Every Single Secret

by Emily Carpenter

There are monsters all around us—people who have to hide because the world can’t bear to see them for who they truly are.

“You said closure was an illusion,” he went on. “You said we can’t go back. We can’t fix things. And trying only brings more pain.”

If the system had taught me one thing, it was that acting tough was a perfectly good substitute for actually being tough.

“Everybody’s curious about death—how it happens, what it feels like.” “I guess.” “Doesn’t a small part of you wish you could’ve been there at the bottom of the cliff at the moment Chantal died? At the exact moment her spirit left her body?” “Are you serious?” I stared at him. “I’m just being honest, Daphne. It doesn’t make you a bad person to admit you have a touch of darkness inside you. We’re all just hanging out together, here in the morally ambiguous quagmire. You don’t need to be afraid of the darkness in yourself. Or in me. We’re in this together, right?”