Beans Spilled

Savannah

I have always lived my life in the truth.

Granted, I have been lying lately, but typically I don’t lie.

If it’s a choice for me, I don’t lie.

I never was someone who liked to hide in a lie; to me, it always felt worse than coming right out and saying it.

I have never been ashamed of who I am or what I do.

I am me, and if the world around me didn’t like it, they could go fuck themselves.

Among the many things I can thank my parents for teaching me, letting me be comfortable in my own skin and never trying to nitpick or change me is among that long list.

Growing up, my mom and dad let me be as true to myself as I ever was, and in return always told me the truth back.

Granted, I know some kid lies were sprinkled in like where my goldfish Pluto went and why I now have a beta fish in its place, or Santa and all the fairytales that accompany that.

My parents told me the truth, even if it was in kid form.

When I was caught playing spin the bottle or when I noticed guys at an early age, my mom and dad didn’t skip a beat on explaining why, and how I needed to go about this.

My mom answered whatever questions I had, never making me feel weird or too young. She taught me all about safe sex, the three rules of sexuality, and what I should expect, or receive in my playtime.

I can’t say my parents ever lied to me from a place of awkwardness or shame.

They never hid their reasons on why I couldn’t do something or why my rules were the way they were.

I never felt like the problem child or unwanted.

No matter how many times they were called to school or any of the trouble I ever got in, they didn’t look at me or treat me as a hassle.

I was never told or asked to be easier or less problematic.

They always had my best interests at heart.

And I felt loved every second of every day.

I think that’s why it’s so hard for me to understand and grasp what the fuck is going on right now.

How could so much of their past be a lie?

They had to have had a reason to hide this from me.

They wouldn’t be ashamed.

They would have to have known I wouldn’t judge them.

So why?

Why did they lie to me?

And how in the fucking hell am I going to fix this?

***

“I’m not lying!” Damon punches through the wall, making me grow even more pissed at the tantrum he keeps throwing.

“I’m not saying you are! But I know my parents and there’s no way on this green earth they would have EVER betrayed their best friends like that! None! I understand that’s the running consensus, but it’s wrong.”

Not being able to move, let alone throw a fit like Damon, is making this talk between the two of us harder.

I want to throw a fit like Damon. Maybe that’s why it pisses me off to see him like this when I can’t join in.

His nimble fingers lacing through his black locks, I can see his anger hanging from him like weighted ropes to drag him down.

I try to make him understand that maybe Lucien Henley is a lying asshole and is just on some bullshit.

But nobody wants to hear bad stuff about their parents.

I mean, look at me, right now.

“You didn’t know my parents. I know you believe what your dad told you, but—”

“He didn’t. My mom did.”

~His mom?~

My lips part with the newfound knowledge, like it was so big I had to legitimately open up to let it sink in and bathe me in this unfiltered past.

It feels like my parents’ skeletons have found their way out of the closet to bitch slap me across the face.

I never knew Damon’s mom, but to hear him repeat her words, I don’t know.

It makes it ring with a harrowing honesty that I can’t deny or scrape away to find a hidden layer of whatever is left of this story time Damon and I have unfortunately found ourselves traveling down.

Blistering soundlessness fills up the space all around us like the worst house party I’ve ever thrown.

It’s…this…it has to hold at least some truth to it.

~Doesn’t it?~

Ah, there it is again.

~I can hear it.~

~Just like before.~

Do you know that your world can end many times before your life actually does?

I’m learning that.

~Isn’t that horrible?~

A new day, a new tragic ending.

“Your mom said…my dad betrayed them? And…my mom helped?”

The words like putrid acid on my taste buds.

It can’t be true.

~Oh, but it can.~

I just don’t want it to be.

“Why?” My voice coming from somewhere far away, some hidden part of the past I have stumbled into, like Alice falling down the rabbit hole to get lost just so she could find herself.

“My mom said, they wanted different things. That they didn’t believe in the same things the rest of the club did and didn’t know any other way out.”

He has calmed back down, back to facing me and helping look into the past instead of yelling and punching holes in his room like his name’s Kyle and he just drank three Monster Energy drinks.

Getting white-boy wasted must be a crazy thing.

~My parents were the bad guys?~

~No.~

~They couldn’t be.~

“What did they not believe in?”

Damon cleans the plaster from his knuckles on the back of his blue jeans and sighs with an air of remorse.

I know he hates being the one to tell me.

I can see why he didn’t want to talk about it, why he said to let Uncle Jonah tell me and why this wasn’t a good idea.

I do.

Just don’t care enough to wait that out.

“Originally, it was ~Vanner to Fenrir~. Meaning friends of Fenrir, who was the embodiment of gluttony. He was a wolf.”

Damon stops talking to stare at me like that explains what the fuck I asked him.

I don’t even know who that is or what gluttony really is, but yeah, thanks for the explanation, Angel.

“Okay, so that means?”

I try to curb the attitude in my tone but I’m running on nothing but bad shit at this point and I’m starting to get this mix of bad shit and hurt shit to brew one deadly cup of pissed off that could level the southern hemisphere.

“Fenrir is lust, greed, anger, anything sinful that you could use too much of. Your father was the president. Your mother was his secret girlfriend. Your dad was given the road name Loki and your mom’s was Hel.”

More shit is added.

More truth comes to the light while more questions arise and spring forth.

I can’t laugh at how my mother, the local small-time journalist in our town, was called Hel and secretly banging a biker king.

My dad being called Loki is also funny to me since my dad was the type of person who couldn’t even keep presents put up in advance because he was so excited he couldn’t wait.

Again, I can’t manage a laugh.

The memories, mixing with bittersweetness, taint them until they scar with a question mark straight down the middle.

How could that man, the one I was so sure I knew so well, be capable of betraying his friends? His family?

How could my mom help?

There has to be more than this.

I know them.

I ~knew~ them.

They had to have a reason.

Not just from keeping it from me but for doing it in the first place.

“So, my parents secretly got around with each other and one day decide to be official, so instead of bossing up and telling everyone they…what? Turn their friends in and make a run for it?

“No. That can’t be what happened. That makes no sense. Why couldn’t they come out and say it? Why did it matter? He was the leader.

“So what if mom was Lucien’s step-sister and they were friends, love is love. Who was he to question anything my parents did? Why would they think turning in their friends the only choice? No. That’s not it.”

I shake my head and look away from Damon, who seems to have a better insight than I ever did.

“I don’t know. My mom said dad spent two years in prison for it. Dad never talked about it other than the shit you’ve already heard.”

I nod again, just to show I heard him.

I’m sure Damon doesn’t know everything.

The only ones who did would be our parents, and only one remains.

Only one side of a story.

Only the one-sided truth left to be heard.

The door opening to show Daxon with my SpongeBob backpack safely on his shoulders.

Darrion and Dane fall in behind him.

I let them work around me, thinking over this news as Darrion wraps my knee and Dane fixes a Thanksgiving-like dinner up with Daxon, pointing out the holes that decorate the walls now as Damon refuses to answer him.

A lightbulb flashes, my idea generator kicking in.

Darrion and Daxon are older than Damon and I.

They might remember, or know more.

“Darrion, Daxon, can we talk?”