Lighter Gaslighter

This story contains mild references to mental health problems, suicide, substance abuse and domestic violence.

Fourth night of hiding away from my life at this gas station. Tomorrow it is a change of venue. The sizzle and uneven cogging sound of the hot-dog rollers and the absolute disharmony of the fridge compressors crushes souls here. The tables to sit on are a fucking stage for the headlights of cars seeking for temporary fulfillment just to become almost empty again.

My vision was abused by one of those halogen monsters again. Eyes adjusted again to the darkness outside. This car ruined my hideaway from life. The plate. I recognize it. It is the same car. Same owner?

I stared at her. Still a uniquely beautiful creature, a devil in the skin of a unicorn. Shit.

I started an intimate staring competition with my cold coffee, raised my shoulders as if they were some sort of magical camouflage. I lost my cover as I was startled as she walked in holding the hand of a child.

Then she walked over to my table and said to the girl, “Stay here with this bum looking man, while mom goes to the toilet. You understand?”

She didn’t even look at me, as if I didn’t exist. Did she recognize me? She didn’t even ask for permission, as if she owned the world again. This was supposed to be my place. My solitude.

The staring competition with my coffee didn’t go too well either. Curious and innocent eyes were looking for me. Looking for a long lost connection. The fluorescent light underlined the bruises around her eye, but she wasn’t ashamed, as if that was normal. Shit. Not again.

I needed more distant staring contenders. I lost the challenge to shampoo bottles as I started thinking about the devil pulling off my hair. The eggs started flying at me, hiding behind the shelves, which she would force me to clean up. The EA kit looked exactly the same the paramedics had with them when they patched me up. The same night she had to move out as my love for my life killed my love for hers.

I gave up and stopped avoiding the girl. She smiled, gentle and curious. God damn that smile killed me. Beautiful and innocent, with a bruise. I smiled back like a bridge that nearly collapsed with all the sorrow inside of me. Back in the days I had promised to end my life if I ever saw her with children. I was not good enough. I am dud in life, I don’t belong here.

I was knocked conscious with the fresh smell of her coffee as she sat down at my table. My coffee was cold and stale.

“It is shitty weather you know”, she starts, completely ignoring who I am. She arrogantly invaded my private space and wanted to talk about the weather? Sure why not. I join her game and talk about absolute non-sense small talk topics with her. What the hell is going on?

But not too long until I needed to talk about something real, “Why are you bringing a child to this gas station at this late hour?”

And she goes ballistic, “Oh! And now the blame game starts again?!? Couldn’t you just fucking enjoy the moment a bit? Mellow nice moment with me. Can you be like a human for once for me?”

“Like what the hell is this? She has bruises, you hitting her too?” The girl is wandering off, trying on cheap plastic sunglasses.

“Shut up, you know nothing about me! IT IS your fault that she has bruises!”

I couldn’t say a word before my face bent over to a manic smile. “Hold, on, now!”, I started very slowly, “After almost a decade, you still blame me for all your reactions, even the act of hitting your child, which I have never even seen?!”

“You idiot! It is not a bruise from my hand, it is a bruise done by HIM. You always assumed the worst of me!”

“Oh…”, and my grin implodes in my head like a vacuum, “but…”, I try to continue –.

“I know about the letter you sent him after you and I divorced. Guess how happy I was when I found out!”

Shit. That letter. There was this guy, a friend of ours, who I know had a crush on my wife. I wanted him to become the white knight saving this femme fatale from violent men she usually hooked up with. I tried to explain, “I don’t think the letter mattered. He always loved you.”

“Even after divorce you tried to control me!”

“I wanted you to have someone safe, soft and caring. We knew he was a good guy!”

“Yeah? Well, look at how that turned out! Take responsibility for your actions!”

“This is not on me, what happened to him is on you two.”

“He became bitter, as he felt like he had been trapped in a bad relationship by his supposed friend. The letter is his endless excuse that defines how fake our relationship is.”

The girl was holding a cup of instant Mac and Cheese and started walking back to our table.

“Look, I am sorry you have it rough, but…”, I interrupt.

“Then, one day, I punched him. He set boundaries by punching me back.”

“That is not what I…”, I started.

“Let’s stop this.”, I had never before heard her de-escalate, “My daughter has had enough of this today. Let’s talk about something else, like, what the hell are YOU doing here today?”

“Nothing, just having a coffee”, I rolled the styrofoam cup between my palms, as if that would convince her.

