Truth Or Dream

She leaned against the lonely tree on the hill, bathed in its shade, looking down at the skinny man laying on the ground. In profile, the shape of his face carried echoes of her family, though he wore stained jeans and a leather vest. Skyla rotated her jaw, trying to loosen the persistent ache. To no effect. “Sorry about your dad,” she said.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” An edge to her voice, more irritation at her shitty opening than his response.

He sighed, eyes closed against the sunlight. “Your grandpa used to say Ask the questions you want or for the ANSWERS you want, but don’t expect them to line up.”

“Shitty thing for a dad to say.”

“What does yours say?”

She scowled. “In a family of assholes, there’s no prize for being the biggest.”

“Cute. Here’s more familial wisdom from your grandmother. A family has two stories: the truth and the dream. You can only hold one.”

She chewed on that. “Shitty thing for a mom to say.”

“What does-”

“Mine says if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

“What a quiet place the world would be. Some of the cruellest things I’ve heard were the subtext to something polite. How does her rule apply to that?”

“Its not a rule.”

“Right.”

She pushed off from the tree. Bark hooked at her black expensive blouse. Heard it rip and didn’t care. “I got the hint. You don’t want to talk.”

“More like you don’t want to hear.”

“Way to be a prick to your niece on the day of her grandfather’s funeral.”

Fred’s eyes opened. His words made her shudder. “He was my father. That was the wrong card to play.”

Shame painted red up her neck. She stretched her aching jaw then loomed over him, arms crossed, sun at her back. He didn’t squint against the light or look away, pupils like needles. It killed the biting remark in her throat. Froze her in place.

“You look like Robert from this angle,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“Do you want a specific answer or the real answer? Truth or the dream?”

“This bullshit doesn’t make you sound enlightened. It makes you an ass.”

He sat up and stood in one smooth motion, like a cat. She backed away. “Now you sound like him.” His eyes tracked her as he sidled to the tree. “Be careful.”

She swallowed the acidic fear gurgling in back of her throat. “Careful of what?”

“Questions can kill the dream.”

“Fuck your dream shit.”

He smiled. It was warm and genuine. She couldn’t resist smiling back. “Now you sound like me.”

“Dad hates you, you know.”

“Probably.”

It didn’t bother him. Skyla realized she’d wanted it to.

“Your grandpa hated us both.”

That stung and she didn’t know why. “He loved us.”

“He loved you. Your dad got some of the splashback.”

“Shitty thing for a son to say.”

“Are we going to pretend what you’re saying aren’t shitty, or can we skip straight to accepting it?” He grinned at the sky. “My dad died today.”

“Can’t use that,” She sniped. “You obviously didn’t care about him.”

His eyes snapped back to her with that dead predator gleam. “I loved him. He didn’t love us.”

“You don’t act like it.”

He rubbed his eyes. “This game is why I stopped visiting. I don’t play it. Robert does. He likes the Dream. I prefer the Truth. I won’t be bullied into pretending and yall won’t stop trying. So Skyla, my precious niece, kindly make a fucking choice so I know if we’re kindred spirits or if I should head home.”

A range of responses popped into her head. Fuck you; You’re an arrogant piece of shit; You’re not the only one who matters. Heard theml in her dad’s voice. None in her grandfather’s. Other responses followed. I hope you can heal from this; You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead; It’

s in the past; We should move on. Those sounded like her mother.

“It’s hard,” he said, voice soft. “You feel it: Nurture from your parents fighting that unacknowledged nature. Closest I ever came to enlightenment was figuring out compatibility with someone is an alignment of core desires. To pursue the grit of truth or live the soft dream. Your parents both love to dream. Edie, my partner, she is tenacious. If something matters to her, she won’t stop till she knows the truth. It’s why I asked her to stay behind, but I miss her every minute apart.” He took out his phone and pulled up some pictures.

Skyla leaned in. Fred was a tall man, yet the woman towered over him with a high fade haircut and tattoos up her neck. She winked at the camera, tongue jutting from a wide grin. His smile was sheepish, genuine, and vulnerable. A tightness spread through her chest. She’d never seen her parents smile like that.

“She looks nice.”

“She’s rough at the edges,” he said. That vulnerable smile cut his face even as he stared at the picture. “I love everything about her. Including the reality that if I brought her here, she’d have gotten into it with your parents. I can walk away. She never does.”

“That’s badass.”

“She is, through and through.” He took the phone away. His face a stone mask. “I left the funeral early. Walked five miles to get here. Never have before. Your dad wouldn’t know which means neither did you. So you followed me. Waited long enough so I’d think you had come straight from the service.”

Skyla was sweating. Not from the heat. Every excuse that came to mind felt childish. Her mind scrambled. Grabbed for anything and caught nothing, leaving her mouth hanging open.

