lift the notebook, flip back through the pages. 

The ink looks shakier now. As if someone else wrote it.

And near the bottom—just beneath the word grief—is a phrase you don’t remember writing. 

‘I never left’.

Small, crooked. As if etched by a different hand. 

You go to the bathroom. Stare at yourself—rugged, unshaven. Different. 

You pull off your sweat-stained shirt. Stare longer.

You were somebody once.

You know you were.

~•~

Your aunt’s neighborhood looks smaller now. Dustier. 

Shrunk by time or memory—you can’t tell which.

You haven’t stepped foot on this street in years. 

Parked four blocks from where the woman said she lived, you sit at the wheel, hands wringing it. Afraid to be recognized. 

Then, you get out. Approach the house. 

 

~•~

 

You almost don’t see him.

But then, there he is. Standing in the driveway, shining the top of an Audi with a rag. 

Cigarette in mouth, same lopsided stance.

The boyfriend.

Older now, of course, but harder around the face. 

And still wearing arrogance like armour.

He doesn’t see you until you’re right in front of him.

“You… him?”

The boyfriend eyes you up and down. “Who?”

“You were w… with her. Y… years ago.”

The man tilts his head, amused. “You a cop?”

“No.”

“Then who the fuck are you?”

You swallow. “You-y-you d… don’t remember me, d… do you?”

There’s a pause.

Then the boyfriend squints, his smile curving slow. “Wait a minute—no way.”

Recognition spreads like the grease on his face.

“You? You’re him! The loser from school.” He laughs. Loud. “No match for me. Never were.”

You say nothing. His grin widens. 

“Still got that aunt? Place reeked like piss and pills.” 

He looks you up and down. “You look like your dad. Before he went full ghost. 

“And your mom—was she ever clean?”

You flinch, but don’t answer.

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s what I thought.”

A pause.

Then, the boyfriend says, softer: “She’s dead, man. Been dead a long time. You know that, right? 

“Everyone thought you’d died, too.”

The words shatter something quiet inside you.

“She was a kid,” he adds, shrugging. “Just a kid. So were we. The world doesn’t care.”

You step closer. “Y… you d… don’t get to s… sp-sp-speak a… about her.”

“Oh, I do. I had her, man. Every damn night. I had all of her. 

“You were just the weird kid with the speech problem. She felt sorry for you, man.” His mouth twists. 

“Should’ve been you in that lake.”

Something cracks.

 

~•~

 

The punch lands hard.

Fist to jaw. Then another.

The boyfriend stumbles, yelling, but you’re on him. 

Tackling, pounding, you scream, “You… didn’t deserve her!”

You see flashes—mud under fingernails, a hallway lined with lockers, a teenager again, fists bloody, years earlier—the schoolyard chant of stupid, stupid, stupid ringing in his ears.

A girl watching from the edge. Her face blank with disappointment.

Blood now. Present-day blood. The boyfriend’s nose smashed, teeth bared in rage and fear.

The sirens wail.

 

~•~

 

In the back of the squad car, your head’s buzzing. 

Your bloodied hands shake.

The same neighborhood. The same outcome. As if school-aged, a teenager again. 

It always ends this way, doesn’t it?

A cop slams your door. 

You jerk forward, forehead hitting the cage.

“Buckle up,” the cop says, laughing, voice a blur.

You hear the detective’s muffled voice. The same woman who knocked at your aunt’s door, flashed you her badge. 

She’s standing outside the cop car with a few other officers. 

Only snippets of her words drift through the glass:

“Left Oakridge Avenue… about a month ago… aunt says… never invited… abuse… he wasn’t allowed… years… estranged… unsolicited visit… and sleeping pills.”

After added voices mutter along, she continues: “yes, he went missing from there… disguised look… premeditated… settle a score, maybe… maybe… uh… yeah… looked different than his picture… didn’t know Sherry had family… a planned visit… delusional…” 

They walk away, still chattering. 

Then—quiet.

 

~•~

 

You were somebody once. 

Before you came here. 

To an aunt too sick in mind and body to help herself. 

Before you left your home to invade hers. 

To find the man who, back then, always got what he wanted. 

To take it all back, maybe. 

Or rewrite her story the way it should’ve been told. 

 

~•~

 

Blue-red flashing lights turn the world cold. 

Sirens somewhere—far away. 

You feel your head turn, but it doesn’t feel like yours.

She sits beside you now. 

Bare legs pulled up to her chest, wet hair clinging to her collarbone. 

But she’s younger. Much younger. Giving off a lake-water musk. 

She’s not looking at you, not this time. 

Just staring out the window, like she sees something you can’t. 

You whisper her name. Soft. Careful.

Her chin lifts. But she doesn’t turn. 

Then—

The door opens.

A cop mutters something you don’t catch. 

He shuts the door. You glance back.

She’s gone. 

Not on the seat. Not in the reflection.

Just the shape of her, lingering in your chest.

Everything twists—your mouth, your eyes, your whole face—and for a second, you look like someone else entirely.

Then, the tears fall.

 

THE END.

 

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Photo by Omar on Unsplash (Free to use under the Unsplash License)