Nothing But the Truth: Chapter 6

Caden

“I think you’re going way too fast with this girl, Caden,” Kira said as we got off the highway and turned into Culver City proper. 

“Yeah, I know,” I replied. 

“And I’m a little worried about how nonchalant you’re being about this. Like, are you sure you can trust her-”

“No, not at all,” I replied. “This isn’t a date. I’m gathering information.”

“Uh-huh. Sure you are,” Kira replied, and I saw her roll her eyes in the mirror. 

“I am,” I insisted. “Alicia is… There’s something weird going on with her. We’re in total agreement on that. I want to get to the bottom of it before I can make any kind of important decision. What’s really going on with her is… It’s gonna affect a lot of things for me.”

“...”

“What?”

“I…”

“What?!” I said, growing irritated, resting my head against the window. 

“Watch the tone,” Kira said, eyes narrowing. 

“Sorry,” I said, inhaling slowly. 

“Thank you. It’s just… What aren’t you telling me?”

“I… I can’t say.”

“Why not?” Kira asked. 

“You’re not gonna like the answer. You’re gonna be mad.”

“I’m gonna be a lot more mad if I have to find out whatever this is from someone else. Now please, please tell me what’s going through your head right now, lad.”

I drew a deep breath. Dammit. Kira had always been able to see right through me. I chalked it up to one of those annoying superpowers big sisters always seemed to have. “You know how I need to get into the frat? How it’s a very necessary step for me having any kind of career in my chosen field?”

“Yes. I also know I don’t understand why you didn’t go with photography as your major instead,” Kira said as we came to a red light. 

“Because there’s no money in it,” I said. “And I need money if I want to pay you back-”

“Caden,” Kira whispered. “We’ve been over this. You don’t need to pay me back for anything.”

“I beg to differ,” I said. “I ruined your life.”

“You did not-”

“You’re seriously telling me you wanted to adopt me at nineteen? You wanted to drop out of school and wait tables? You wanted your girlfriend to dump you because she couldn’t handle dating a single mom?”

“... No, I’m not telling you that. But I’m also telling you I have no regrets. I did the right thing, and I did it because you’re my family and I love you. And things shook out fine: Vera wasn’t right for me. I have Aimee now. I’m working my dream job. And I still don’t understand what this has to do with Alicia-”

“Randall is trying to do a hazing ritual!” the words slipped out, a flood of serrated blade from my throat and against my gums. The blood of my guilt threatened to choke me. “He assigned us girls he thinks are ugly to bring to a party in January. That’s the condition for me rushing. It’s the only way he’ll let me after what I did last year.”

The light turned green. 

Kira pulled over to the side of the road, in front of a convenience store.

I started, “Uh, what-”

“Get out.”

I blinked. “But-”

“I’m not gonna be part of this. I don’t want anything to do with it. And right now, I don’t wanna look at you,” Kira said, gripping the steering wheel so tight her knuckles went white. 

“Kira-”

“Caden Russel Monroe!” she shouted. And she was using my full name. And her Southern accent was coming out. Oh, fuck! “You cannot seriously think that I’ll take a red cent of your money if this is how you’ll get it! I wasn’t planning on taking it any way, but this is… This is disgusting. And I am disappointed in you. I thought I raised you better than that.”

“I don’t have a choice-”

“I also didn’t raise you to make bullshit excuses,” Kira snapped, going full West Virginia rage-mode. “You absolutely have a choice. And you’re making the wrong one.”

“I’m sorry, I just-”

“You shouldn’t be apologizing to me,” Kira said. “You should do the right thing and tell this girl the truth. I still think she has an agenda, I still don’t trust her all the way and neither should you, but that goes both ways. You need to stop this. I love you, but I don’t like the person Randall is making you into.”

A dagger of shame plunged through my stomach and curved around on all sides. My pupils widened, and I couldn’t find any words. My hand gripped the fabric of my shirt above my heart, and the candles all burned hot and high and together until they formed a single, enormous flame of dread and loathing. 

I nodded. 

Kira seemed… Genuinely surprised when I did that. Which hurt even more than what she’d said before. 

“I’ll tell her tonight. But if I do… There is a very real chance my career in business is ending before it even starts.”

“Oh no, the horror,” Kira rolled her eyes. 

“Kira, it’s my-”

“If you say it’s your dream, I will call you a liar.”

“It’s not. It’s my responsibility.”

“Oh for fuck- no, it’s not! Your responsibility is to yourself! My decisions, my decision to take you in when everything went down with Mom and Dad, that is mine alone. I don’t need my kid brother of all fucking people to white-knight for me.”