“I came here for the funeral, not to make you feel shitty,” he continued. “I’m ready to go home. But. If you followed me for something, you have right now to ask. Im not going to spar with you anymore. Did that enough when he was my brother.”

“He still is.”

“No. He chose not to. Just as he chose to be your dad.”

“They’re not mutually exclusive.”

“They didn’t have to be. He chose this.”

Skyla uncrossed her arms and stomped her foot, letting out a beastial growl that made her jaw click. However childish it must have looked, letting the frustration out felt good. “Fuck off with this choices bullshit. It’s a two way street.”

“Thats right,” he snapped. Anger transformed his face, twisting the muscles, shadows deepening like the bones themselves shifted. Trick of the light she told herself as he growled at her. “We both made our choices and we haven’t bothered each other about it. Lines have been drawn in the sand and respected. Until you.” He shoved a finger in her face. She slapped it away. “Ask. Or. Leave.”

She chewed her lip. Waited. Partly to punish him. He wouldn’t leave. He’d feel guilty. Ashamed. People put up with all kinds of shit because-

“Bye, Skyla.” He turned and marched down the hill.

She waited…

He reached the bottom of the hill.

…and waited…

He reached the street.

…and waited…

He never slowed. Never looked back. She watched him march down the sidewalk. If he reached the intersection she’d lose sight of him. So she sprinted, stumbling down the hill, pinwheeling her arms for balance. Almost faceplanted. A group of young men were playing frisbee in the opposite direction. She tried to outrun the emberassment.

Fred reached the intersection and crossed without slowing, headed towards the next hill and the dark tunnel burrowing through it. She paused long enough to take her shoes off, the modest heels hurting her ankles. Then sprinted. Skyla wasn’t in track but the coach tried recruiting her every week. She was fast. Genetics. Her dad called it The gazelle genes. Her grandad had called it something else.

Predator blood.

He disappeared into the dark of the tunnel. It was a long walk to the other side. She reached the entrance a minute later, entering at a full sprint.

Dark swallowed her. Damp assaulted her nose. The sudden chill disoriented her. She blinked away the fuzzyness that crawled at the edge of her vision. The dark coelsced into shapes, outlines of objects beneath a satin sheet.

One shape stood against the wall. Human. It stepped out before she could react, pushed her against the wall. She tried to shout but an arm barred over her throat. She tried to kick: a hip pressed against her midsection. She tried to flail, hit, claw: both wrists were caught in the assailants free hand and pinned to her collarbone.

The hushed voice of her uncle slid from the shadow. “You didn’t ask. You didn’t respect my decision. Now, you will hear this.” The pressure on her neck eased a fraction. “If you scream, I will stop you. Run and I will catch you. But I won’t hurt you.”

The arm barring her air relaxed. She thought about screaming, but spat in his face instead. He didn’t flinch, letting the glob slide down his cheek. “You’re hurting me.”

His expression didn’t change. “Is physical pain what matters? But you take all the verbal swings you want, consequence free?”

She sneered.

“My brother and I grew up different. Mother taught us love. Compassion. Father taught us survival. When we were children, seven for me, six for him, we asked our parents if we were difficult babies. Mom said all babies are a challenge. Parents need time to themselves. I protected you by taking break for myself. Dad though? Never wanted kids but never shirked my duties either. Kept you fed and clean when your ma needed a break. But you’d get on my nerves. Need to let the Dark out sometimes. I’d never hurt you, but put your faces in my mouth. Think about biting. Never would, but needed to let that side breathe. That’s how I kept you safe.”

The silence between them stretched. Something scurried in the dark of the tunnel. Smelled like a rat. Skyla said the only thing that came to mind. “What the fuck?”

Fred stepped back. “He repeated that a few times, over the years. When we’d bring it up. Robert would say it like a joke; Can you believe I thought you said this? I said it for clarification; Why did you say this? He had the same answer.” Fred’s voice lowered, rolling throught he tunnel. “Cause it’s true.”

“Why?” she tried to swallow but her jaw hurt. Fear swelled in her chest. “Why would he do that?”

Her uncle took another step back. “Our family didn’t run from the old country because we were persecuted, or afraid. We came here because it would be easier hunting. Your great great grandfather had an appetite. In a place where different stories and foreign legends blended together, it was easy to hide in the open. But when bodies show up with bloody ruin for faces, they start with blaming the outsiders. He was too new, caught blame early. Mob justice left him beaten and hung in the deep woods before they had any evidence. His family fled. Changed their names to escape any stigma. His wife taught their son to hide who he was, suppress his cravings. He did. For a while. Had his own family. A life. Career.The urges grew. Became harder to ignore. Attacked his family. My grandfather had to put down his own father.”

Fred’s laugh was more a scoff.

“In his turn, he taught our dad to accept the urges were there. Taste the water he’d say but don’t drink deep.”

“Bullshit.” Skyla’s voice echoed in the tunnel, sounding more sarcastic and mocking the deeper it traveled.

