Lies Of The Past

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The pain flashed through Andrei's eyes, and she thought, 'Ah, it hit home.' He tried to blink away the pain and covered it with another sarcastic remark, but they've been friends since forever.

They shared scars with each other that never seemed to heal. The scar of disappointing their respective mothers.

A decade may pass, even a millennial, but a mother's disappointed eyes as she slowly shakes her head in surrender will always hurt no matter how many years have passed.

A mother's wrath was easy to handle. An occasional beating will always be better than the soft look of dismay silently mocking how you were wrongly raised, and you were now beyond redemption.

A married child - is a mother's end goal in raising a human being.

Which she and Andrei broke in the most scandalous possible way. Their excuse? It was fun and a good way to get even to their overbearing mothers.

They were young and stupid. They had no idea of the consequences of their actions. They thought it was nothing but some wasted time and money. Until their mothers looked at them in the eyes with a chilly gaze of disappointment.

It was too late to say sorry.

There were already too many people involved with their lies. Sorry, can no longer patch things back. At that time they thought the only way to go through was to continue the lie, I mean, they were taught to own up their mistakes, right?

And they did owe their mistake hard and good. They owed it too much until now their parents never learned the truth!

After so many years, their mother still had no idea of what happened in the summer engagement they had when they were in their early twenties. Because when they realized the shame and hurt their little lie caused, they cowardly attempted to cover it up with the pretext of youth and ignorance.

And here they are, supposedly a mature adult. Equip with the wisdom of their mistake, and yet, they were nothing but scared kids under their mother's watchful eyes. Until now, they only offered a half-hearted apology, and the truth of their broken engagement had never been brought to light.

"You never came here to see me in my miserable state are you, Andrei? You are here because you are miserable."

He got on her bed and leaned against the wall below her window. He kept on twisting his fingers in his lap.

"Laurie, I am happy," he muttered under his breath like he was trying to convince himself with the words he just said.

She kept her mouth shut and watched Andrei painfully stumble around his feelings.

"Truly I am," he repeated the words as though the first one wasn't heard in the four corners of her narrow bedroom.

He leaned his head in the window ledge and kept his eyes cast on the metal bars of the window. Sitting down on the soft futon, he feels like he was a prisoner of his life choices.

"Should we tell our mothers the truth?" he gently asked after a long stretch of silence.

"I don't need redemption from that past mistake, Andrei. If you need it, I can sit down with you in front of your mother. After all, I went through that plan and had my shares of the deceit."

"You don't feel like you need to apologize to your mother about what we did?"

"Why are you so surprised that I don't feel like I need to apologize? I don't need to ask for an apology because I already did!"

"You told your mother the truth?" he asked in a hushed tone.

"I did -- I was drunk!" she quickly added when she saw the betrayal in Andrei's eyes. "I was so drunk and guilty as hell. We were having our usual fight…"

Andrei pulled his legs to his chest and hugged his knees, "So, it was just me?" he said in a tone barely audible.

"Stop it!" she kicked his side when he started acting like he was betrayed. "We didn't agree that I can't tell my mother the truth!"

"But still --"

"Stop being such a pussy, Andrei Mark! We both know that's not what you came here for."

He simply heaved a deep sigh and stared at her cabinet door.

"I drank too much last night, Andrei. I don't have all have what it takes to be a good listener to your woes right now. How long will you stay here in Japan?"

She changed the approach for her annoyance fueled by a throbbing headache, queasy stomach, hunger, not enough sleep, and too much drama as soon as she woke up were extremely bad combinations.

All the things mentioned above were the ingredients that would unleash the monstrous Laurie, that nobody would want to see.

"I'm going back to Barcelona. I had a six days layover here."

"Good! We have enough time to talk out whatever that is that you wanted to talk about," she rolled to the right side of the bed to get up. She grabbed a scrunchie on her tiny nightstand, tied her hair up, and made her way out of the bedroom for the bathroom.

Andrei remained like a statue on her bed as she went out of her room to go to the common washroom next to her room.

"Andrei, you are going to buy the wine!" she yelled from the bathroom, as she splashed her face with cold water.

She didn't hear any reply.

She heaved a deep sigh as she straightened her back to look at her reflection on the mirror above the sink.

She grabbed her toothbrush and put a pea size mint toothpaste on it. She stared at her image in the mirror looking back at her as she vigorously brushed her teeth.

Once satisfied, she spat the toothpaste bubbles on the sink. Opened the faucet and gargle water to clean her mouth.

As she was wiping her mouth with the hand towel, she smirked at her image, "Your mother's disappointment runs deep. No marriage could save you."