The second-hand table

Her desk was grubby at first, with drawers that constantly got jammed, a dirty surface with drawings and carvings made from pen-knives, and a leg that was a bit too short, causing the whole thing to wobble. Her mother stood by the desk’s purchase, finding it at a random yard sale for about 5 dollars (“with a little fixing, this desk will be even better than new!” he said. “Hmm, it’ll take a lot of fixing,” she mused. “Trust me, darling, it’s cheaper to fix this up than buy a new desk for your little girl. It’s a lucky table, too; my daughter used it and now she’s a straight-A student at Harvard!” she bought it immediately). 

She used her ink-stained, carved desk; she found the perfect distraction to her studies in the designs left by previous users, in the twists and turns of Superman S’s, of curse words carved onto the underside, of drawings of outfits and hairstyles, and of signatures scrawled beside each design, marking a work of art. She loved to run her hands over the carved drawings, or trace them over a piece of paper and rework them into something new; she spent hours drawing, her journal filled with her thoughts and her artwork, competing for space on the page. 

It also meant that her focus was less than ideal, and in an attempt to spruce up the apartment - and institute a sense of change and growth into their lives - her mother dragged her desk away, promising a much cleaner version. She resorted to flipping through her journals, reminiscing about the names carved onto the desk, and who those people could have been.

Her mother spent hours in the small garage, working with the tools her own father left behind; sanding the table to get rid of the carvings, sawing the legs off to even them out, painting the entire table a soft, eggshell white, and oiling all the drawers. The bottom drawer was impossible to open; she shrugged it off and pushed it into her daughter’s room. 

On the first day, she got her desk back, a fight erupted between her and her neighbor, a boy who used condescension as an ice-breaker; the fight devolved into punches and kicks, and she hurled a rock from the garden at her neighbor’s head. The boy hit the pavement, head bleeding and unconscious, and she waited a bit too long to run to the neighbor’s house, report the accident, and call for help. 

That night, she does what she always did when she felt bad - she wrote a letter to herself, detailing the event and her feelings. She vomited her anguish and guilt onto the page, folded it neatly, and opened the bottom drawer to drop it in. She burned the letters at regular intervals, the act of writing and burning akin to going to a confessional. The bottom drawer opened smoothly at her touch, and she drops the letter in, sealing her memories away. 

The next time she opened the drawer, it’s to drop in another letter; she fought with her mother, and in a fit of anger, goes through her mother’s phone, taking note of illicit conversations her mother has with the manager, the family’s finances, and the surprising fact that every month, money comes in from a mysterious source. When she opened the drawer, her first letter was gone - the drawer was clean and empty. She panics, wondering if her mother would go through her things - no, her mother was an intensely private person and treated her daughter fairly. 

Where could it go? The disappearance stayed on her mind for months, keeping an eye on her neighbor’s parents and their behavior towards her. Did they know? Were they biding their time with her, waiting for her to break before they came forward with her confession? 

The third time she opens the drawer, it’s to put an object in - a single, bloody tooth. Her senior prom ended badly, and though her boyfriend promised a night in, well, what he defined as heaven, he chickened out at the last moment, and things got...difficult. Her letter was, once again, gone. She tiptoed around the house, waiting for the other shoe to drop with her mother. It never did. 

She took that desk with her to her first apartment, a few kilometers from campus. She found herself missing that desk when she first moved in; her body had gotten used to bending over the desk, and it felt warm and good under her hands once more. She opened the drawer to find that the bloody tooth had disappeared, too. She shrugged, too busy and distracted to wonder where a simple tooth had gone. 

She dropped her next letter in, after breaking into her professor’s office to get an answer key for the exams over the semester. She was eager to prove herself to her mother, but not eager enough to actually study for the entire semester. Having an answer key actually helped her understand the concepts taught in class, and gave her more time - and more flexibility - with her studies. 

The pattern continued, the desk absolving her of guilt and remorse, and she found herself enjoying the way her life turned out. After a rough relationship, she used his laptop and torched an ex-boyfriend’s chances at a prestigious law firm, and later got the position herself. She blackmailed her boss after discovering a furtive relationship between him and his paralegal, a young, 20-year old man who’s interning at the firm. 

She dropped her second-to-last letter after one particularly horrible night. She lost the client’s case and the client was now suing her, her career looked like it was over before it even began, and she had gotten into a fight with her best friend over - get this - a boy. She felt like she was 16 and helpless, and drinking didn’t seem to alleviate the problem. She staggered to her car, having had a drink too many, before deciding to walk or catch a cab on the way home. She walked drunkenly on the side of the road, alternating between asphalt and pavement, often swerving dangerously to either side. Bright car lights approached from behind, and in a moment of sheer drunken stupidity and loss of balance, she steps in front of the car. The car swerves hard to avoid her and hits a low concrete barrier that causes the car to flip over. She stands there, frozen, ridiculously sober, and awake. She runs (in a straight line, might I add) to the car, pulling the - oh God, not alive, no one can be alive with their head turned like that - body out of the car, before dropping him. The client’s son. He was young, probably taking this car for a joyride, and she stood still, calculating her options. The client was a powerful man, an angry man, and would definitely have her head for this. She sees the shape of a phone in his pocket and reaches for it. Miraculously, the phone is functional. She calls 911, provides a vague description and address of the accident, drops the phone, and heads home, taking as many shortcuts as possible. 

She dropped her last letter a few days after that event after the client dropped the lawsuit against her because he was in mourning, after her career surprisingly bounced back, and after they found drugs in the boy’s bloodstream. A few sleepless nights of whether they’ll know she was there - after all, her car was at the bar overnight, so it’s not unreasonable to assume that she walked - she decided to fix the problem. A quick syringe of heroin, a quick flirt with the technician at the morgue, and she was able to ensure that the toxicology reports after the autopsy painted the dead man as a drug-fuelled addict and responsible for his own demise. 

She stopped opening the bottom drawer after that - she found herself in dubious situations less and less, her sense of guilt and remorse stayed quiet, and soon, she stopped opening that drawer altogether. 

She rose through the ranks, and the empty drawer rarely crossed her mind. She found herself thinking of it on some nights, an empty calling to a time when she knew she had hurt others, but couldn’t help herself. She felt better now, her life felt good and normal; that desk continued to provide a sense of stability, and she grew happy. She found someone, someone she could truly love and build a future with. The day she bought an engagement ring for her lover, the day she was ready to open the next chapter, to start a family, to save for a house with a backyard and a dog, she got a call from her mother. 

“Yeah, mom? What is it?”

“You know how I’ve started thrifting furniture to fix them up and sell them again?” her mother asked. A retirement hobby, her mother enjoys carpentry and takes to fixing old tables, chairs, and other woodwork to resell them at a higher price. She doesn’t make much money, but it’s an enjoyable hobby. 

“Do you remember the house I got your desk from? The one with the janky bottom drawer? Honestly, I don’t know why you still use that, you’ve really outgrown it. Anyway, the house opposite just had a yard sale, and I found a gorgeous desk out on the lawn. I bought it and spent the weekend fixing it up, and I just opened the bottom drawer, and there was a letter inside. Get this, the handwriting is so similar to yours when you were younger - it reminded me of you. It’s quite ghastly, actually; the writer confesses to hurting their neighbor -”

She dropped the phone; her foot cut the call as she ran out.