The Secrets We Kept

by Lara Prescott

It’s been said that the typewriter was built for women—that to truly make the keys sing requires the feminine touch, that our narrow fingers are suited for the device, that while men lay claim to cars and bombs and rockets, the typewriter is a machine of our own. Well, we don’t know about all that. But what we will say is that as we typed, our fingers became extensions of our brains, with no delay between the words coming out of their mouths—words they told us not to remember—and our keys slapping ink onto paper. And when you think about it like that, about the mechanics of it all, it’s almost poetic. Almost.

Unlike some of the men, we could keep our secrets.

We bonded over the belief that a life of adventure wasn’t reserved for men, and we set out to claim our piece of it.

began to warm up, but not from the wood stove. I burned with an anger I still have not yet begun to process. Have you felt such an anger, Anatoli? An anger burning somewhere inside you that you can’t pinpoint but that can overtake you like a match to petrol? Does it come for you at night, as it comes for me? Is that why you’re in the position you are in now? Is power, no matter the cost, the only cure?

As we spun, I saw myself in the oval mirror, and I, too, looked happy—but as a mother looks after she’s given birth: elated and exhausted, happy and pained, peaceful and at the same time terrified.

I wanted to be part of the group, but didn’t want it to seem like I wanted to be part of the group. One might think this scenario plays out only in high school or college, but the politics of friendship are tricky at every age.

He taught me how to tell if someone was following me—to look out for anyone suspicious, anyone watching, and especially to be careful of LOPs. “Little Old People have a lot of time on their hands,” he explained. “They sit in parks for hours and will call the cops at the drop of a hat if they see something out of the ordinary.”

To become someone else, you have to want to lose yourself in the first place.

“I think men are really more in love with Gatsby than they care to admit.” “Not love. But we do want to be him. All men, all women, for that matter, secretly long for some great tragedy. It sharpens the lived experience. Makes for more interesting people. Wouldn’t you agree?”

To operate fully under instinct was a gift given to the animals; how much simpler life would be if humans did the same.

We unveil ourselves in the pieces we want others to know, even those closest to us. We all have our secrets.