Crying wolf

Mom always said “if you keep lying, you’ll lose track of what’s true”. She was right – people had always believed my beautiful stories, loving me all the while. She regularly recalled one Saturday morning years ago - I was just a toddler. Entering the bathroom, she found the medicine cabinet open. On the floor, toothpaste tubes squeezed into stripy snakes, pills scattered like M&Ms, and me, an adorable puppy-dog look on my face, a hint of a smile, smeared with liquid Tylenol, my wide brown eyes gauging her reaction. “Not me, mommy!” Even after the raging and hand-wringing that followed, half the weekend squandered at the emergency room, that day was immortalised in her mind as evidence of my irresistible charm, though most relatives felt it marked the beginning of my unrelenting hedonism, my casual relationship with the truth. Now, I’d crafted a vocation out of it. People didn’t want to hear the truth; often it was downright destructive.

No, that’s an excuse, a comforting story. I sighed, kept on walking. The warm, wet sand was firm but yielding beneath my feet, as they flirted with the lapping waves, as if daring them to swallow me up. I gazed along the ever-shifting boundary of the coast-line. The sun was setting, the tide turning. I laughed to myself – a bitter, forced exhale. What a cliché – I hated such obvious metaphors, avoiding them in my own writing. But in my desperation, they seemed poignant. How could I have been so stupid? What on earth was wrong with me? I’d been golden for a whole year, attending meetings, therapy, like Fia begged me to. I’d believed my own BS, that I’d turned a corner. Fia knew I needed company, she didn’t think anything of me continuing to meet with the “writer’s club” – her affectionate cockney-rhyming-slang nickname for my liquor-fuelled nights with the boys. A kind of substitute I guess. We discussed creative ideas too – “of course you do!”. She had a way of looking at me that cut right to the truth, never obscuring her warmth.

When she’d told me, joyfully, that she was pregnant, I couldn’t believe my luck. What did she see in me? She wasn’t fooled, she must know something about me I didn’t – that’s what drew me. The other girls – there had been many – so easily strung along. I’d never felt the need to commit, there was no payoff. Something was different with her. So many clichés. Fia hated them too; she quickly recognised my themes and tropes. It was the way she raised her left eyebrow, almost imperceptibly, a half smile wrinkling one side of her mouth, when I started spinning a story, that stopped me in my tracks, questioning myself, not that I ever found an answer. After therapy once, I had excitedly told Fia, as we prepared dinner in our tiny kitchen, how I already did mindfulness – that was what happened when she gave me one of her looks! She’d been quiet for the rest of the evening. Had it been sadness? Fear? I couldn’t bring myself to ask her about our awkward moments. I think I didn’t want to know the truth. Maybe she didn’t either.

I suddenly realised how far I’d walked, as if my mind, whirling and rushing, had carried me there. The caress of the breeze was now a sting. Tuning into my surroundings, I spotted a campfire blazing a short distance away. The sun had vanished, the remaining light refracted against the sky in a washed out rainbow. A scarf beside the fire was trying to escape into the night, held in place by a small black notebook – a diary maybe? I scanned the shoreline, the cliffs. Nobody in sight, probably a good ten minutes from the nearest path. I eased my way to sitting, my gaze resting on the roaring waves. The full force of reality crashed into me. Blood coursed through my temples, my stomach churning, my vision fizzing. Nothing like a catastrophe to bring you into the present! My smirk quickly became a grimace. Twenty thousand dollars. Our savings for the year. A second of blind audacity. Poker was my game - if I had only quit when I was ahead! It was Jay’s cousin, Billy, who suggested it – he didn’t know my deal. The kind of guy that wouldn’t take no for an answer, grabbed you by the shoulders, as if shaking sense into you, called you a pussy if you didn’t drink another round. No. No! None of that would wash with Fia. “No more games”, she’d said when she found out, after the first big loss…well, the first one she’d known about. She hadn’t been pleading, she’d been telling me, and I had believed her. All those plans, those months of austerity, the therapy, the meetings, living in a tiny camper van…for what?

I felt like I should cry, but no tears came. As if I was trying to find the winning strategy for getting me out of this mess. Randall, my sponsor, would have offered a platitude. After meetings, when the more desperate members sought advice, he would take a deep breath, put his hand on whichever poor soul’s shoulder and say something like, “when you’ve no cards left to play, that’s the time to pray”. It always made me cringe. I’d sat there listening as these people described the same mistake, week after week. I’d found the solution, and it wasn’t that hard – responsibility, discipline. I always shared a version of my struggles – I didn’t want to come off superior – making sure I said how tough it all was, thanking the “higher power” for its guidance. Then the resolution – how I stayed abstinent - maybe other people could learn from my example. Where did that leave me now? How do you even pray?! I looked around again – it was almost dark.

F*** it.

I got on my knees, clasped my hands together, lowered my head, eyes shut. Nothing. This is stupid. My legs cramped. I rolled over and looked at the sky. Please, I can’t do this anymore…I don’t know how. I lay there a while. The panic and the exhaustion seemed to have caught up with me; a delicious wooziness infused my body.

