The Secrets We Keep

“Who the hell are you?” I asked as I stumbled into my kitchen. There was some woman, younger, probably in her 20’s, sitting at my kitchen table. She sipped her coffee and just smiled at me. I ran my hand through my hair, and looked down at my half naked body. I was not accustomed to strange people traipsing into my home. “Are you going to answer me?”

“Don’t you recognize me? I think that I should be a little offended that you don’t, but I guess given the amount of drugs that you’re taking, memory loss is to be expected.” There was something vaguely familiar about her, yet I couldn’t place where I would know her from. The fact that she knew that I was taking drugs made me slightly uncomfortable. Maybe she was with the police or something. It was possible that I had slept with her the previous evening and had just blacked out. That must have been what happened. “Are you ever going to get clean and get yourself together? My guess is no, you’ll probably die of an overdose or something. That’s going to be a tragedy because you had so much potential at one point. Do you remember when you wanted to be a lawyer? You could argue any case and win.”

“H-how do you know that?” I asked, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. How did she know so much about me and yet I had no idea who she was. The woman got up from the table, and walked purposefully over to the coffee pot. I recognized the walk, I didn’t know where I had saw it before but someone I knew had that walk. Sex. I must have had sex with this woman. Maybe we had run into each other at the bar and then realized that we went to college together. I had banged a lot of girls back then. “Did we go to college together? Was I as good last night as I was back then?”

Change of direction

“Really? That’s the question that you’re going to ask me? For real? Wow you have changed a lot. You are not the man that I thought you were, it has to be the drugs that is addling your mind. We have to do something about that, we have to get off of the drugs.” She poured another cup of coffee and then walked it over to me. I took it grateful for the wake me up but also very confused as to what this stranger wanted with me. “There are rehab centers that can help you, but you have to admit to having a problem. You’re probably going to tell me that you don’t have any issues or that your drug use is under control. I just want you to think about that for a minute. You keep asking who I am, and then asked if we had sex. That’s not normal. It’s also not normal for a 30 year old man to act like he is still in college.”

“Why does it matter if I like to party and bring home pretty girls? I’m not hurting anyone, am I? I haven’t stolen anything from anyone. Maybe I indulge in my vices; cocaine and women, a bit too much but who cares. I work hard and play harder. It’s a philosophy that has served me well so far.” Why was this person being so judgmental about my lifestyle? It wasn’t as if I was hurting anyone, some people drink, some smoke, I happen to snort coke. Who cares? “Nobody is forced to do anything that they don’t want to do. Well unless that’s the role that we are playing but I don’t get the feeling that you are into that sort of thing.”

Who is she?

“Really? Again with the dirty talk. Let me tell you a little story. It’s a tragedy about two people who were madly in love until something happened, one died and the other became a mess.” I took a long sip from my mug and felt the liquid burn my throat as it made its way down. “This boy met this girl in college, they had Economics together. He was a genius in the class and the girl was struggling. He tutored her and one day they shared a kiss. That kiss led them to make love. It was her first time but he promised her that she couldn’t get pregnant because he hadn’t finished. He lied. They started dating and everything was fine until a few months later when our girl missed her period. She was worried and went to the doctor, where he delivered the news that she was pregnant.”

“Stop. Please stop.” I implored the stranger.

“Can’t. So our girl told the boy, they had a lengthy discussion about what to do. She wanted to get married and start a family, he wanted her to give the baby up for adoption. There was some fighting, words said that cannot be taken back. Then the girl’s parents found out.” My eyes were squeezed shut, how did this woman know the story. What did she want from me? “Do I need to finish?”

“Who are you?”

“You still haven’t figure it out yet? Wow, those drugs have really messed you up. Do I really need to spell this out for you?” I ran my hand across my naked torso. There were tears in my eyes, my past had caught up to me. “My mother was forced to have an abortion, and then later committed suicide.”

“She was a wonderful girl but there was no way that I was ready to settle down. She knew that, we had talked many times over about how neither of us wanted commitment. We made a stupid mistake in college but it didn’t hurt anybody.”

“It didn’t hurt anybody? You’re a drug addict who is seeing visions of his aborted daughter. I think that means somebody got hurt, Dad.”