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“Sonia, Allison may not want to say anything right now. She’s in shock because I just gave her some devastating news. When she is ready, she’ll tell you.”
I looked over at Allison, noticing that for the first time gave me a rare bit of eye contact in return.
“And…Allison, when you’re ready, I need to explain more to you. I am so sorry I kept this from you all this time, but when you’re ready to hear it, I’ll try to explain why I did what I did,” I said.
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I knew she was in no condition to hear anything more from me tonight. I had done enough damage for one day.
“I am not sure I can believe anything you have to say,” Allison said as she got up and suddenly opened the front door and walked out in tears.
Sonia followed and looked back at me from the hallway as Allison raced ahead of her. “Good going, asshole.”
Her words didn’t penetrate. She could have shot me in the chest at that moment and it might not have mattered.
About a half hour passed and I needed to do something. I hadn’t moved from the same spot I was standing in when she left. I got out my phone and texted her.
Allison, please don’t be scared of me. I have so much more I need to tell you. I know you’re not ready to talk to me. It was never my intention to keep this from you for so long. Please, let me know when you are ready and I promise to explain everything, if you’ll hear me out.
She never responded and I hadn’t expected her to. As sick as I felt seeing her leave like that, an eerie bittersweet calm came over me that night as I realized that everything I feared had finally happened and it couldn’t get any worse from here.
The dread of this day had been eating away at me for months and now, for better or worse, the secret was out. Granted, I hadn’t gotten to explain it to her the way I anticipated, but the main facts were out. She would need time to process everything before I would stand a chance of talking to her again and I had to accept that.
The next day, trumpets sounded because…I shaved. It was definitely a longtime coming.
Something else that was a longtime coming happened: I finally confessed everything to my mother and she cried more than I had ever seen in my entire life, telling me that she always felt something was off with me during those months, years ago when Caleb moved out to Chicago to stay with me. She had wrongly suspected it was drugs and that Caleb was keeping it secret. But of course, at the time, both of us denied that there had been anything wrong.
“Cedric, honey…why did you feel like you couldn’t tell me all of this? All of these years you were keeping the fact that your first love died, from me and Dad?”
“I was ashamed. There are so many parts to what happened that I felt would devastate you back then, given how hard things were with Callie on top of things at that time. I am so sorry, Ma.”
My mother and I held each other tight as Callie’s iPad made noises next to us in the living room.
“Cedric, this is all so hard to believe. How am I supposed to handle seeing Allison now…if she comes back to work? That poor girl must be so shocked and confused. Tell me again, why you never told her the truth about her sister that very first day?”
I ran my hands through my hair, took in a deep breath and exhaled. “That’s the million dollar question isn’t it? I wouldn’t be here in this predicament right now if I had done that, that’s for sure. Mom. That’s something I can’t explain to you. She just had me under a spell from the moment I first laid eyes on her and I didn’t want it to end. It sounds cliché, but I really think I experienced love at first sight. I wanted to be with her and wanted her to see me for me. I knew it would have ended the second I told her the truth. I was selfish, I know.”
My mother pulled me in for a hug. “Selfish, yes, but I know you didn’t mean to hurt her.”
“No, Mom…no, that’s the last thing I wanted, believe me.”
“I think you need to write her a letter, son.”
“A letter?”
“Yes. She is not going to want to face you for a while, honey. And you won’t be able to explain it the way you want to in person. There’s too much to the story and from what you told me, you really didn’t do a good job of articulating everything to her face to face.”
“No, I didn’t. I froze,” I said.
“Exactly. So, I want you to stay here with us today. Have a nice dinner, spend time with your sister, and clear your head. Then, I want you to go home and sit down and focus on what you need to say to her. Can you do that?”
“I don’t think I have a choice.”
“No, you don’t.”
That night, I spent a calm evening with my mother and sister, grateful to have such a wonderful family.
After an early dinner of spaghetti and meatballs and a couple of glasses of red wine, I felt more relaxed and took Callie for a walk around the neighborhood. Holding my sister’s hand, I felt for the first time like everything would somehow turn out okay. A lot of that had to do with the weight that was lifted after telling my mother.
