Dirty Little Secrets

Chapter Twelve

“The truly scary thing about undiscovered lies is that they have a greater capacity to diminish us than exposed ones.” –Cheryl Hughes

PROS AND CONS OF THE NEXT WEEK THAT FOLLOWED

Pro: No major fights with my parents (which was always a good thing).

Con: They still weren’t speaking to me (which may also be considered a good thing).

Pro: No more run ins with Jeremy.

Con: There were also no run ins with Perrie, who avoided me like the plague.

Pro: No more pranks, notes, or affiliated rivalries.

Con: The wait for the storm was torturous.

There are some things that happen in a person’s life that can change them forever. A catalyst for evil, a Eureka! moment… things like that.

To this day, I have had three of those moments. Those moments that changed me, shaped my character, and helped me build into something bigger.

My first moment was that fire four years ago. Before that, I may have been a similar girl; all witty quips and blackmail and knowing smirks. But after that fire, I’d developed that kind of self-hatred that stays with you for a lifetime. Where you can stare into your mirror’s reflection for hours without moving, wondering if people can see the fakeness in your smile and the tortured little girl in your eyes begging for a release. Whether they can see that strain, and the way holding it together has become one of the most impossible tasks.

My second moment was meeting Zach. Not so much the love thing (because, let’s face it, it’s only been a month since I met him) but more the way he opened my eyes to a perfect world; gave me the inspiration to move on and see the beauty in things normally left unseen.

Things like that can really change a person. Little details or small events that will haunt your every waking moment for years.

My third moment came that Thursday after school.

I was scheduled to meet up with Zach for a small tepinyaki date (a ‘throwback Thursday to when we first met’ kind of date), but he’d had to unexpectedly reschedule when he was called for an emergency football meeting.

I’d had no troubles with this. I wasn’t that clingy girlfriend who got jealous of other commitments. I was just going to go straight home, have some chocolate and have a bubble bath. No biggie. I didn’t expect anything stepping through my front door. Why should I? It was a normal, nondescript Thursday. The most magnanimous thing to happen today was watching Haydn Corona fall down two flights of stairs at school.

But after I’d quietly closed the doors and planned on the quick getaway to my room (even though my mom was out and my dad had been working a lot of overtime lately), I made my way to the stairs.