Something Like This (Secrets)

SOMETHING LIKE THIS

By Eileen Cruz Coleman

This book is dedicated to all those who are homeless. May you find a light that will guide you to warmth and safety. You are not invisible. You are not alone.

Something Like This

Jadie Santiago has a secret that she needs to tell someone. She hasn’t seen her father since she was sixteen years old.

Now twenty three years old, on her way to her new job at a literary agency one morning, she stops to offer a homeless man a bottle of water. Their eyes meet and Jadie realizes she’s staring into her father’s eyes. Unable to accept this reality, Jadie runs from her father and desperately attempts to lead a normal life.

But, then she meets Reece, an aspiring writer, with a dark past of his own, who is determined to win Jadie’s heart. Jadie wants nothing more but to surrender her heart to him, but her broken past, and her secret keeps her from doing so.

Despite her past, Jadie fiercely fights for her place in the world. She wants what so many other people have: love, happiness, friends, and a sense of belonging. Things won’t come easy to her, but one thing is for sure: she will never stop fighting.

Copyright © 2015 by Eileen Cruz Coleman

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Eileen Cruz Coleman.

CHAPTER ONE
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CHAPTER TWO
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CHAPTER THREE
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CHAPTER FOUR
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CHAPTER FIVE
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CHAPTER SIX
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CHAPTER SEVEN
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CHAPTER EIGHT
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CHAPTER NINE
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CHAPTER TEN
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
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CHAPTER TWELVE
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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
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CHAPTER NINETEEN
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CHAPTER TWENTY
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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
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Stay in touch
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Thank you for reading.
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I
have a secret and I need to tell someone.

So it went something like this. I passed him every day on my way to and from work. He lived on the sidewalk under the train tracks. Sometimes, he was asleep, a stained blanket on his thin and frail body. Sometimes, he was awake and sitting against a concrete wall, his folded blanket at his side, glazed eyes staring at nothingness. Sometimes, I chose to walk on the other side of the street because I just couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t stand seeing him. And sometimes, when he wasn’t there, I felt my heart sink, wondering if he was okay, if he was hurt, if he had left me again, this time forever. Those were the worst days. I’d spend all day worried about him, feeling guilty, unable to close my mind to the dark thoughts that screamed I was a horrible, horrible person.

The next day, I’d get up earlier than usual, frantic, no coffee, no ironing my clothes, no combing my hair, and dart out of the apartment I shared with two other girls. I’d fly down the Metro escalator.

Once on the platform, I’d shove my way to the front and wait for the flashing lights, signaling an approaching train.
Come on, come on, stupid train
. There we stood, a crowd of commuters waiting to be whisked off.

In my most frantic moments, I’d often wonder what the people standing next to me or behind me were thinking. I wanted to ask them to let me take a peek inside, a small, quick glance at their souls.
Excuse me, mind if I ask you a question? Are you happy?
Ridiculous, I know.

The train’s doors would open and in the next few seconds we’d all be on our way, through a tunnel, entrusting our lives to the darkness that insisted it could lead us to light.

Ten minutes later, after dashing up the escalator, often nearly tripping over my own shoes, I’d be outside, transit police cars and breakfast food trucks parked along the street, musicians singing, playing the trumpet, drums, and dancing, hoping commuters rewarded their performance, community organizers passing out pamphlets politely insisting we join their cause.

Just half a block from him now. Cross the street and pray he’s there.
Taking a deep breath, I’d walk slowly, squinting, afraid to fully open my eyes.
Let him be there. Please, let him be there.
Catching a glimpse of his blanket, I’d increase my pace.
Okay, all is well. He’s there. He’s there. Thank you, God.

I’d walk by him, a ghost from his past and now his present. I should have held his hand and told him who I was and that all would be well now that I was here. But, I wasn’t ready. On the days when he was asleep, I’d place a bag filled with food—fruit, nuts, bread, and peanut butter on the sidewalk next to him. A few times I even left him money, ten dollars, sometimes twenty, anything I could spare.

