Secrets

*While being a stand-alone story, this is the conclusion of Jacob’s story. It began in Sundays with Shirley and continued in Biggest Regret. 



*While intended to be the end, Abi’s story will be explored further in a new story, Abi’s Secret.

I jumped out of bed, Lulu, on high alert beside me. I checked the clock, 3:19 AM. Who could be here at this time of night? I lifted Lulu from the bed, setting her on the floor. I knew she would follow me, and I didn’t want her to jump down, risking injury.

Whoever it was, was pounding erratically. “Lulu, stay,” I commanded as we left the room, there’d be hell to pay for that one, but I didn’t want her too close, just in case. She grumbled a little, she would have preferred to be right there beside me, but she did as she was told, staying just outside the bedroom door where she could still see me.

As I reached the door, the knocking intensified. I checked the peephole, confused at the sight behind the door. Abi?

I turned the lock and opened the door. “Abi, what’s wro—?”

She pushed past me in a huff, but she didn’t say anything. I could smell the alcohol seeping from her pores. I made no move to stop her, closing the door once she was clear of it.

I had never seen Abi so frazzled. Granted until Saturday it had been over seventeen years since I’d last seen her, the night I told her I couldn’t marry her. I told her without any explanations other than the cliched ‘it’s not you, it’s me.’ At nineteen, I was only just realizing, though not ready to admit, that I was gay. It’s taken me seventeen years, having just come out two months ago. I knew now how unfair I’d been to her. Until seeing her in this state, I never comprehended how much damage I’d caused because I was afraid.

Her hair was in knots, matted to her head. Her face swollen with dark circles beneath her glossed-over green eyes, the white parts were bright red. It appeared like she hadn’t slept in days.

How could I have been so stupid?

I waited for her to speak, but she just continued pacing back and forth in front of the door.

“Abi, is everything okay?”

She stopped pacing, looking at me for the first time, her eyes wide. “No, Jacob, everything is NOT okay! Not at all!”

“Would you like to talk about it?”

She looked away quickly and resumed her pacing.

Lulu, who had started making her way towards us, stopped when I snapped and pointed back to the bedroom. She didn’t like being told what to do, and If I wasn’t in trouble before I certainly was now, this was going to take a multitude of belly rubs to get back in her good graces. I didn’t think that Abi would hurt her, not the Abi I knew before, at least not intentionally, but she seemed beyond rational thought at this point, and people change a lot in seventeen years.

“I’m going to make a sandwich and some coffee, care to join me?” I asked motioning towards the kitchen.

“Yeah, okay.” She said, following me into the kitchen.

Lulu whined as I moved out of her line of sight.



“Come on, Lulu,” I called once Abi was stationary on one of the bar seats.

Lulu waddled around the corner, happier when she could see me. She made her way to the bar and leaned her head against Abi’s leg. I paused what I was doing until Abi leaned down to stroke her head, more at ease that Abi seemed in control, I returned to the task of making a pot of coffee.

Once the coffee was brewing, I filled a glass with water and set it in front of her, neither of us spoke as I proceeded to make the sandwiches.

I cut the sandwiches in half—turkey, mayo, mustard, lettuce, and tomato on sourdough—placed them on two plates, and grabbed two small bags of Cheetos, setting them on the counter.

She examined her sandwich for a long time before opening the Cheetos and adding them to the sandwich. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw her eyes well with tears. This was her favorite sandwich as a kid, down to the preference of Cheetos over cheese.

I turned away, not wanting to invade her privacy.

My back was to her, “Do you still take it with two sugars, a splash of cream, and a couple drops of vanilla?”

She didn’t answer, so I turned back towards her. She’d paused, midway to bringing a bite to her mouth, and stared at me a look of confusion on her face. It took a moment for her to regain her composure, but then she nodded, returning to her food.

I finished our coffees and sat, leaving one space between us. I wanted her to feel comfortable, so I tried not to crowd her.

We ate in silence, Abi would talk when she was ready. Lulu, bored now that the excitement had ended, made her way up the little ramp to lay on the couch. In less than a minute, I knew we would be hearing her snores.

Then out of nowhere, “I am angry at you, Jacob Michaels! So angry!”

I figured as much. I didn’t speak. I owed it to Abi to let her have her say. 



She continued, “You are…no, I mean you were…I don’t know if you still are, a coward!” 



That stung. She wasn’t wrong, but it still hurt to hear. 



“And what’s worse is that I want to hate you I want to be angry at you I want to hurt you just like you hurt me but I…” She’d been speaking so rapidly, barely taking a breath between words that when she turned suddenly to look at me and stopped talking, the silence hung in the air.

I’d been watching her, and I don’t think she was ready to meet my eyes. 



“I can’t.” She looked down at her hands. “As much as you hurt me, I know what it feels like to hide—” she cut herself off like there was something she wanted to say but wasn’t quite ready to let out. I know how that feels. I wouldn’t push her. “Hide something because you are afraid that you would lose everything and everyone if they knew the truth.”



Neither of us spoke as we sat together, Lulu’s snores the only break in silence. I noticed as Abi fidgeted with her fingers, picking at her nails, that they had been either bitten or peeled down to the beds. They were jagged, uneven with hints of scabbing interspersed with freshly opened skin. 



