Standing naked in my room, I fought desperately to figure out what I was going to do next.
I quickly finished getting ready for school, which I was now an hour late for, and ran downstairs and out the door without saying goodbye.
I got in my car and called Sandi's Google Voice number. After a few rings, there was silence as we had agreed.
I said, "Hi, it's me. Are you alone?"
She could tell immediately that something was wrong.
"I'm at work and in my office. What's wrong?" she asked, concerned.
"I just completely fucked up. Mom knows. Everything. I'm so sorry," I flatly stated.
Sandi exclaimed, "What?! How did that happen?"
"I said your name while I was in the shower and she came in just as I was finishing and heard me. Then she cornered me in my room and... and I'm not a good liar," I said.
She asked, "Wait, why didn't you just say you were thinking of me? What in the world made you tell her
everything
? Come on, seriously?!"
I explained about how I had called her by her first name only and how Mom had just chipped away at me until the whole story came out.
She said, "Dan, you should have been stronger than that. I can't believe you gave in so easily like that. I mean, didn't you consider that it's not just you in this? I'm in it too, and I have a relationship with your mother that could be completely fucked!"
Her words sliced through me like a knife. Once again, I could feel my chest tighten and just silently let her talk.
"I am not happy with you right now... This was supposed to be kept completely secret, and now I have to figure out how I'm going to tell her my side of the story and why I've been lying to her every time we talked since we started this! Oh my God!"
I could hear her voice starting to tremble as she got more and more upset. She was sniffling and I could tell she was crying. I felt like a pile of dog shit on the ground.
After a couple more minutes of just listening to her crying, she said softly, "Fuck. I need to go so I can think this over. I don't really want to talk to you right now, ok?"
And with that, she hung up without waiting for me to respond. I just sat there in the car crying myself. I sat in the parking lot at school for 15 minutes before I could even get out to start walking to class.
I sat in class, not hearing anything that the professors were saying. I had my laptop on but didn't even take notes. My mind was consumed with how royally I had fucked everything up. How could I be so stupid and weak?
By the end of the day, I had convinced myself that my life as I had known it was over. My mom hated me and now Sandi hated me too.
I got in the car at the end of the day and started to head home since there really wasn't anywhere else to go. I dreaded the moment where I would have to walk through the door and be faced with Mom's judging eyes. I just wanted to run up to my room and hide like a child that's done a terrible thing.
As I rounded the corner to my street, I saw an unfamiliar car in our driveway where I normally park, and as I got closer, I realized that it was Sandi's car.
I parked out on the street, and with an intense amount of trepidation, I approached the front door. Before I got there, the door opened and Mom was there. Apparently she had been watching for me.
She looked like she had been crying. She said, "Come on in son, your aunt is here and we all need to talk this out once and for all."
So much for running and hiding in my room. As I crossed the threshold into the living room, I could see that Sandi was sitting on the couch. She was still dressed in her business suit from work and must have just left work early to talk things out face-to-face. Her makeup was streaked down her face from crying. She was also wearing the perfume I liked so much.
She stood up slowly and gently said, "Hey, sorry I hung up on you like that earlier. I was upset." She looked up to me and made direct eye contact and then quickly hugged me. She sat back down just as quickly.
Mom said, "Have a seat. Over there," she pointed to a kitchen chair she had pulled into the living room.
Too afraid to speak, I sat down and waited for the inquisition.
Mom spoke again and said, "Your father is going to be home in 45 minutes and I sent Bethany down to the park. So, it's just the three of us."
She continued, "Sandi called me after you called her. I hung up on her twice before I decided I'd let her talk. She called again and just said that she was coming up and hung up, so there wasn't much I could do to stop her."
Sandi said, "I just told them I had a family emerg ..."
Mom interrupted, "Shhh. Let me talk, please." Sandi sighed angrily and stopped talking.
Mom continued, looking at me intently.
"Ok, well after you flew out of here this morning, I went on the computer and did some research about incest. It turns out that it's more common than I ever thought."
"Our society disapproves of incest, mainly because parents tell their children that it's wrong and it's bad, stuff like that. And I know that I had the same reaction to it because of that, and, ahem, other reasons."
"I tried to look up studies on it but there really isn't much out there. I guess what I mainly came away with is that it's not really wrong or bad when it happens between two consenting adults, which you are legally. The problem is that when I look at you, all I see is my little boy that I thought I raised to be a good person. Until this morning, that is."
This last statement was confusing. Until this morning I was a little boy in her eyes, but now I'm not anymore?
She continued, "And when I look at
her
, all I see is the sister that I've loved, more than life itself, all my life and..." And then she started crying again.
I got up to go over to her, but she raised her hand and said, "No, stay there. I'll be ok in a second."
"I guess what hurts the most is that you both lied to me. Over and over again. Even when I asked you direct questions that I was almost certain of the answers to. I've been trying to understand and I know it's because you thought you couldn't tell me without me ruining your little affair..."
I started to apologize again, and Mom raised her hand and stopped me, "Not yet. I'm talking now. I will tell you when you can speak."
She went on, "I want both of you to know that I could see how you were looking at each other at the reunion. I saw the way Sandi was flirting with you and outright encouraging your advances, and it scared me. I tried to tell you to take your mind off her, to get over what I thought was just a crush, but that obviously failed miserably."
She paused a minute to wipe her face with a tissue.
Then she said, "But, looking at this whole thing objectively and knowing what I know now, I honestly can't see anything wrong with it. You're both adults. You both consented. She can't get pregnant, even though from what I read, the chances of problems with children are actually low. And you're with someone that already loved you and can't give you some sexually transmitted disease, I assume?"
She looked over at Sandi, who softly said, "You know I don't have any STDs..."
Mom looked back at me, "So again, really the only thing that I'm most upset about is the lying and the sneaking around. But, I can see why you did it."