He shrugged. “They had pets. Practiced with them. When things got really bad, they’d go camping. Never brought food. Came back days later, well fed.”

She wanted to shake her head. Scream. Deny. But her jaw hurt from clenching and grinding her teeth. A habit from her dad. Genetic. It would be easy to dismiss this as the ravings an unwell family member. Go back to her life. Pretend everything was normal. But that was the thing. It had always felt like they were just pretending things were normal.

When she didn’t speak, he kept going. “When the old man died, our dad decided the truth would come out on its own and he’d lean into it. Not saying it was the best decision, but it wasn’t the worst. If you haven’t figured this out, the best lesson I can pass to you is this: you can only do the best you can, but people will choose how they want to react. You can’t control that. There is no perfect approach. No magic combination of words. Countless ways to tell the truth and many more ways to ignore it. But once its out, however it came out, people will make their choice. Don’t blame yourself too much if someone takes it bad.” He stepped a little closer. In the dark, he smelled like leather and sweat. His hands gripped her shoulders. She stiffened. “It won’t be your fault.”

He hugged her. It was tentative. Awkward. Earnest. It shattered her heart. She wept softly into his shoulder.

“I don’t want to be a face eating monster.”

He laughed, relaxed. It was hard not to laugh with him and she didn’t try to resist it. “We aren’t. The urges don’t make us who we are. How we handle them does. People choose to be monsters and monsters choose to be people. It’s not about denying. Its about accepting and finding ways to coexistd amicably. Sometimes that part of you just wants to be seen. Acknowledged. But if its going to hurt someone, then its our responsibility not to let it. It just is. WE just ARE. And that’s okay.”

They held each other in the dark tunnel for several minutes. The slap of approaching footsteps pulled them apart. A stranger grunted in surprise, only noticing the two of them standing there when they drew even. The person gasped and sprinted into the dark, the stink of their fear filling the space like acid.

Fred watched them disappear around a bend. “It get’s easier. But only if you work at it. You can’t work at it if you don’t know it’s there.” He shrugged. “I visited often when you were young. I tried to talk to you about it. Both your parents banned me from visiting after that. I always hoped to get a chance to try again and that you’d listen if I did.” He leaned against the opposite stone wall. “I hope it’s made a difference.”

“Two nights ago,” Skyla said, unaware she was going to share until it started pouring out. “I was with my boyfriend. We were uh…yeah. While he was sleeping I kept having this…urge. It made my jaw ache. Still does.”

He watched her. No judgment. No denial.

“I didn’t.”

“Talk to your parents?”

She scoffed. “You know how that would go.”

“I do.” He took a pamphlet from his back pocket. Her grandfather smiled on the cover. Fred scratched a phone number on it. “Call me any time you need to talk.”

She took it. Nodded thanks. When he turned to leave, the other pressure building in her chest erupted. “Why did grandpa have a closed casket?”

Stillness gripped his body, immediate and so perfect it seemed unnatural.

She purged the unease that had been sitting in her bones for a week, like lancing a boil. “Dad visited him. Grandpa passed the next day. Car accident and he’d been drinking. Dad waited back at the house.” Skyla couldn’t keep the pleading whine from voice. “Why would he stay at the house and let him drive drunk?”

Fred took a deep breath in and let it out slow. “Good excuse for a closed casket.”

There it was. The word stuck in her mind. Excuse. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse from a dry throat. “When dad called to let us know, he told me Grandpa never wanted an open casket. Car accident was a good excuse.”

His fists clenched. Then his jaw, the split of his mouth drawing into a frown so deep it cut into his neck. Not a trick of the dark. When he released, it was all at once, features sliding back. “When we learned to drive, dad said A car accident is a good excuse for a closed casket.” He saw the look on her face. “Wasn’t a warning about driving.”

The tunnel’s cool air chilled the tear trails on her cheeks. “What do I do?”

He sighed. “Might not be something you have to worry about. But keep watch. Lock your door at night.”

“And me?”

“Women were always stronger in our family. You might be fine. But Edie and I go hunting in a couple weeks. Yearly trip. You can come with.”

“She knows?”

His smile was warm. “She knows everything. I wasn’t going to hide who I was.”

“Truth instead of dream.”

He squeezed her shoulder. “Do it right and the truth can be the dream. Doesn’t work the other way, no matter how much we want it.”

She hugged him. Hadn’t planned to. It felt safer in the dark where no one could see.

“I regret that we don’t see each other more.”

“Always time to change that.” When she stepped back, Skyla wiped her cheeks dry. “I can’t wait to meet Edie.”

“She’s gonna love you.”

They exited the tunnel and went their separate ways. She returned to the funeral home to find both her parents furious that she’d run off. Skyla weathered the lecture. Took the comments about what it meant to be a “good” daughter without biting back, already thinking up excuses to get away in a couple weeks.