Little Drummer Boy

Chapter 9: Truths

Chapter 9: Truths

Sometimes, when you hear about some horrible truth, you do everything you can to rationalize it away.

‘It’s only a heart tumor’

‘It’s only a small down size.’

‘It’s only a couple drinks.’

No matter the case, you don’t want to imagine that the worse possible fate could come true. Even as more and more evidence comes in, you want to believe in something else, believe that the secrets aren’t anything to worry about, and that he is all that he appears.

Maybe I should have known better.

Maybe I should have told someone.

Maybe I shouldn’t have lied to Dad that morning.

Maybe that’s why I’m writing this now, because I’m tired of the lies, and want the truth, no matter how ugly it might be. I’d like to think I was a good person, one who rarely messed up. But the truth is, I’m one of the liars, one of the cowards, one of the broken. It took Jace for me to see that for myself.

…

Breakfast the next day was tense, or at least more so than normal for Jace and myself. Between the fact that my parents were on the other side of the house last night and our family is known to be able to be able to sleep through a collage marching band coming through our bedroom, they didn’t know of anything strange happening that night, although Dad did notice the bandage on Jace’s hand.

“What happened there?” he asked.

“He hit his hand on his nightstand during the night, so he came to me and I put a bandage on it,” I answered before Jace could say anything. It wasn’t technically a lie, everything I told them was true, but I still felt bad about hiding the truth from them. But, can you blame me? I was scared, didn’t know what else to do. Sometimes it feels like if we just pretend something bad isn’t real it will just go away, be buried among the simple truths of our lifetime. Sadly though, this isn’t always how it works. Sometimes we bury it for it to come back with an even greater fury, causing much more harm than if we’d just told the truth to begin with and faced whatever danger that would have brought us.

I knew that even as I spoke those words.

But I pretended otherwise, I put my faith in what I wanted to happen, not willing to admit the unthinkable alternatives.

“Thank you for taking care of that,” Mom said to me.

Jace looked toward me, as if he was pleading for something more, for some recollection from that night.

“I was glad to be able to help him,” I said. I mean, that was true. I was glad to help, with everything that happened.

After breakfast I went back upstairs to get my backpack before I left for school. As I filled it with the text books I needed that day, I didn’t notice Jace entering the room behind me.

“Caleb,” he said.

“What is it?”

“About last night.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

However, I knew the worry wouldn’t leave him so easily. He seemed to pace around my room for a little while, while kind of pretended he wasn’t there, just putting everything away that I needed to. I honestly wanted him to leave there.

“I’m scared,” he finally said.

I set my backpack back down and sat in my chair, turning it to face him. “You’re afraid that’s going to happen again?”