2020-01-31 - Truth Misused

Truth Misused

Anne did not believe in the ability to tell the future, something that may be difficult to reconcile with the fact that she knew people - including herself - possessed other psychic powers. But to Anne, the future was something ever changing, impossible to grasp, certainly not possible to predict. So why now, here in the comfort of a bed that wasn’t hers, lying in the arms of a man that wasn’t really hers either, was she dwelling on the things said earlier over a few beautifully printed tarot cards?

"This guy in particular?" Looking toward Anne, the redhead points to the upside down king, cold and sharp. "Truth misused." It had hit too close to home. ”... a warning not to get so analytical and objective that you, uh.. lose sight of other truths” the neon-headed fortune-teller had gone on.

Truth misused. The words lingered, the thought lingers, and she looks over her shoulder to the face behind her mostly obscured by the darkness. She feels the heat of his breath, the weight of his arms, and she wonders how many times in the past month - in the past decade - that she’s misused the truth when it comes to him.

=====
Ten Years Ago …

The last time they saw each other, it was on the far end of the boardwalk. The lights of the Ferris wheel flicker like candlelight in the distance, creating a haze against the moonlight. It was starting to get colder, there was a chill in the air coming up off the water; she had to wear a jacket.

It was the last few days of summer, and Patrick Addington was leaving.

He’d told her about the job in Chicago a few weeks prior but she’d stubbornly ignored the inevitability of it all. But he hadn’t changed his mind and they hadn’t talked about it until tonight, until right then, after dinner and a bottle of wine and a walk down here where it was just the two of them and the lights and the cold breeze acting as a reminder that summer was at an end. The movers were coming in the morning, he said. By this time tomorrow, he’d be on a plane.

And he said it like it didn’t mean it was the end of whatever they were. Then again, maybe they were nothing at all. They’d never spoken about feelings; if anything, they’d started this with an unspoken agreement that neither of them would get attached, that this was just a summer thing and it’d be over when the cold came in. It’d be over when he left. And all of that was fine until it wasn’t, until midway through the summer when it was unbearably hot and they’d stood right here, right at the end of the Boardwalk, and he made her laugh so hard she had milkshake coming out of her nose. She’d smacked him on the arm and he pulled her in and kissed her under the sun, and she fell so hard it felt like she couldn’t breathe.

And now her heart felt so broken that she couldn’t breathe, either. But like so many arguments they’d had over the summer, the one that started on the end of the boardwalk at the end of summer had not been about the real problems. She’d picked it over him not telling her about his departure date sooner, and it’d gone quickly from there, like a fire on dead grass. She’ll never forget how it ended, with her bitter and sarcastic: “Well I guess you gotta go,” and his flat stare and flatter toned, “Yeah, and I guess you have to stay.” It wasn’t worth having another argument about how it wasn’t like she had any other option, so she stalked off the boardwalk with a roll of her eyes, angry and resentful: “Maybe I’ll come say goodbye. Goodnight, Patrick.”

It’d been the truth, everything she said. It just hadn’t been the whole truth. It’d been just enough to walk away, to not say everything else that she was feeling in the moment. To walk away with some kind of dignity, so that she could deal with her heartbreak in private. Truth, but truth misused.

She slammed the door to her apartment an hour or so later but she didn’t let herself cry, she was too stubborn to do that. It certainly wasn’t the first loss she’d ever experienced - her mother, her brothers, her father. Now Patrick, too. A pattern of pain, of heartbreak and loneliness, yet here she remained in Gray Harbor - the one thing that wouldn’t leave her, but also the one thing that drove everyone away. In bed that night, she knew why Patrick had to go - but she had no idea why she kept clinging to this idea that she had to stay.

She was half asleep when there was a knock on the door. And like a movie ending, there he was in the hallway, all emotion and regret. And there were tears and arms around one another and apologies, and in the morning when he woke up in her bed, he promised not to go, he promised to stay here in Gray Harbor with her.

It was the first time that Anne ever experienced a Dream that was not torture and darkness from the outset. And while it felt too good to be true, but Anne believed so deeply that it was real, she never even questioned it. She just wanted to stay in this moment forever. In the blink of an eye, Anne had a lifetime with Patrick Addington - she told him that she loved him and he moved into her place; then they left the apartment and got a house of their own. He got down on one knee and she said yes; they got married at Saint Mary’s and she took his name. They adopted two dogs, he started his own practice. She never saw what this place did to him. They were happy.

Until one morning when she woke up and the bed was empty. Not just empty, but his side was neatly made. And she stumbled through this great big house to the master bathroom, where on the sink lay a postcard: ‘See you in Shy Town’ it reads in happy font across the front, over a skyline of Chicago. And on the back, in Patrick’s handwriting,

I’m going to Chicago, I should’ve left years ago.
You’re going to hate this but you’re right where you need to be.
You’ve got to stay. I’ve got to go. You’re nothing without Gray Harbor.
And I am nothing here with you.

It was heartbreak all over again, the worst loss she’d ever felt. The shadows laughed as she punched the mirror and it shatters, tears up her knuckles while the shadows take bites from her skin.

Then before the pain overwhelms her entirely, she is back alone her bed and it’s morning. She’s bleeding and in pain, not all of it from the cuts.

It would be convenient to say that she didn’t say goodbye to Patrick because she was caught up in that Dream. That it’d lasted so long, it took her past his departure, and she just didn’t get a chance. That it was out of her control entirely. That she hadn’t made the choice.

But that wasn’t the truth. The truth was that she came out of that Dream with nothing but regret for the way things had ended. The truth was that she packed a bag that morning with every intention of going to his house and leaving Gray Harbor with him. The truth was that she thought she could leave, that maybe this time was the last time she’d have to lose something she loved.

But the truth is that she made it to the door of the apartment with her suitcase before the words on the postcard came back to her.

You’re nothing without Gray Harbor.
You’re going to hate this, but you’re right where you need to be.

And that was the truth, or so she thought in the moment. So she turned back, put her clothes away, and stayed in her apartment until long after Patrick’s flight to Chicago took off, promising herself that she’d never feel something for anyone like she felt for Patrick again. It was too much work for so much pain, and besides, there was a whole lot here in Gray Harbor that she could throw herself into.

That was the truth. Truth misused, but truth nevertheless.

=====

Present day

Now ten years later, she was back in his bed, back in his arms. It was the last place she’d ever thought she’d be again. It was really the only place she wanted to be anymore. But they weren’t any further defined than they were that night on the boardwalk - and maybe just more confused, more muddled. It was funny how things didn’t change, how the feelings she pushed aside came right back - just as strong, maybe even stronger now.

And there was still so much hurt and still so much loss, and that was the truth but she couldn’t hold onto that. She couldn’t let that muddy the waters, to lose sight of the other truths that were here, too.

Anne didn’t think Philomena Sparrow Jones knew the future. Anne didn’t think the fortune-teller knew her past, either. But maybe she was right about one thing. Maybe now this was where she needed to be.

Own this. Here. Now. Wait.