Alright, so I wrote the following letter to a friend of mine. Someone who has been a friend for a long time and I thought might be able to help. Maybe you guys can help too, maybe not. Essentially, ignore all of the names.
Lauren,
I need to talk to you. I don’t know who else to talk to this about, to tell you the truth. I could pick my other friends, but sometimes it is really hard to talk to them about more serious matters. Things that aren’t related to girls, heh. It might even be better if I did talk to them. I know they could handle it: real life issues that is. But somehow I hope that you’ll be able to help a bit more than they will be able to. I really don’t even know if there is anything to help. I just need someone to talk to, or maybe I just need to write this all out. Who knows, maybe I won’t even send it to you in the end. Anyway, don’t tell anyone, etc. And this is serious. Not a single person. I just don’t even want to have to risk dealing with it in school, as it is hard enough for me to deal with it while I am on vacation. Looking at your Facebook, I don’t want to send it to you. My life and your life are separate things. As far as I can tell, you’re having a great time, so I might as well leave you be.
All right, here goes. For the past couple months, I have had the odd feeling that something was up with my father. He and my mother fight often. Generally a couple minutes of screaming and yelling, one of them bitches to me at some point, generally while we are in the car going somewhere, and then that is over. That has always been a part of my life. But my father started acting differently. My mother was on a cruise in the Mediterranean, and my father went to our house in St. Croix. Then he came back, and he told me, awhile ago, probably when the whole Caitlin thing was starting, that he was in “a bunch of shit”, and that he couldn’t tell me what it was. I generally kind of blew it off, hoping that it would go away. Later he asked me how to say “Hello” to someone that you are romantically involved with, in Spanish. Then I really thought something was up. I mean, my mother was coming home in a few days, and I was sincerely hoping that he was writing some sort of letter or some type of note. I left it at that, desperately hoping that that was what he was doing.
He continued to tell me that shit was up for the next month or so. He was telling me a bunch that he only felt good here in the Carribean, that he didn’t like getting old, etc. There were a lot of clues that he was cheating on my mother. He came down to the Carribean twice in a month, and now he plans to go down again with Ross, a buddy of his from Kansas, in January. I honestly do not believe that Ross would like to come down here, to tell you the truth. He is a hunter-farmer, for life. So “they” are coming down.
Anyway, Sunday or so, I decided to start writing my essay – which is due when I get back on Monday – over the Scarlet Letter. I asked for my Dad’s laptop, and he let me have it. I was curious to know what was up, so I checked in his computer. I found various files, one which was titled “Thanksgiving”. It is essentially a letter detailing every day of this vacation, written to a woman named Heidi Mendoza. Another one is entitled Heidi, written to an old female friend or an ex-girlfriend of about thirty years ago, somewhat touching on said affair. I even approached my father about it, saying that I hadn’t looked at anything in his computer (a lie, obviously). He said that nothing was as it seemed.
I happened to find his wallet later. I looked in it, finding contact information for said woman. I again approached him about it. This time, he said that she was a Spanish gunmaker’s secretary, and he was merely schmoozing her, for some reason or another. Cheap guns, perhaps? I don’t know. I am almost completely certain that it was a load of bullshit.
The internet has been out for a couple days. It appears as though the return of the it has been my father’s safe haven. He wrote something in his letter about how it was going to be so great that he would be able to contact this… Heidi woman again.
I looked in his Recycle Bin, and I found an album of photos. Most of them compose of Miss Mendoza naked within the very house in St. Croix that I write this in now. The bed stands about twenty feet from me, through a wall.
And here I am. I honestly have no idea what to do Lauren. This is my life, and I could honestly **** it up right now. I could tell my mother, and it would ruin her (or so I think). It would ruin my sister Rebecca for sure. Finally, it would **** my life up. The thing is, it is my parents who are paying for college. So I have to let my dad cheat on not only his own wife, but his entire family? That doesn’t seem right. It would **** up my own life. The worst part is, my father has lied to me. He has pulled this bullshit, again and again. He always taught me not to lie, and now even that teaching seems like a bunch of bullshit in the end.
He said that he wanted to be a better father to me the other day. I don’t know how he can be a worse one now. It would even be different if he told me the truth from the start. It wouldn’t make it any more appropriate, but I would be less mad at him in the end. It’s a bunch of ****ing bullshit. I hate cheaters. I despise them. The time you cheated on Carl? Well, Carl is probably the best thing that has ever happened to you. He has made you incredibly happy. I wanted to strangle you for it, even though it isn’t my life, nor my business in the first place. And now I don’t know what to do.
I’m essentially falling apart. I don’t want my family to fall apart. I don’t want my chances at getting someone to pay for college to fall apart. I am not in an income bracket that will ever get financial aid. Especially now. Look at the economy: ****ed. I JUST DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO!