Secrets

Chapter 1

"I did something terrible," my dad says.

"Uh-oh"

Inside my mind there were hundreds of things running around but the three main things were: a hurricane getting bigger, a scene in a horror movie where the little girl is killed, and a deer running from a lion. The only thing I wanted to do was bound into my dad's arms and feel his strong arms embracing me, but I knew that I had to listen to him first.

Let me take you back about 8 hours before this conversation. I woke up in my bed like any regular morning. I woke up to the bright blue sky of a terribly dark day. Even though I was inside I could smell the aroma of the fresh roses and raspberries blooming into the spring wind. You could hear the hummingbirds buzzing and see them sail through the blue sky that was full of white clouds. The clouds were like cotton candy hanging on an invisible string. I trudged downstairs to find eggs and bacon waiting for me to just eat them up. My mom was cleaning up the kitchen and my brother was trying to finish his homework. It was a Saturday morning and I had the taste of fresh orange juice mixed with toothpaste when my dad shuffled through the door with my dog Atlas.

"What were you doing?" I asked.

"Just walking the dog. Why?"

"Just wondering..."

"What do you guys want to do today?" my mom asked.

I knew that me and my brother had homework to do but we still had to get out of the house sometime that day, whether we wanted to or not. That was when my dad told us that he was going to a concert in the city of Los Angeles. My family lived in a tiny town about 20 miles outside of L.A. I knew that my dad enjoyed to go out a lot with his friends but it was never like this. Some important things you should know about me: I worry a lot about the people I love, I'm a sensitive person, I'm very protective of the people I love, and I won't go down without a fight. So back to my dad leaving, I would always think of the worst things that could happen when he went out, and that night the worst thing that I possibly could think of happened.

Hearing what my dad did was like seeing a tiger rip a deer apart. The next time I saw my dad was the morning after the concert. He looked tense and honestly I was concerned.

"Hey dad how was the concert?"

"It was really fun," my dad replied.

That's when he told me everything that happened. He had stayed in a hotel because he didn't want to drive while he was drunk. He was hanging out with his friends at the concert and having a good time and that's when this woman came up to him and they started to dance together. I could kind of already see what was going to happen but I let him finish. He told me had slept with this random woman. I knew it was coming but I felt like I had a frog in my throat there was nothing I could say or do... I was frozen in time. I just sat there. Everything blurred like in those movies where they aren't paying attention to anything because they're so surprised; that's what happened to me.

"And then when I woke up she was gone... I realized that I screwed up and I love your mom so much but that's not even the worst thing that happened," my dad articulated.

"Wait! What the hell are you talking about! You cheated on mom!" I yelled. "That's pretty god damn bad if you ask me!"

"Shhh! I want to tell your mother. Just let me finish."

"Fine! But you're making me delirious right now! It hurts to see you do this to us, you're ruining our family," I expressed, my dad started laughing.

"What?!"

"Did you expand your vocabulary since I left?" He said cackling.

"Anyways, I was driving back home and then I got an insane flashback from my past. The woman was in that flashback. I remembered her... You know how I had told you about how I had worked in the police station in L.A. a long time ago?"