My father was homeless. And I had not yet figured out how to talk to him. I had not quite figured out my life at all. I walked among the living in DC, an imposter in a zombie’s body. Sipping coffee, getting dressed every day, smiling at my coworkers,
saying yes, will do
to my boss, buying plantains and yucca from the local bodega, paying bills, ordering takeout and hiding underneath my covers at night, fighting demons fixated on drowning my soul.

***

T
he last time I saw my father I was sixteen years old. Sifting through paint colors at Sears, I remember being determined to pick out the right color for my bedroom, one that would express happiness and emptiness and a desire to succeed. Sounds absurd to me now. I had settled on purple. With a paint swatch in hand, I walked to the paint customer service station. There he was, talking to a customer service rep, a can of paint in one hand, a paint roller in the other. My father, the man who had dropped out of my life when I was twelve.

Maybe it was because I refused to call him “papi” or maybe it was because I could never look him straight in the eye whenever he’d visit. Maybe it was because I’d hang up on him whenever he called. Or maybe it was because I never said anything whenever he’d tell me he was American just like me because he was born in Puerto Rico and so that made us the same. I may never know the reason why one day, he stopped trying to see me. No matter, he was in front of me now, staring at me.

I managed a smile. He did, too. I wanted to hug him. I didn’t move. Just stood there with what I was sure was the most ridiculous expression on my face.

“How have you been?” he asked.

I wanted to tell him I was doing great, that I was a junior in high school and getting decent grades and that I was working part time at a Taco Bell after school so I could save enough money for community college. And that I was writing short stories and that one of them had won third place in a writing contest. I wanted to tell him that I had missed him and that I was so sorry for the way I had treated him. But I didn’t say any of those things.

Instead I said, “I live by myself. And I have a kid.” I lied.

He looked down at his feet, then at me, then at his feet again.

“Can I call you?” he asked once he returned his gaze to me.

I had forgotten how much I looked like him. Same pug nose, same caramel hair, and same melancholy expression. He couldn’t have denied I was his daughter had he wanted.

“No. I don’t have a phone. Can’t afford one.” I suppressed tears and curse words.

He set the paint roller and can of paint on the station counter. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. “How much money do you need?”

“I don’t need any. I’m tough. I’ll make it on my own.” I thought my heart was going to jump right out of my chest, hit him in the face, and then fall to the floor in front of him.
Go ahead, step on it, crush it, I don’t care.

“Take it.” He held out money in front of me.

“I hate you.” I didn’t take his money.

“Jadie,” he whispered, “I’m sorry I left you. I didn’t want to.”

“Oh yeah, well, it didn’t hurt. You didn’t hurt me.” I swiped strands of hair away from my face.

“I never stopped thinking about you. You’re my kid.”

I cleared my throat. “Yeah, well, like I said, you didn’t hurt me.”

“May I borrow a pen?” he asked the customer service rep who was now helping another customer.

The rep reached for a pen and handed it to him.

He pulled a card from his wallet and wrote on the back of it. “Here. Call me whenever you want. I want to help you.”

You didn’t hurt me.

Biting my lip and resisting the part of me that wanted to spit in his face, I took the card. “I’ll never call you.” I turned and walked away, tears streaming down my face.

I knew he was watching me go. Why didn’t he come after me? He should have begged me for forgiveness. He should have done something...said something, anything that would have let me know he cared...he loved me...and that he would never leave me again. But he did nothing.

I never told anyone about that day, I even kept it from Mami. She didn’t deserve to know. She didn’t deserve to tell me how she had always been right. How he was a coward, a loser, and how she had stayed despite it all, she had stayed because she truly loved me. She didn’t deserve to break my heart again.

As I fell asleep that night, I whispered, “Papi, you didn’t hurt me. I hope I hurt you.”

I threw the card in the trash. And I never painted my room purple.

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T
he next time I saw him was seven years later, on my first day at a new job. I was twenty-three and had finally landed a new job, one with growth potential, the human resources person had said when she had called at exactly four in the afternoon on a Friday, to tell me that the boss, a pudgy man with black curly hair had made a decision and I was it. I was the person he had selected to be his new assistant. A nine-to-five job, scheduling meetings, answering phones, and filing. I was thrilled.