The Secret

I held the letter in my shaking hand, the warmth from the hot summer day still emanating from it, contrasted with the coolness of my small house. The name on the return address was like cough medicine—sweet, but with an aftertaste of bitter memories.

Mercy. Her name always sounded so sweet to me, like the sound of a hopeful promise. I met her on a Saturday, just in front of her house as I passed, and a month later, I was calling her my sister.

She didn't need me, but I clung to her like she was my own life; my own heartbeat, a glimpse of peace following a complicated past that I wished into nonexistence. But with her probing, and more trust than I felt, I regurgitated my entire life at her feet.

Well, almost. One thing continued to catch in my throat, a part of me that I wouldn't—and couldn't—have anyone ever know. At it was the one she would not leave me alone about. That, and cookie dough.

"C'mon Sarah, taste it," Mercy begged of me that afternoon, shoving a spoonful of cookie dough in my face.

"First of all, I already know what cookie dough tastes like, and secondly, it's not very appealing when it's covered in your saliva."

Mercy shrugged, placing the spoon back into her mouth, as we fell silent together.

It should have stayed that way. We should have settled into comfortable silence together. But Mercy was never one for silence. Or for letting an old subject die.

"So…what can't you tell me?"

I sincerely hoped she was joking. I treated it as such. "If I could tell you that it wouldn't be something I couldn't." Yeah, sometimes I have my brilliant moments.

"Tell me," she begged, a half-smile full of coaxing and blatant curiosity.

By now I was tired. "Mercy, please."

Genuine hurt was in her eyes when she asked, "But don't you trust me?"

I didn't know why, but her wounded look made me angry. "Why can't you ever leave it alone? Why can't you ever let anything die?"

"Sarah—" Her words died as I got up. "Where are you going?" she asked innocently, sparking even more fury inside me.

"Home," I responded, casual as I left. I shut the door with barely a click.

My frantic steps away from her house were matched by the erratic thoughts in my head. I was furious at her simplistic view toward it; what did she think, that this was some childish secret that didn't really mean anything? I cursed her under my breath, but at the same moment, the thought of telling her trailed through my head. "No," I whispered to myself. No, no, no. Telling her as much as I had had been a mistake.

I looked down at the landscape from the top of the hill, it seemed asleep, as if passive toward a coming danger. How did I even get up here anyway? I must have trudged unaware.

Was it worth it? I didn't want to answer that question. But if she continued to pursue this question, I didn't know if I could handle the ramifications the answer might bring. Stay friends with her and tell her, or refuse the friendship. I drew my knees up close to me, hating the ultimatum I was posing on myself.

It was dark when I finally walked down that mountain.

As always, I passed her house on the following day. She was on the sidewalk when I walked by, and I paused in my steps as we regarded one another. There wasn't anger anymore. Bitter hearts were washed with a new day. I didn't understand the look in Mercy's eyes. Was it sorrow? Forgiveness? Regret? None of it mattered anyway.

There's a brief moment of pause in an encounter like this. A moment when both friends are supposed to apologize together and then throw their arms around each other in healing.

We were in that moment. I knew it. She knew it. Mercy stood, arms tense slightly lifted in preparation to hug me, lips pursed with the "I'm sorry" queued on her tongue.

But I stretched that moment until length destroyed it. Her arms went limp, and abruptly left without a word.

I knew I would regret it. I had made that decision knowing that I would wish for this friendship back everyday of my life. But I chose that over the possibility of what it just might have done to me.

The regret still hangs loosely around my body. It permeates the home I live in. And now is brought into full focus with the letter that seems heavier in my hand with each passing second. Childish desire wants to rip into it, but the lump in my throat from years of unshed tears restrains me.

I had been running my entire life. From a childhood past that turned into all of my secrets. From secrets that I buried so far back in my mind that soon only a shadow of them existed on my shoulder. And from the one friend who, through an innocent personality and simple words, tried to coax the vicious animal of buried truth from the dark cave of my soul I had chained it to.

I slit the envelope open slowly, my mouth thick, tasting like the adhesive. Oh God, I breathe a silent prayer, this is foolishness. Utter foolishness. I should just throw it away.

I pull the sheets of stationary out of the envelope, and close my eyes.

I don’t want to know. I can’t know. What does she want from me? What could she possibly have to say? And why—after all these years, does it even matter to me?

Maybe it’s my age. After all, I’m 43. Mid-life crisis time, where all I want is to live my glory days.

What glory days?

I reopen my eyes, and unfold the sheets of paper. A pale blue, of course, that was so like her, and smudged with food. Cookie dough…? I wouldn’t be surprised. Almost unaware, a ghost smile traces my lips.

But what’s the point? Why open it? Won’t it only bring more memories of all the things you hate?

I stare at the wall, not daring to look down. The sensation to read it was powerful. To know, after all these years, what possibly was going through her head that day by her house. To know if maybe, just maybe, we could have fixed this, forgotten of my secret, and stayed the sisters we thought we were.

I look down.

“Dear Sarah” it begins.

I tear it up; throw it into the garbage, teeming with rotting food, junk mail, old newspapers, and regrets. Not reading it means life stays the same. I can handle that.