Growing up, Abi had been a compulsive nail-biter. It was her way of dealing with stress, worry, anxiety, and sorrow. I remember the year her mom left. She’d run off with a man she met in an AOL chat room. It was towards the end of summer, the year I was to move on to secondary school while Abi would remain at the primary school. Robert was at work, and Ms. Dianna, Abi’s mom, had sent us out to pick blackberries promising that if we filled both of the 5-gallon buckets, we would have enough to make not only a cobbler but jam and ice cream to last until Christmas!



We’d been out picking berries at the end of the dead-end street—closer to my house, for most of the day. We seemed to eat just as many berries as we put in the bucket, so we never felt that time for lunch hunger that would signal it was time for us to head back to Abi’s house. We’d filled one bucket entirely and the other about halfway, when Abi said she was feeling funny and wanted to go home. We decided we didn’t need the other bucket to be full, even if it meant only having enough jam and ice cream to make it to Thanksgiving.



As I dumped some from the full bucket to the other to even them out, I hoped Ms. Dianna wouldn’t notice they weren’t actually full, Abi started chewing on her fingers. 



“Is it a stomachache, Abi?”

She stopped chewing. “No, not really.” She thought for a moment. “I don’t know how to explain it, but it feels more like something is wrong. Like something bad is going to happen.”

We were twelve and thirteen, and in my mind, untouchable. We’d both lived on this street our whole lives, Abi at the top and me at the bottom. Our dads had grown up together, and they married girls they’d met in church. After they’d married, they both moved to the same safe neighborhood with good schools to raise their children in, so they could grow up together as well.

“What could be wrong, Abi.” It wasn’t a question, more of a statement, nothing could be wrong in our perfect lives.

We made our way back to the top of the street. Ms. Dianna was putting some bags into the trunk of a car I’d seen a few times before. She looked like she was going on vacation and was rushing.

“Mom!” Abi yelled.

Ms. Dianna looked towards us, hands on the trunk, frozen. We were close enough to see her wide eyes; mouth hung open.

We’d stopped walking. I watched Abi as Abi watched her mom, a confused look on her face.

As if someone flipped a switch, Ms. Dianna turned from Abi, slammed the trunk shut, and rushed to the passenger side door.

Abi dropped her bucket and began running towards the car as Ms. Dianna pulled the door shut behind her.

Abi screamed, “Mom! No! Wait!”

I dropped my bucket and ran after Abi as the car peeled out towards the top of the street. “Abi!”

“Mom, please?!” I could hear the pain in her plea as she cried in desperation.

As the car turned the corner, Abi tripped, falling to her hands and knees directly in front of her house.

I made it to her. She was on her knees, her face buried in hands, crying. There were streaks of red as blood from her scrapped hands mingled with her tears. I put my arms around her and held her as she cried. No more than twenty feet from us, the spilled berries laid scattered in the road.

With it being summer, the berries baked into the concrete, staining the spot where they’d fallen. The stains would have remained dried into that spot until the next big rain, but after a week of seeing Abi cry every time she saw them, Dad and I woke up early to clean them from the street so she wouldn’t have to see them anymore.

Robert pretended that Ms. Dianna never existed so he wouldn’t talk about it with Abi, as far as I know, she never saw her again. He remarried within the year.

In September, right after school started, Robert took Abi to a doctor. The guidance counselor was concerned about the way she gnawed on her fingers and thought she might need to see a therapist. Robert didn’t want anyone thinking Abi was troubled, so he decided not to take her to a therapist. Instead, he took her to the pediatrician, who gave him a cream to wash her hands in every morning. She said it tasted terrible when she bit her nails and caused then to burn.

By October, she’d started biting her lips, and the cream caused her lips to burn as well. It was a vicious cycle, and it took until the next year when we were once again in the same school for her to finally stop.

I wondered what Abi was hiding, what could cause her to regress so much, and I worried that I may be partially responsible.

“Abi, I don’t know what it is that you are worried about sharing, and I don’t need to, not unless you want to tell me. Without knowing, I can’t say with certainty, but I can share my experience with you.” She wasn’t looking at me, but I noticed that she leaned towards me a little, she was hearing me. “I know what it is to hide. I also know what it is to finally be free from the burden.”

I reached out and took her hand.

She didn’t pull away.

“I will listen to you. No judgment.” I moved my other hand beneath her chin, lifting it to meet her eyes. “I am here for you, Abi. I’ve never stopped caring, and I have never stopped loving you. You are and always have been my best friend.”

Tears streamed down her face. She nodded.

“There are no secrets big enough, or bad enough, that will cause me to think differently of you.” I wiped the tears from her cheeks.

She leaned into my chest as I wrapped my arms around her.

“I’ve missed you, Abi,” I whispered into her hair.

“I’ve missed you too, Jacob.”

I held her as she cried into my chest, and I hoped that this was only the beginning of our renewed friendship with my high school sweetheart, my best friend. 



“Jacob, my Dad can never find out.” She was shaking her head furiously into my chest.



“He won’t hear it from me.”

“I don’t want you to hate me.”

“I could never.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“It involves you.”

A secret that involves me? 



She pulled back, looking me in the eyes. “You wouldn’t be able to talk about it with anyone.”

Even though I didn’t know what or how it involved me, I knew I would keep her secret.

“Well, Jacob, what do you say? Can you keep our secret?”