“I’m not a kid!” I growled. 

“Then prove it,” Kira said. “Do the right thing. Make a decision. If you really want to pay back your ‘debt’ to me, tell this girl the truth. On the microscopically slim chance she’s fine with it, is willing to go along with it, then when you’re some rich asshole in a corner office you can spend the money on her. If you’re so convinced you need to make it up to me for ‘ruining my life’, then be the person I know you can be.”

“What person is that?” I whispered. 

“Someone with integrity. Someone who believes in something,” Kira said. 

I buried my face in my hands to hide my scowl. I would never be that person. I wasn’t capable of it. I was too broken, too fucked up in the head. I could never be the man Kira raised me to be; that was the whole reason I needed to make it up to her for ruining her life. But she was convinced… She… 

She’d chosen this. She’d chosen to be my mom instead of just my sister.

Just like how I was choosing to be someone who manipulated women for my own personal and financial gain. 

Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit-

“You’re spiralling, lad,” Kira said. “I can see it on your face. Look, I… I’m sorry for snapping at you-”

“Don’t be. I deserve it,” I confessed. 

She sighed, then pulled the car back into drive and got back onto the road. “Just… Tell me one thing. If you hadn’t been told to seduce this girl to humiliate her, would you have ever gone out with her in the first place.”

“Yes,” I said immediately. “She’s witty, and goofy, and nerdy, and ambitious, and fucking beautiful, and… Soft, underneath it all. In a way I really like. I did everything in my power to avoid letting it get like this, because I knew I was gonna take one look at her and… But then Randall told me that if I didn’t go for her, then he would. And you know that would be a million times worse.”

For the first time that night, a smile appeared on Kira’s face, black-painted lips twitching upwards. “Well shit,” she twanged. “That just makes it even more fucked up, now doesn’t it?”

“How does that-”

“Because she wants something from you too. When I was doing her makeup last night, she asked a million fucking questions about you, but at no point did she ask what kind of girls you liked, at no point did she ask about your dating history, at no point did she ask how she might impress you. She’s up to something. And that doesn’t make what you were doing okay, but once again, that’s a two-way street.”

Now it was my turn for a white-knuckled grip, this one around the glove compartment handle. “So then what should I do?”

The shop where Alicia worked, Kendrick’s Comics, came into view up the street. Kira pulled into a parking spot at the corner. “Put the ball in her court. Tell her the truth. See what happens. Take it from there.”

I nodded. “Thank you. And I’m sorry for… For being a disappointment.”

She put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re not a disappointment. You just did something I found disappointing. Now go make it right. Be the person I know you are, no matter how much you think that’s not you. Go.”

I nodded again. 

She hugged me.

“I love you, Ma,” I said quietly.

“Love you too, lad. Now go make good choices.”

With one final nod, I bid my sister adieu and headed towards the shop. 

Inside, I found three people, and none of them were Alicia: a teenage boy, black with a modest afro and a boxy frame; a guy around my age, with auburn hair and light brown skin, just shy of six feet tall and thin as a rail; and a baby in a sling on the skinny guy’s chest, a little white kid with blue eyes and a shock of blonde hair. He bounced up and down and hummed while the baby happily gurgled and pawed at his face. The black kid had a clipboard and was evidently taking inventory throughout the shop.

“Uh, hi?” I said.

“Hello there!” the guy with the baby said. “Welcome to Kendrick’s Comics. Name’s Eli. We’re about to close, but if you need help looking for something, I can probably help you find it before we lock up.”

“Uh, I’m actually looking for someone,” I said. “One of your employees, I think. Alicia Hernandez. I was supposed to meet her here so we can go get dinner. Is she in the back, maybe?”

“We don’t really go around giving out information on employees to randos,” the kid said, not looking up from his clipboard as he migrated further into the back of the shop. 

“Reggie,” Eli said with a warning tone. “What did I tell you?”

Reggie sighed. “Don’t be a dick to potential customers?”

“There you go,” Eli said with some affection. He turned back to me and said, “Yes, Alicia works here. And she did mention having a date tonight. What’s your name?”

“Caden Monroe,” I said, walking closer to the glass counter where the young man and his baby stood. I showed him my driver’s license, just so he could be doubly sure. 

“That’s the name she told us,” Eli said. 

The baby looked over at me with huge, wonder-filled eyes. I smiled a little bit. “Who’s this little guy? He your kid?”

“My fiance’s little brother, technically,” Eli said, looking down at the baby with a level of affection my own father had been unable to show at any point. “But for practical purposes, yeah, this is my son, Michael.”
“Good for you,” I nodded. “So, uh, Alicia-”

“You actually just missed her,” Eli said. “Said something about wanting to meet you at the restaurant. It was weird- my girl was gonna come help her with her makeup, but then she took off before Samantha could get here. Did she not text you or anything?”

