"The Secret" (Life Sketch)

She held a secret; one buried deep beneath the surface, hidden away from the world. It was a secret she would never dare tell; never give voice to, for if she did, she was afraid that all her fears, her agony, would come to life at the verbal utterance of the secret that gnawed away at her soul from morning to night. Thus, she told no one, because perhaps, she had no one to tell. However, if one stopped to look at her, not just at her, but somewhere far away in her eyes, you could see it. You could see her secret, begging to be forgotten.

At school, no matter where she went, she could not escape her tormentors. They were always there, always present. Their guns were loaded and aimed; their artillery supply was endless, filled with crafted rumors, new lies to be told, and cutting remarks with more bite than a rabid dog, ready to be spewed out in an instant. Every moment of every day, she wished she were not their target; yet, she did not wish that sort of pain upon anyone else. It appeared that meanness now meant power, and kindness was to be scoffed at, forgotten. But what could she do when kindness had always been her strength? She was lost, and her secret grew within her.

People blamed her. People told her it was her fault; they told her she must deserve it. Some people told her it was not a big deal, that she should simply ignore it. She would stare at them, screaming in her mind how could she ignore the lies, the rumors, the degrading and disgusting speech thrown at her, in person, through the whisper of the grapevine, and online? Few inquired for the truth behind the lies, and no one dared to defend her; no one wished to become the next target. While others said nothing and turned away in shame, others told her to disappear, to hide her fat and ugly self somewhere else. All the while, teachers closed their eyes.

At night, while her secret festered in her soul, she would ask God why was she alive? She would ask Him if He even loved her, because if He did, why did she hurt so much? When the tears came, for every night they would, she would beg Him to make it better, to make the bad people stop, to make them go away. However, after endless months of pleading, she began to run out of tears, and the pain only grew. For once in her life, she did not know where God was.

After many months, her secret wanted to be free. The secret she held quietly in the depths of her heart began to rip away at her control. Bruises began. Deep scratches began to impale her arms. Her inner cheeks were swollen and raw from her clenching, from her attempts to stifle her cries, to stop her tears from falling in front of her tormentors, until she was completely numb.

She began to imagine life in a different way, a way that knew no pain— a life where she was happy, free from hurt, free from the monsters seeping venom into every crevice of her life.

That is when she began to give in to her secret. She would start fiddling with the scissors; sighing as she blankly stared at the kitchen knives. In her room, she would mindlessly gaze at the ceiling fan, watching it spin, round and round. As she opened her college acceptance letters, her hand would pause a little too long upon the golden letter opener and her mother would stop cutting the vegetables for dinner, and stare. Perhaps, her mother began to know her secret too.

One day, while she was home alone, she stood in her bathroom, gripping the rim of the sink. Her tears would not come; her hands were cold. It was time. Releasing her death grip on the sink’s rim, her hand reached for the medicine cabinet, but stopped in midair as she dared to capture a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She stared at this person in the mirror, someone she barely knew. As she gazed into the mirror, however, she remembered. Her mother’s laugh, her mother’s tears, her mother’s smile. Her hand lowered as she thought of her mother.

Without any lingering doubt, she left the bathroom and sank into the carpet of her room. As her cheek brushed against the softness, a tear trickled down her face. As long as she could still cry, she knew she would survive, somehow, someway, she would. She would find a way. She let go of her secret because she could finally remember. She remembered why she was alive.