Eventually, I rolled over and crawled towards the dying fire. Another look around – nobody. I picked up the notebook. It was held closed by a ribbon of elastic, bulging in a familiar way – likely packed with newspaper clippings and pictures, ideas scrawled on post-it notes. I unbound it, my hands tensing as I gaped at the contents – a neat pile of well worn $100 bills. Hardly breathing, I leafed through, dumbfounded – twenty thousand dollars. The familiar rush of endorphins burst into my heart, but there was some strange, intangible sensation. What on earth? Is this my get out? Reeling, I looked for some clue in the notebook. Completely blank. I checked the title page for a name, number – there was only a short printed phrase – “the truth will set you free”. I’d been struggling with writing since working the 9-to-5. Was this a sign of things to come? A prompt to start writing again? The drama of the day had wiped me out – I wasn’t thinking straight. I rose, scooping up the notebook and its contents, and broke into jog, heading home.

I could see the fairy lights glowing dimly as I approached our camper van. I half wondered, half hoped Fia would be asleep as I eased open the door.

“Where have you been? I was worried!” Fia pulled me into a hug, her ripening belly pushing into me. We kissed, softly, passionately. My heart clenched in agony. I pulled away. Her eyes were confused, enquiring. Something was different – she could tell.

“There’s something I need to tell you”.

“Ok…”

I searched her expression for tenderness. I couldn’t focus, what was I about to do? This would change everything. All the stories dissipated, my mind had abandoned me. Each breath I took fuelled the pounding in my ears. This is it. “I relapsed, honey, I…”

In a heartbeat: “How much?”

“Everything…I thought I could…but…”

“Our savings?” I couldn’t meet her eyes.

“Ok, ok, you won’t believe it, but…”

“You’ll make it back?!” She was angry now, mocking me. She was looking up, as if for assistance.

“No, I found…” But it was useless. I slumped against the counter. “I really fucked up. I’m sorry.”

The faintest flurry of emotions raced across her face as she tried to make sense of what I was saying. Her countenance rested in defeat, disconcertingly peaceful.

“I found some money on the beach – that’s where I’ve been...”

I hadn’t heard Fia laugh like that before – darkly, viciously almost. “Right.”

I stood there, saying nothing.

“Well? How much?”

“Twenty thousand. I’m gonna hand it in”. The words tumbled out of my mouth before I’d had the chance to know their meaning. Fia slowly nodded her head, her eyes wide, her mouth set in a grim expression.

“I think I need you to leave.”

---

“I’ll just grab you a glass of water”.

As the editor left the room, Jason wet his finger and rubbed some dried mud off the side of his shoe – two months couch crashing was taking its toll. Inexplicably, writing had been coming naturally; for the first time in years he’d felt confident to submit to national magazines.

The editor returned, smiling at Jason as he sat. “Well, we loved your story. There was something very…” he leant back on his seat, considering the right word, “authentic about it - not necessarily the plotline…” he laughed, catching Jason’s eyes knowingly. Jason laughed awkwardly, not sure where this was going, “…but the character was believable - flawed, conflicted. We like that. We’re looking for a columnist right now, someone who can bring this sort of pained existential vibe into weekly reflections on the world, everyday life…”

Jason’s cell started ringing. “Oh, man, I’m sorry!” He rejected the call – a local number, nobody he recognised. “Yeah, sounds cool!”

“You’re lucky. We usually advertise widely for this kinda position but your email landed a minute after my previous guy resigned. It was like a sign!” He laughed again, amused at his own absurdity. “I’d love to see that notebook!”

“Oh right…I handed it into the cops along with the money…”

The editor slapped his knee, throwing his head back, exaggeratedly guffawing. “Of course you did! Man, you’re gonna fit in here! But seriously, I loved the message from God metaphor or whatever, it’s so cheesy, but how you balanced it with your character’s…sort of…contempt for it all…that dark humour’s priceless.”

As Jason left the building, he rehashed the conversation…a message from God? Contempt? He found it strange what other people read into his stories. And this hadn’t really been a story, which made it even weirder. Reflexively reaching for his cell, he remembered the missed call and returned it. The police department. He gave his name and waited to be put through.

“Hello, Jason Callingham? You handed in a large sum of money, sir?”

“Yes that’s me.”

“Apologies for the delay, sir – nobody ever did claim that money. You can come pick it up whenever you’d like. Just bring your ID.”

Jason realised he hadn’t spent one moment thinking about the money. Since that awful day, it was like a part of him had fallen away forever. In one way, he’d lost everything, but in another way he couldn’t quite explain, he’d finally found his flow. Fia would never take him back, he’d known that immediately - he hadn’t tried to persuade her. He would always be in her life - their lives. This money, in the past, would have been a way to win big, to win her back. But there was nothing of that. He knew what was in his heart. He selected Fia’s number on his cell, immersed in the distant sound of the tumbling waves.