Short Stories

The secret

What do you do when you know a secret? I know what not to do, tell anyone. But what happens when you hold this secret for so long it becomes like carrying lead up a hill or holding your breath underwater. So difficult you think you might die if you don't say, or maybe someone else will.

I know a secret.

This secret is eating me up from the inside. Like a worm in an apple, it is taking into consideration everything I know, or think I know, and making me doubt it. Making me question my friends, my family, my school even the strangers I meet. Do they know? Will they ever know? Can they see it in my eyes as I talk to them?

It has been two weeks since I found it out, and I do not think I can do it anymore. I tried writing everything I know. I wrote the entire story down, every detail and yet when I finished it was worse than when I started. What happens if I lose the paper? What if someone then finds it? What if it gets out? What if–

I burnt the paper.

It lasted about an hour before the worries made me cave and my first coping method failed. My second method was to meditate, find peace within my soul. But this was when the worm got me.

It started slowly; I calmed my breathing cleared my mind. For a moment the stress, anxiety, and tensions lessened. Then like a cleaned blackboard before a lesson the dust became visible, little specks of worry became clear, followed by a harsh attack of chalk lines. Just like that the terror returned, no longer on the corners of my mind but right in the centre.

I woke up in a hospital bed.

Apparently, the stress of my job was too much, I simply smiled. I felt the secret wink at me as it grew bigger. Now like a parasite it grew on the end of my mind, a worm that only I knew was there.

Method three was recommended by some adverts on my phone, they seemed to mock me as they told me to 'take care of my body' and to 'do some exercise' to relieve stress. So, I did. I started by running, maybe the pain of moving will overcome the weight of the secret. Yet, I only learnt one important fact.

I cannot outrun my own thoughts.

The movement of my legs did not deafen the knowledge in my mind, the footsteps only seemed to jar my body. So instead, I began to focus on taking care of myself. I started and ended with attempting to cooking myself a meal. The secret seemed to focus my eyes, the glinting knifes on the shelf told a menacing the story, the fire on the hub another. I settled for a bag of crisps, my stomach recoiled at the strong taste of vinegar, my hands shook as the secret laughed at my attempt.

I puked.

That was when method three failed. And so here I am now, the therapist sworn to secrecy sitting across from me waiting for my story. The hands on the clock ticking counting the time, the time since the secret, the time of this session.

I broke the secret.

Method four, the last method I could think. Talk. I discarded the rules of a secret and began to explain, the eyes of the therapist widen. The water I had been drowning in became a little less heavy, the lead I was carrying little lighter.

What's the point of a secret if everyone knows? Butis it a secret if only one person knows? Or is that then just a thought? Mymind swirled but the worm in my mind seemed to shrink a little my thoughts beganto re-stable as I share, and the therapist nods