“That is so not you. Alone. Having coffee. Come one, you don’t even drink coffee. Have you stopped drinking and hanging out at the bars with all those marvelous friends of yours?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Right…”, she says but allows it to go.

We talked about whatevers and shit for a while. Then the girl goes off wandering again and she just couldn’t let it go, “Seriously, what has happened to you, you don’t belong here.”

“I am… homeless these days.” She looked at me in the eyes like a mother who knew already, then she looked at the watch on my wrist I had forgotten. Fine, she got me. I was just living on the streets because I could and had lost all meaning in any other way of being. I am lost here, okay.

“This is just one of your seeking-the-bottom episodes. Then you rise like a phoenix again. You went to warzone when we were together. You left part of yourself deep in Africa. You are seeking meaning again.”

“Fine”, I extended my head closer to her at the fluorescent light, so she could see my nose, teeth and eye lids no sleep could heal.

“Cocaine! How much money you have left from the startup exit? You always return to ascetics after you get hyped up.”, she gives a victorious smirk at me.

But then her smirk collapses like a bridge, “Never mind, I know you have enough, you stand on the edge but never jump all the way.” She looked at the girl touching lollipops, and then said, “Listen. I want to apologize."

Seriously? I had spent a decade in marriage waiting.

She continued, “I’ve been going to a clinic, seeing a therapist and cutting off drinking. You were right, there was the same monster in me as there was in my mother and grandmother. I just didn’t want to pass it on to my daughter. Something you said stuck deep in me, you know.”

My posture changed to thankful and curious. “I am a bit surprised, to be honest.”

“I read the letter in my therapy. You wanted all the best for me.I melted when you said you no longer expected an apology from me. Was I that hopeless? Then the way my white knight bruised me now. One needs to really shatter before you can heal.”

I felt sorry for her. I almost immediately regretted saying, “I will accept your apology.”

“You never hit me back. Instead you planted a seed in me.”

“Still not sure if it all was worth it, sorry.”, I had mixed feelings after saying that.

“Maybe it wasn’t.”, she thought a bit about something, “Seeing April, my daughter, must be really painful for you”.

“Sure, I guess”, internally I desperately laughed at the stretch of the word guess here.

“I didn’t want a child with you. I didn’t feel safe. To feel safe one must understand their own value. With you I was always an impostor. Ashamed of my overt reactions. Your love felt undeserved. I rewarded you by pushing your boundaries, until you almost died.”

“Shit man.”, I started feeling like she actually got it now.

“I know you would be a good father for a girl. Your masculinity was never boyish, neither manly, but fatherly. You allow people to feel frustrated and angry when they learn life lessons and still you support them endlessly.”

“Please, I don’t deserve all this. I was mad at you often.”

“And that is the problem of my situation. I did too little too late. I fixed myself, but I had already passed on the monster to my husband. Now my daughter and I are being abused by the ghost of me.”

No, this is not right, “Shut up! You have not changed! Just tell me what you want?”, but the stare of the girl judged me for losing control. After a short quiet moment, she smiled and ran between the aisles. 

She whispers, “I want you to be father to my daughter and take her to temporary custody until we figure things out with him.”, and then her voice gets all dense, “She deserves you, not us!”, shouting between her teeth. Then she calms a bit and says, “I really went to therapy this time, you know.”

“What the fuck is this shit again?”

“You can take her to a shelter house if you still want to keep this homeless act or you can take her to a nice hotel with your millions.”

“I have less than a million.”, I regret blurting that out, “Never mind. I can’t take someone else’s child to a shelter house, they will call the police for kidnapping!”

“I can call over and tell them you are her real biological father”

Fuck me, “Is she pisces?”

“Yes. And he never did the fatherhood test. I told him about our incident and said we used a condom, and I would not raise a kid with a man who didn’t believe my word on it.”

I look at her. She can’t be. She looks like my nephew, but she can’t be. All young girls look like my nephew.

“Shit. No. You are manipulating me to take care of your kid so you two can get drunk and forget any responsibilities. I know your games.”

“And I know you. The truth doesn’t matter, because you are the kind of guy who doesn’t care about the truth. You care about people and especially this little girl. You see in her the little girl you once wanted to save in me. Now you have the chance to redeem yourself. You don’t have to believe in my enlightenment, but I know you are still there for the little girl in me. I really tried but failed, okay?”

“Shit. I won’t be your victim again!”.

“Be the hero my father never was instead.”

She walked away, started the car and drove away. I looked at the little girl, who didn’t long for her mother, but just stared at the foolish boy in me.