What's Hidden Between the Lie's

A Story by alexbogan

Short Story #1 in my once a week short story challenge. I really disliked this and didn't give it proper editing or proof reading. Not an excuse, trying to work on not deleting my work.

Hi my name is Mark and I’m an alcoholic

When I was young my parents got divorced, and I lost my mother to her sorrows. One of her many drunken nights, angry at the world and upset that I was the one who had to take responsibility for her I asked her what she was drinking for. She gave me one of those looks that couldn’t help but to make you feel as if you had asked a hopelessly stupid question, and told me she was looking for hope at the bottom of the bottle. I had hated my mother for that answer, I hated that she couldn’t see hope in me, she couldn’t try and work things out with my father, that she had given up on love. So the irony of me pouring myself yet another drink so I could fade into oblivion, and maybe even find some hope, was quite humorous.

Maybe I should restart my name is Mark, and as per Renfer family tradition, I am an alcoholic. Not by choice though, see my ex-wife Lynda made that choice for me when she started to hang out with a younger crowd, and by hang out I mean ride on top of. I guess the alcoholism is still my choice, but with mounting depression and insomnia I need a crutch. The shame is what really kills me though, by trade I’m a marriage counselor. That’s right I’m a divorced marriage counselor; the irony never stops with me does it? Lynda cited many of the common problems I help other couples work through, that for some reason, I thought my own relationship was immune to. Working too much, not caring about her interests, not including her in mine, all easily fixable problems with just a realization and an attitude adjustment. Yet here I was divorced at the age of 35, body slowly degrading, with a myriad of emotional problems for any potential women I may swoon, and worst of all, still lying about being with my “wife.”

You see I couldn’t handle facing my clients and telling them the truth. They see the pictures on my desk; ask me about how my marriage is going, and how happy we look together. I just couldn’t handle the idea of saying “actually she sucks the life out of me, and we’re divorced now.” How could anyone look at me and say “I want his advice on how to work on our marriage”, I know I couldn’t look at my mom and say that. So I lie, I give them my little schpeel about how happy we are, and how we’re planning on having kids soon, kids win big points with wives. I haven’t even told my f*****g boss yet, he keeps asking when we’re going to go out with him and his wife, and I just can’t bring myself to tell him. What if he sees what I see in me? What if he thinks I’m just as useless as I am? So I keep lying and while I keep lying, I can’t sleep, and when I can’t sleep I drink.

Hi my name is Mark and I’m an alcoholic.

Three ice cubes, some more whiskey, and I’m ready to face up to how truly pathetic I’ve become. As I consume every last drop of poison I think of how I pretended my wife called me in front of my boss the other day, just to try and make him think were still together. I’m fairly certain that exemplifies my insecurities enough for you to understand that I wasn’t lying when I said I love you to the dead air I so desperately wished would whisper it back in my ear. One more ice cube, more whiskey, and I’m ready for bed. I meander my way to my room in the kind of stupor that would scare small children. We were talking about having kids, what a role model I would have been. As I collapse onto the new bed I purchased after Lynda moved out, I think how nothing is as lonely as sleeping in a king sized alone. Dreading waking in the morning for another day full of lying, another day full of shame, I take one more drink straight from the bottle, and fall into the comatose state I spend the majority of my time in.

Wake up, drink water, take Advil, make coffee, take shower, drink coffee, get dressed, and they say we can’t predict the future.

Hi my name is Mark and I’m an alcoholic.

The apartment felt like it had a permanent drizzle going on inside, the drab colors gave me an uncontrollable dreary feeling. Oxford button up on, cornflower blue tie neatly done, coffee in portable mug, who says we can’t predict the future.

