Red Writing Hood: Not His To Tell

I tend to walk with my eyes downcast.

I watch the sidewalk.  For debris, cracks, dog shit.

So when the snow started to fall, I didn’t notice it.

As I had put down my head and started my walk I was on the north side of campus.  Now, heading south through the park toward my dorm all the way on the other side, I was cold and miserable.

I used to think campus was gorgeous.  Its brochure had boasted 50 different species of trees, and buildings which had to pass rigorous muster at committees convened to judge architectural beauty.

Indeed, it did have many trees; it did have lovely buildings.

But day after day as I trudged home from work, through the cold and oftentimes the wet, the beauty dissolved into a grey haze.  Even the late-nineteenth-century cemetery in the middle of campus, with its romantic markers of people long gone, held no magic for me anymore.

That particular day the world passing by me was more of a blur than usual, as my mind kept replaying the freakshow movie that was my life.  I didn’t even recognize myself anymore as a character in the drama.

It was someone else who was dating her boss.  Someone else who’d figured out that the sad and depraved relationship, fueled by mania, depression, and alcohol, was going nowhere, and who cut it off.

It was someone else’s dormmate who took a call at 3:30AM the night before from that boss.  A drunken, threatening call.  An “If she doesn’t come back to me I’ll come and get her” kind of call.

But no.  It was me.  Me who called the police to see if anything could be done (it couldn’t, apparently, not enough of a threat).

My foot caught on a square of sidewalk just higher than the one before it.  “This is why I watch the damn sidewalk!” I thought to myself and wondered how I’d missed seeing the danger.

It seemed I’d missed seeing a lot of danger lately.  Who in their right mind as a seventeen-year-old thought dating her thirty-six-year-old boss was a good idea??? Well, someone NOT in her right mind, obviously.

And what in God’s name had possessed him to tell his boss? Why had that secret needed to be revealed?

“Joe told me about your relationship.  That he took advantage of his position as your boss.  That he’s made inappropriate phone calls to you.  Do you want to press charges for harassment?”

“No.  What’s the point?  We were consenting adults who had a relationship and it didn’t work out. I don’t know why he felt the need to tell you.”

“Are you sure?  I worry about you and I want to do what’s right for you.”

“Thank-you, but no, I just want to forget it all.”

I did just want to forget.

I stopped walking and looked around.  Really looked.

Trees.  Trees and snow. People walking, the world going on.

And still half of campus to cross before home.
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This piece was brought to you by Red Writing Hood at Write on Edge. The prompt requested a 500-word piece showing work using 4 “tools” picked randomly, here were mine: A) A College Student; B) A Park; C) December; D) Secret Needs To Be Told.

I love concrit!!