Every Single Secret

by Emily Carpenter

That the past was like the surface of a crazy mirror. When you spoke certain things aloud, when they left your mouth, they changed. The words became either oddly magnified—blown out of proportion—or squeezed down to nothing. Right could appear wrong, good could look like evil, depending on the spin. No one talked about their past without things getting distorted—and without consequences. There were always consequences.

I never considered the way fear could fill a person, weigh them down. I never knew fear had actual mass.

“You do this—you embrace the darkness, the treasure of the shadow—until the lines between you and it dissolve and it becomes an ally. Perhaps even an asset.”