“No, she didn’t,” I said. “I’ll go over to the restaurant, I guess. Thanks for the help.”

“Come back soon!” Eli said, raising Michael’s hand so he could wave good-bye to me. 

This was weird, but maybe still explicable. I held down the rising surge of dread, worse than when Kira was dressing me down after I told her the truth, and hurried down the street towards the sushi place. I opened the door and asked if a girl with Alicia’s description had come in yet. The host, a surly teenager who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else, said no, and that if I wasn’t gonna ask for a table I should leave to make room for people who actually wanted to be there. 

My eyes scanned the place, desperately searching for a trace of her as the surge broke free of my self-imposed ceiling and nearly overtook me. I couldn’t find her. But I could see Randall. I saw his profile seated in a far corner, eating sushi with a fork like an asshole, while across from him was…

Oh, God. Oh God fucking dammit. 

Across from him was a platinum blonde with a tan that didn’t look natural, face caked in makeup, fake pearls dangling from her earlobes and hanging over her neck. Deandra ‘Dixie’ Evans. Randall’s girlfriend. Randall’s girlfriend who’d been at the party the other night.  Randall’s girlfriend who was the entire reason I was in this mess in the first place. 

Alicia had told me some ‘bleach-blonde southern-fried bitch’ had been the one harassing her the other night, and… 

And… 

The synapses in my brain finally connected. 

The candles all lit at once, lighting a fire inside me that caused my blood to boil. 

I marched past the protesting host and went straight over the table, fists balled and teeth grinding. Fire burned under my skin, and when I pictured the waterfall running over me to drown it out, it just floated away as steam before it could even make contact. 

I stood in front of the table. “Where is she?”
“Good evening to you too, Cad,” Randall said without looking up. 

“I said-”

“You will greet your superior properly, or you will not be addressed any further.”

I growled out, “Big Dog, sir, how are you on this lovely evening?”

“Good boy,” Randall said. “And I was having a nice dinner with my woman until you arrived asking dumb questions. Thanks for asking.”

“Where’s who?” Dixie drawled. 

“His assignment, most likely.”

“Ugh, that fucking freak is here?”

“Evidently not.”

“We were supposed to get dinner here. But I found you two instead,” I said. Don’t hit him, don’t hit him, don’t hit him. “I have a hard time believing that’s a coincidence.”

“It’s probably not,” Randall said. 

“We haven’t seen him,” Dixie spat. 

“Dixie,” Randall said in an equally icy tone to the one he addressed me with.

“I told you not to call me that,” Dixie said, her accent growing thicker as her irritation bloomed.

“And I told you not to misgender Caden’s assignment. She’s not a male. Obviously.”

“Well he’s not a woman either.”

“Correct. She’s a female. Learn the difference,” Randall said with a roll of his eyes. Jesus fucking Christ, I guess some things really never changed. “You’re a woman. And she’s a female. I am a man. My brother is a male. And Caden is a boy.”

I half-expected to breathe smoke and spit embers. “I need to find her.”

“No you don’t,” Randall grunted. “You’re already treating her too well. She’ll get ideas.”

“‘She’ doesn’t deserve your attention anyway,” Dixie spat. Unsurprisingly, she was also eating sushi with a fork. 

“And who does, then?” I said. I’d taken a solemn vow never to hit a woman, once upon a time. Right then and there, I was reconsidering it.

“Whomever I decide,” Randall said. “Haven’t you learned that yet? Your actions are unnecessary- she’s already on the hook, and you should be keeping her there, not reeling her in. I swear it’s just in one ear out the other with you. Were you dropped on your head as a child?”

A memory tremored through me, shaking me right down to my atoms: my dad shoving me down the stairs. Fear began to strangle the fire inside me, fear for myself, fear for Alicia…  I needed to get out of here. I needed to find her. 

“I should go,” I said. 

“You should,” Randall agreed. “Spend some time alone. Think about how you conduct yourself around your assignment. Think about what’s important to you.”

“I will,” I said. And I would. But maybe not in the way he was thinking. 

I stormed out of the restaurant, hands in my pockets, calling Alicia twice and then texting her three times. This was bad. She could be alone and scared. She could have gotten hate-crimed, or worse: the government could have gotten her.

I called a rideshare and headed back to campus, resolving to spend the rest of the night looking for her. I needed to know she was safe. From the world. From Randall and Dixie. And from me. 

She needed to know the truth before this got any worse.