On my way to work I let some soundless notes comfort me in the background as I plotted out my day. Today I had an appointment with the Jeffersons, a very sweet young couple. They had been high school sweethearts, both very active in church, and stayed together through college. Jack was an accountant at a major firm, while his wife Laura was working as an elementary school teacher. They had both saved themselves for marriage which is where the problem really starts. Laura had recently caught Jack browsing pornographic material, mainly different fetish sites. This bothered Laura because they had saved themselves for each other and would continue to love only each other. This bothered Laura because she was insecure. I desperately wished I could explain that what Jack is going through is perfectly normal for a man, just coming at a later stage, due to his strict control on lack of sexual activity before. He was “experimenting”, since he never had the chance to before. I felt bad for Jack really, he saves himself for 25 years for someone, then as soon as he starts to want to broaden his horizons a bit (not even with another person) he ends up being dragged to my office to be treated like he has contracted a terrible infection. The whole thing pissed me off really, and making it through the whole thing without snapping on Laura would be awfully difficult.

After bullshitting the Jefferson’s, all I really had left was to do some write ups on some of my other cases. The Smiths, Hughes, and Browns all had appointments coming up for that I needed to do some work with. The Smiths couldn’t agree on the number of children, the Hughes couldn’t decide whether or not they should move or not, and the Browns had a dispute between the husband wanting to become a writer, and the wife wanting financial security. As much as I wanted to tell the Smiths that arguing about having two or four children before you had one was silly, as I wanted to tell the Hughes that they would not traumatize they’re 1 year old by moving, as much as I wanted to tell the Browns that they fundamentally wanted different things, and as desperately as I wanted to tell the Jefferson’s that experimentation was perfectly normal and healthy in a relationship, I wouldn’t. None of these people come to me looking for real answers, looking to be told they wasted their money; usually one of them dragged the other here looking for the answer that they want to hear.

In today’s case Laura drug Jack here so that I could tell Jack how wrong it is to look at pornographic material of another woman or man. Jack was defeated long ago, and the only thing defending him would do is eventually end their marriage. See by protecting him I’d allow him to be right, by allowing him to be right I’d make Laura wrong, and making Laura wrong would change the dynamic of their relationship. Laura would eventually get too pissed off and leave, or Jack would realize he should have never put up with the s**t of a woman who would not let him have a single beer after work unless it was a weekend. So I’d tell Laura what she’d wanted to hear, she’d love me for it, and Jack would love me for calming her down.

People don’t want to hear what you have to say, people want to hear what they want you to say.

Walking into my office I slink by my boss Todd’s office hoping he’d be too wrapped up in something to notice my arrival. Then to my dismay I heard him look up, and felt the air around his mouth moved as he practically shouted.

“HEY BUDDY, how are you this morning?”

“Just great Todd, about to get ready for the Jefferson’s.”

“Hey that’s wonderful, but I’ve been meaning to ask you something. How are you and Lynda doing? I ran into her the other day at the supermarket, and she kind of stormed off after I asked how she was.”

I take back everything I said about reading the future.

“Oh she’s just been really stressed out with work and stuff lately you know how it is, women right?”

“Oh I hear ya, I hear ya.”

“Well I gotta run and get ready for the Jefferson’s!”

I walked away before I heard his reply. A million thoughts burst into my head, what if she told him, what if he knew, what if she figured out that I was still telling people we were together? I fumbled clumsily with the door to my office, immediately shut the door once inside, dropped my suitcase on the ground and reached for the bottom left drawer of my desk.

Hi my name is Mark, and I’m an alcoholic.

A few swigs to take the edge off, a few more to make sure.

“F**k” I murmur to myself as I try desperately to stop the cold rain that began pouring out of my body. I had 20 minutes to regain my composure before the Jefferson’s would be showing up for their appointment. I quickly glance at my phone to make sure I didn’t have any missed calls, relieved to see that Lynda’s number hadn’t come up once. Maybe she didn’t know, maybe she hadn’t found out. I spend the next 15 minutes waging war on my own psyche to find peace; I get reminded that violence leads to more violence. No war of self-degradation would stop the voices from worrying, what if she knew? Looking at the picture of Lynda and him sitting so proudly on his desk, he couldn’t recognize the man on it. Suddenly a knock on the door interrupts him.

“May we come in?” The sound of Laura’s voice grasping for every last bit of politeness the air could muster.

“Yes, yes please come in” I say in the most professional sounding voice I can muster. Not a single syllable stuttered despite the growing warmth I could feel in my chest.

