It Wasn't A Secret After All

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"Hey."

When Andrei called to get her attention, the memories of her time in London were pushed to the back of her mind.

Leaning up against the headboard of the bed, she said, "Yes?".

"What is your plan?"

"What do you mean?" She asked Andrei who was crawling on her bed to lay down next to her.

He leaned on the headrest as well, copying her position on the bed. "How long will you stay here in Japan?"

She yawned and stared at the white ceiling of their hotel room, "To be honest, I don't know. When I chose to come here, I didn't have a plan… and I am okay with it." She pulled one of the pillows and hugged it to her chest.

"What will you do with your mother?"

"What will I do with my mother?" she asked back with a crease in between her eyebrows.

"I mean, for sure she has a lot to say."

Andrei seemed surprised by her reply that her eyebrows knitted tighter. "When did my mother stop saying something?" she chuckled lightly. "She always has an opinion on everything I do — mostly against it. But, what can I do? I'm not going to stop living my life just because she said, ``no."

When Andréi heard her answer, he became quiet. His shoulders slumped as he stared at the painting on the wall in deep thought.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, are you trying to compare my actions towards yours and cross-checking my mother's reaction with your mother's," she asked.

"No. I'm just wondering why you don't seem to mind your mother's anger."

She looked at Andrei like he had grown an extra head in disbelief. It seemed like Andrei was still stuck with the guilt of their lies in the past.

She felt a pang of pity towards him but at the same time, she found it laughable for him to carry those guilt when all he had to do was to come clean to his own mother.

"Andrei, I will say it again. If you need me to sit with you to admit the mistakes that you did -- I mean, we did to your mother, just say so."

She waited for him to say something, but he just sighed in despair.

"What is it that makes you lose sleep at night? Was it just because of the lies of our fake engagement? I can assure you that your mother probably has the idea of what truly happened in the past, and you are just worrying over nothing."

"What makes you so sure that my mother knew about it already?" he clicked his tongue at her.

She pushed herself away from the headboard and twisted her body in a forty-five-degree angle to face Andrei, "Are you stupid or are you stupid?"

He said nothing and just curled his lips.

"Everyone knows!" There is nothing that you could hide from those mothers and those women who attend Sunday's brunch. They are better at collecting information than the Interpol."

Andrei still remained silent. A part of his brain knew what Laurie was saying was the truth, however, a part of him — the guilt part of his brain, was trying to convince himself that his mother was left in the dark of what happened after the scandal in Hong Kong.

"Besides, I might have told your father," she nonchalantly said.

"What?!" He threw the blanket that was covering his legs. "What do you mean you told my father?"

"What part of I told your father you didn't understand?" She slowly got off the bed, trying to put distance between them, in case Andrei lost his temper of what she was going to say next.

"I am a lot of things, but lying really doesn't sit well with me." When she saw Andrei rolling his eyes, she raised her palms in the air, "Yes, I know. I'm also a good liar. What I mean was, I don't have a problem lying to most people — except to old people."

"Ans your father was one of those few people that I can't really lie to."

"My father doesn't know anything except for whatever my mother told him. Why do you have to come clean to my father? If you want to admit the lies, shouldn't you admit the truth to my mother?"

"That's your keyword Andrei - my mother- it was YOUR mother. Not mine! It's not my place to come clean to your mother. I came clean to MY mother."

"Fine! But why tell my father about it? My father tells my mother everything!"

"That's why I told you, your mother probably already knows everything! And to answer your question about why I told your father, the answer is simple. I was guilty!"

"Why go to my father with your guilt?" he asked with a tight line on his mouth.

"Listen here, you bitch! I know the game you are playing. If you think you can push on to me your old guilt, think again! I told my mother and your father the truth so that I could sleep soundly at night —"

She wasn't able to finish her sermon to Andrei for he threw a pillow at her, halting her nagging.

"When did you tell my father the truth?"

"Few days after I came back from Hong Kong?"

Andrei's eyes popped out of its socket, realizing that his father — basically his whole family knew the truth all along.

"Why did you…" he couldn't finish his sentence in confusion.

After the scandal he caused in Hong Kong, his relationship with his mother was forever damaged. He still carried the burden of guilt eight years later, only to find out tonight that his family already knew the truth!

He couldn't find the right emotion to describe what he felt about what he learned. He just gawked at Laurie who has her arms folded under her breast.

"Why did I tell your father?" she sighed, looked up at the ceiling, trying to remember the reason that drove her to tell the truth. "I don't remember exactly why...I just remembered staring at our engagement ring, thinking, 'this shit is so fucking expensive.'

"You told everyone because of the fucking ring?" he screamed at Laurie.

"Why not? The ring was really expensive, you know."

Andrei pulled his hair in frustration as the memory of the scandal they were talking about flooded his brain.