To and From : A Creative Writing Piece

Secrets can comfort the soul like nothing else. They are something only yours-  to keep, to protect, to control, when everything else is set out on display. It’s almost impossible not to have one. Secrets to a girl are like guns to a soldier: without them, you lose your power. 

The unseen is almost always much more dangerous. It thrills and excites you at first, but the silence slowly starts taking you over. Whole. The pressure inevitably pushes it to the surface, and now everybody knows about your dirty little secret. 

This afternoon felt rehearsed. The same characters, the same dialogue, the same lines told. I sat at the edge of the table, counting the flowers embroidered on the edge of the tablecloth. It draped across the whole table, its corners grazing the untrimmed grass. Our garden in summer was my familiar heaven. Every year I’d watch each season pass in tandem with the lilies’ bloom, listening to the soft crunch of olive leaves against the slippers grow louder as autumn came around. 

I knew it all too well. Each conversation repeated itself again and again, never reaching a conclusion. We would gather, after a few months of being apart, and fill in the gaps. What we did, what others had done, what we were going to do. All talk about people- criticizing others and ourselves incessantly for three hours. After everyone left, I’d get asked: “Why are you so quiet, every time?” But I couldn't respond, so I gave back the very thing they were judging me for: silence. 

“They all said you look lovely. Seventeen looks great on you!” my mother offered. I nodded, forcing a grin which she believed to be real. “There you go!” All it took was that one small smile. Her worries: gone. As long as I looked happy, all problems were solved. They say in the 21st century we have abandoned our addiction to appearances. I think it is stronger than it has ever been. Constantly hearing comments on the way you look, and labelling them as compliments when in fact they just insult the girl you were a year ago. Everyone in my family, from my Grandma to my sister seem to hold the same beliefs. You’d think generations adapt and values transform, but to a conservative Balkan family, change is almost always impossible. 

That night, my eyes lay open. I had left the window open so the curtains were dancing the tango with July’s fresh breeze, disrupting the uncomfortable silence that filled my room. Such a midnight was exactly what I needed. Hearing the crickets shout at each other like nosy neighbours eased the turmoil I felt. If such tiny creatures were mighty enough to make so much noise at this dead hour, maybe they were dealing with problems of their own too. It all felt slightly surreal, thinking that a grown, almost-adult girl like me could share the same burdens with a chirping insect. Maybe my issues weren’t so unbearable after all; maybe it was my human mind overthinking it, confusing guilt with imagination. 

But still, guilt lingers- real or not. And when in the face of silence, it thrives. 

I turned to my side, switching the side of my pillow that was now moist from sweat. The heat was still suffocating and seemed to be rising uncontrollably. I was getting hotter and hotter- and it seemed to come from within. I got up, slowly, carrying a heavy and hazed mind, because lying down was an unbearable comfort I couldn’t handle. The lights were still off- only the seeping yellow glow of the streetlamp across the street illuminated the corner of my bedside drawer.

I wasn’t sure why my hand reached out. Why, at that exact moment, I touched the knob I swore to never go near again. By opening the drawer, I was breaking a promise I had kept to myself for so long yet it felt almost instinctual. Automatic, even. Like my body was fighting to remember something I hoped I could forget. The drawer slid open, making no sound. You would expect, after remaining untouched for all this time, that the wood would creak loudly, warning me, giving me one last chance. But it didn’t. Everything but my mind seemed to urge me forward. The battle between my thoughts and my body was over, and I had lost. In surrender, I let my gaze fall to the bottom of the drawer. 

There it was. Although buried under magazines and birthday cards, it blinded me. Not with light, but with recognition- like locking eyes with someone you never properly said goodbye to. Perfectly folded, but the corners were already bending inwards, anticipating my touch. 

I had made a promise to never read it again.

But I now know that promises made in fear are the first to break. 

The handwriting on the page was flawless, just as I was back then. Not a single scribble, nothing crossed out or reworded. Even on a blank, unlined sheet of paper I had formed paragraphs that fit perfectly inside 90 degree corners. 

I used to believe that if I could make things look symmetrical and neat, the content of what I was writing would follow along. As if the order on the outside would somehow repair what I was expressing from the inside. But no matter how equally spaced the lines were, and how well my ‘g’ would curve, it wasn’t enough to mask the true meaning. 

I hadn’t even started reading, and yet, my hands relentlessly trembled. 

The fear wasn’t coming from the letter, it was coming from remembering how it felt to write it.