Laura opens the door and saunters in, lacking any sense of humility. Jack sulks in behind her, looking a little lost, and very reluctant to be here. Quickly he lurched forward though as Laura reached her seat to pull it out for her, it almost hurt to watch as you could tell that he had learned the necessity of this action the hard way.

“So how are the two of you doing today?” I ask more out of politeness then anything.

“We’ve been doing much better thank you” Laura says with a smile a little too big for the sentiment.

“Much better” Jack echoes.

“How are you and … what is her name again? I have a terrible memory I’m afraid.” Laura replies, exchanging pleasantries.

My initial reaction was to remark on what it’s like to be haunted, what it feels like when what hurts you most won’t leave you alone. That we weren’t together, that I was a coward, that I was weak. “We’re doing… just great… just great thank you.” Then mustering up my professional voice “Well last session we talked about the problems you two faced, mainly a specific incident, so today we are going to talk about moving forward. Now I know Laura you had some strong opinions on”

“On my husband being a sick pervert who was fantasizing about other woman” Laura’s voice cutting me off before I could finish my sentence. Jack sunk down into his chair, hoping to escape the ridicule I’m sure he had already heard too much of.

“Well not exactly, but if you need to voice it in that”

“Not exactly what? The facts are pretty clear, what he did was sick and perverted, would you ever do that to your wife Mark?” Sparks shot up my spine; all at once I was extremely aware of how little air was in the room, and the freedom in the bottom left drawer of my desk. Humiliation is knowing what you’re doing is pathetic, and doing it anyway.

Quickly recovering I try my best to speak professionally even while the sweat rolled down my face “This session is not about my wife and I’s relationship Laura, I would appreciate it if”

“Look all I’m saying is what he did is wrong and I want you to make sure he understands just how wrong it is” Laura contests hotly. Jack has practically molded into being with the chair, hoping that if he took up as little room as possible that we’d all forget he was actually there. My face growing more and more red, the room grew uncomfortably warm. “Mark I want some reassurance here, I know that if you had done something so vulgar, your wife would’ve been just as upset. Your wife would have wanted to get professional help too-“

The time for giving them the answers they wanted was over. The time for humiliation was over. The time for letting Laura Jefferson feel like she was the next one to walk on water was over. I had lied until I couldn’t f*****g lie anymore. The time for lying was over.

“but she didn’t” I murmur.

Hi my name is Mark, and I’m done lying to myself.

“What?” Laura asks, breaking composure for the first time.

“You know Laura what Jack did may have been ‘wrong’ but you’re the one with problems here.”

“I neve-“

“Exploring your sexuality is a perfectly normal part of a person’s life, Jack was merely exploring his own needs, and you crucify him for it. Yeah maybe he should’ve just talked about his interests with you, but when you won’t even let him drink a f*****g beer without asking for permission I’d probably be too afraid to jerk the stick out of your a*s either.”

The truth felt beautiful.

“Oh and my wife and I got divorced, I cared too much about the things that didn’t matter and didn’t make enough time for the things that did. I loved like nothing could go wrong because I was too blinded by my ‘wisdom’ to think that any of the problems I helped people with could apply to me, but they could and it kills me everyday living with the shame. All it would’ve taken was a little more effort, caring a little more, a little more time, but you don’t get to know that until it’s over and done with.”

Laura’s mouth was open at this point, an audible silence that couldn’t be heard but only felt. Jack had sat upright almost grinning at this point.

“As for you two, Laura stop acting like you’re the only one who matters, it’s a relationship not a worship. Jack stand up for yourself, if you won’t stand up for yourself then no one else will. Now if you’ll excuse me” I take the bottle out of the bottom left drawer and throw it to the ground smashing it into a million little shards of glass, the whiskey staining the otherwise clean carpet. “I have found hope in truth.” I start walking to the door, Laura still open mouthed in shock, Jack grinning like a madman.

“HEY TODD WE NEED TO TALK”

Hi my name is Mark, and for the first time in what feels like forever. I know exactly who I am, and so will everyone else.