The Truth Always Comes Out.

Black Friday, 2016.

I was at a Chinese restaurant with my mother, one just off the busiest boulevard in town. The sky outside was dreary and gray, and it was cold for South Texas. Rain trickled lazily along the outside of the window next to me. Before me, tender strips of beef and cheerfully-green broccoli swam in a sticky, glossy, oaky sauce that stained my steamed white rice amber.

I was mourning.

My mom sat across the table from me, quietly spooning clear broth from her chicken and cabbage soup into her mouth. I knew that it was punchy and sour from the way her lips puckered with every spoonful, and from the litter of spent lime quarters before her. Watching her cheerfully and innocently enjoy her food brought my aching heart some relief.

Soon we would go furniture shopping at Big Lots, because she'd seen a couch set for $400.

"Are you okay?"

I looked up to find her peering at me, one eyebrow furrowed and soup bowl nearly empty.

"Well, no. Not at all." I spoke unflinchingly, which I had found much easier to do in those days. Complete emotional numbness had its perks.

She placed both little hands on the table, and her eyes plead, "Talk to me."

So I did.

"I'm upset at myself. I'm upset that I didn't try harder to save my relationship with the man I was supposed to marry. I'm angry that I didn't do more, or step up to the plate in a greater way, and I feel like the fact that we're over dishonors everything we had at one point."

She nodded. "Continue." Her eyes said.

"I feel like there was a death, and I feel scared because I'll think I'm doing a little bit better than yesterday, and suddenly I'm hyperventilating in the parking lot at Target, because I'm by myself when I shouldn't be, I'm by myself when he should be there, at my side, because we were supposed to be partners. We were supposed to be a team. And I ruined it."

"I'm sorry you believe that you ruined it."

"What else could it be? He did everything right! Our relationship soured and died because of me."

She mumbled something.

"What was that?" My breathing was heavy, and I ran a hand through my hair. It felt like a good time to let her talk.

"Nothing, it's not important, babe."

"No. I would like to know what you just said, please."

Her eyes darted right, and her eyes darted left.

"Mom, you're going to tell me eventually, so cut the bullshit and talk, please."

"I said that it's important to remember he was no angel!" She snatched her water cup off the table and took a swig.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

She stayed quiet.

"Mom."

Discomfort flooded her big brown eyes, and her forehead creased as she seemed to vacillate between telling me or not.

"Mom."

"Baby, remember there was a point when your dad asked you if you had been drinking more? Remember he asked you if work had been stressing you out more than usual, and if that stress was affecting your relationship?"

"Duh, I remember. He asked me that like two weeks before C------ and I broke up."

"Well, did you ever stop and wonder why he asked you that?"

"Maybe because I'd stopped visiting? But remember I told you it was because C------ was stopping me from visiting you. He was playing with my head and telling me stories about how it wasn't safe for me to drive the hour home, blah, blah, blah."

"Yes, I remember that."

"Right."

"Well-" She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Well-"

For the longest time, my mother was the deliverer of the news you didn't want to hear, but needed to. She was a gal that had no problem dishing out tough feedback, even if it was nasty for both parties involved. My mom always said it like it was. But now...

"MOM."

"According to him you abused alcohol. He would always tell us that you would drink to get lost. You would drink until you blacked out, and in those blackouts, which happened several times a week, you would get violent, and you scared him. He said he feared for your well-being, as well as his own."

My jaw dropped.

"He told us how you abused prescription drugs, drugs that were supposed to help you with your mood swings and depression and anxiety, and that you would take more than you should and you would become a monster."

Shards of ice filled my stomach, my ears grew cold, and I felt woozy with rage.

"He also told us not to ask you about any of it. He said he was working on getting you the help you needed, and that he was your only hope."

"AND-" I screamed the first word, in the middle of a crowded Chinese restaurant, which I instantly regretted. My mother blanched, and restaurant patrons stared.

I lowered the volume.

"Mother." I breathed deeply. "And you believed him?"

"Well yes."

"Mommy." I felt like I was about to cry, vomit, and scream, all at the same time. "Why? Why would you believe him?"

"Because he was so good at what he did. He was so good at acting, and so good at lying, and he seemed so sincere, and so determined to help you. He always said he was on the right track to finding you the help you needed, and that we just needed to be patient and keep praying."

"And me? Your son? You never thought to talk to me? You never wanted to communicate with me? Why was I never thought of or included in these conversations?"

"I don't have an answer for you. I can't tell you why. I'm just so, so sorry."

I stared at the woman sitting across from me, and I felt rage. I felt rage, not at her, but at a man I'd once called my fiancé. I felt rage at a sorry excuse for a man who felt so compelled to blatantly lie and manipulate a mother and father who so desperately and wholeheartedly loved their son that they would without a doubt put their trust in him to save their boy.

I also felt stupid. I felt stupid for the nights I'd spent crying and trying to salvage a relationship I blindly worshipped and treasured. I felt stupid for intentionally cutting off my best friends, and pushing away people who loved and cared for me. I felt stupid for believing that we were both working on ourselves to save us.

"Well." I spoke through pursed lips. "How do you know I'm not?"

She looked up, visibly confused.

"How do I know you're not what?"

"A monstrous drug addict. A reckless, angry alcoholic. Everything he said I was."

"Baby, we've spent more time with you in the last four weeks than we have in the last seven months."

Flashbacks like strobe lights danced to life inside my head: my dad, riding his Harley Davidson an hour on the expressway, to spend the night with me so I didn't cry alone in an empty apartment; my mom, sending an entire U-Haul with my bedroom set she had deconstructed on her own, along with blankets, pillows, sheets, towels, and more; my sister's daily phone calls to check in on me, even though we did not have the best relationship in 2016.

"Well, yeah."

"And you're our boy. You haven't changed one bit, except for the fact that you've had your heart broken."

I speared a broccoli floret with my fork and lamely moved it from one side of the plate to the other.

"Now, I know there isn't much I can do to change anything that's happened these last few weeks, but let's make sure the weeks that are coming are great. We have Christmas coming up, we're getting you new furniture, you have your new apartment."

I didn't look up, but a smile very weakly tugged at the corner of my lip.

"You lost yourself in C------. But, don't let this asshole be the reason you stay lost."

That made me look up.

"Finish eating, and let's go have a great day."

We didn't end up having a great day, as I recall.

We found my furniture, we got it to my small, empty apartment in the city. I still cried that afternoon.

The great days came later.

Eventually, I'd get in the car after work and realized I'd failed to shed tears that day. Then, I would come to find how much fun I had taking my Terrier Tina to the park, all by myself, at five o'clock every morning. Every morning, I took joy in my cup of coffee, and in opening up the windows to let the breeze in, and so I could hear birdsong.

I found people who cared about me, there in my very city, who gave my parents a well-needed break when they needed it, because they became the people who were there for me.

I found myself after I lost myself, and it was the greatest discovery I could have made.