Their Story (Only Up To Chapter 15)

Secrets

The last lines of the entry read, "she can't learn the truth, but the closer I get to her the closer she gets to the truth. I have to be more careful before things go bad..."

"I really like the dynamic between these two," Abigail comments.

"Thanks," Shawn smiles, bouncing back to reality, "it's something I was inspired to write recently."

"Yeah," Abigail proceeds, "you see that the two like each other and it's cute, but at the same time he's afraid of her learning the truth about him so he keeps her and everyone else at a fair distance. It's kinda sad."

"Well if this got out he's better off dead," Shawn shrugs, further implying that the crime commited in the tale is metaphor for him own secret.

"I think he should come clean," Abigail replies, "I mean, if he explains I think it'd be OK for him."

Shawn snickers, thinking this is a bad joke, "they'd kill him if he didn't kill himself first. Trust me, some secrets are best left as secrets."

"I know," Abigail shrugs, "but his isn't that bad in the grand scheme of things."

"It's a crime, simple as that," Shawn shrugs.

"Yeah I don't see it like that," Abigail shrugs.

"Your loss," Shawn shakes his head as he organizes the markers by color, in a spectrum from lightest to darkest, unable to ignore the unorganized order of them, something he's usually able to overlook but he feels nervous talking to Abigail.

"How so?" Abigail inquires.

"In this world," Shawn explains, "if someone does something or is born a certain way, that's it. There are some things you can't change or fix. That's just how it works. The only thing you can do is hide them and pray to God or the universe or whatever you believe in nobody sees it."

"That sounds horrible," Abigail shakes her head, "you should have more faith in people dude."

"You see that's just it," Shawn explains, "people are good. A person is bad. People as a whole improve with time, but there will always be a handful of bad people. Someone, somewhere will be a bad person and justify it to themselves somehow."

"That's kinda dark," Abigail replies, "but I get what you mean."

"Yeah," Shawn shrugs, "but hey, what can you do?"

Shawn finishes with the markers and inquires, "why you here so early again?"

"Frankly I forgot to set my alarm for a latter time," Abigail admits, "so here I am."

"Can we walk and talk?" Shawn inquires, "I like to pace."

"Yeah sure," Abigail shrugs as the two exit the library and begin to wander the halls of the school. Only the occasional stray student or teacher passing by as they talk.

"So how was your weekend anyways?" Shawn inquires.

"It was good," Abigail smiles, "what about yours?"

"It was alright," Shawn shrugs, "but I honestly like school better. You know?  People like me here. They appreciate me, and Johnny and I are tight. Home, I mostly just keep to myself and wait for school the next day."

"Ah," Abigail replies, "I see. Well why don't you go out and do stuff?"

Now, Shawn would normally reply with something along the lines of, "I just don't I guess. Sometimes I will with Johnny or Ally but they're busy sometimes." However, he sees a chance to steer the topic to maybe catching a movie or something. Maybe grab coffee? That's a thing people do right? Shawn at least understands the subtext of grabbing coffee being akin to asking someone out in a subtle way, but he isn't really sure what to do after, and Shawn prefers a good soda to a good cup of joe, but he also isn't sure if that's a teenage thing or an adult thing. All these thoughts rush through his mind as he wildly overthinks things. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know if Abigail is close or far from discovering his condition. There are to many factors, but he trusts in Johnny, who may as well be his big brother for how close they are. Johnny says to work on his issues so...