Page 3 of Dark Secret

I’d picked up the banana on the counter, looked glumly at the brown spots, and ate it anyway. It might give the aspirin time to kick in before I got dressed to go out. There was no real food in the house, so I’d have to go out and find something somewhere.

I could always call for food to be delivered, but I needed to get out. The pain in my head made me restless, and I needed to distract myself. I drove to a diner close by and went in. The smell of cooking waffles made me sick to my stomach, but I knew I’d get used to it. I sat and ordered a steak and cheese sandwich with hash browns, and I stared out of the large pane of glass.

Cars with bright headlights whizzed by, and I couldn’t help but wonder where they were headed. It was something else Stephanie had taught me, curiosity about those around me. She was always wondering things like where the woman with the red bag and the bright yellow pants was off to in such a rush, or if the man with the sad face that kept staring at the same page of the paper needed someone to lend him a hand. She’d noticed things like that, and it was just one of the many endearing things about Stephanie.

Until I’d met her, people had either been in my way or on the peripheral and didn’t matter. Now, I wondered if the man with the briefcase who sat in the booth ahead of me was a banker, a drug dealer, or a doctor without a family to go home to.

She’d already changed me, and I’d barely spent any real time with her. We’d spent a lot of time having sex and going out, but that still wasn’t quality time. Not like my parents’ marriage.

My brain kind of froze at that point. My real parents. I’d tried to never think of them because it just brought back heartache for me. A flashed memory flitted through my mind. Mom as she screamed at Dad that she hated him. She always hated him when she was in that mood. The tears on her face as she screamed. The accusations she’d made that final night, her face as she left my room, just before the smell of gasoline hit me.

I’d learned to fear my mother long before that moment, and something had told me to get out of the house. I’d climbed out of the window and tried to find my dad. I’d thought he had been in his shed in our back yard, toddling around with his HAM radio stuff, but he hadn’t been there. As flames flickered in the dark windows, it had hit me that Dad must have been in the house still. I’d tried to get back in, but the house had lit up like a bomb had gone off inside.

I didn’t know how much gasoline Mom had used, but it was a lot. Once the fire was out, and I’d been told both of my parents were dead, came even more chaos. I’d been arrested for arson. A thirteen-year-old kid with a reputation for being a loner, surly, and always in black, the cops had assumed I’d been the one to set it. Mom and Dad were found in bed together.

I’d protested, I’d begged anybody, somebody to listen to me. I’d been headed for a trial when forensic reports came back and showed Dad had died from a single gunshot wound to the head, long before the fire got to him. The gun was still in Mom’s hand.

I tried to brush the memory away, to focus on the sandwich that was placed in front of me, but that night and the events that followed played on. Unstoppable.

Mom had always been a nutcase. She’d made sure she got pregnant with me to trap Dad into marriage, and that had eaten at her already unstable conscience. She was always accusing him of cheating, of things that made no sense, when all he did was work and come home to her. Even I knew Dad wasn’t cheating, but she’d get in these moods, and there’d be this look in her eyes. A look that terrified me immensely, even when I was thirteen. She’d had that evil in her eyes all of that day, and I’d gone to bed early with a book to avoid her.

I’d woken up when she came in and brushed my hair from my face. “I’ve always loved you, baby boy. You gave me your father, but it’s time now. It’s time to end his infidelity and to make sure you never leave me either. Sleep well, my boy, Mommy loves you.”

I’d kept my eyes shut and my breathing even up to that point. I’d pretended to be asleep as the sound of something splashing against the hardwood floor made my ears twitch. I’d looked up at her when I smelled the gasoline and caught her face in the moonlight. There’d been nothing but madness there.

Yes, she’d been insane, but her insanity was her love. She’d felt that she’d trapped my father into marriage, and she’d gone crazy over it. My dad hadn’t consented to the life she’d brought on him; she’d tricked him, and I was living proof of that trickery. She’d given him fourteen years of hell, and all he’d ever done was try to make her happy.

He’d never resented me, or the fact that I’d existed. He’d loved her, despite her mental illness. He’d loved her through countless episodes that ended with the house destroyed and her in a puddle on the floor in his arms. My father and I would clean the house up, and eventually, we stopped decorating the walls and the shelves. She couldn’t throw what wasn’t there.

It had all taken its toll, and on that one final night, she’d shown me exactly what consent meant. It meant I’d never had to live with insanity again. Because if you both knew what you were walking into, then there would be no doubts, right? No guilt. Or insanity.

So why couldn’t Stephanie understand that? It was simple, really, and perhaps it seemed trivial to her, but it wasn’t a laughing matter. You had to know exactly what you were getting into, and for me, that was sex that could sometimes stray from the bedroom with whips and chains attached. Other times, it meant I needed my solitude.

I didn’t want a relationship because I doubted I’d ever been able to have what my adoptive parents had. I didn’t exactly deserve a love like that. With my past, it wasn’t hard to understand why I’d shy away from long-term relationships either. I was the reason my mother killed my father and then herself. The reason why she’d tried to erase my existence from the world.

I picked up my sandwich and bit into it, but I didn’t taste it. I could tell it had gone cold, but I didn’t care. The memories of my origins took the taste away, dulled my senses and my mind. I’d need a drink after this.

I finished my food off and went back to the penthouse. A swim might do me good. The exercise was nice, and the heated water soothed the aches, but it did little to soothe my mind. I heard my phone ringing and wanted it to be Stephanie so fucking bad.

It wasn’t; it was my adoptive mother. I dried my hands and called her back since I’d missed the call.

“Hey, Mom, what’s up?” I sat down on a lounger, the towel around my waist. There was something about talking to a parent that made me feel ashamed of swimming naked in my own pool.

“Hiya, son, you didn’t call me yesterday, and I was worried. You always call me on Fridays.”

“What? Today’s Friday, Mom.”

“No, it’s not. That was yesterday, baby. Have you got your days mixed up?” She sounded concerned, but I reassured her with a chuckle.

“Silly me; you’re right.” Holy fuck, I’d lost two days, not just one? How much had I drunk? “Too much work distracting me.”

“Well, you need to take a break then, son. Have a night off, and just relax.” Mom’s voice had lost the concerns and was now full of chiding. She was good at that, but it always came across as motherly, not nagging.

She was right, though. I needed to figure my life out. I’d drunk myself stupid for two days over a woman? Yeah, but Stephanie wasn’t just any woman. She blew my mind in so many ways. In the bedroom, out of it, and it wasn’t just her sexiness. She was intelligent, beautiful, and kind. To me, with me, and to others. She was just … different and sweet.

Maybe this was all wrong of me. Maybe I needed to start acting like I wasn’t damaged goods. This woman that I definitely didn’t deserve wanted me, on her own terms. Could I do that?

Could I trust a woman without a contract guiding what happened or didn’t? All bets would be off. She’d be able to walk away when she wanted to, if I actually went into a relationship with her. I felt confused, and that frustrated me to no end.