The Secrets We Kept

by Lara Prescott

Secretary: a person entrusted with a secret. From the Latin secretus, secretum.

These men thought they were using me, but it was always the reverse; my power was making them think it wasn’t.

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 was still smiling, as people in the West do—out of politeness, not happiness.

The trick to pinpointing the man with the biggest bank account in the room is not to look to the man in the nicest tux, but to the man not trying to impress.

There are two types of ambitious men: those bred to be ambitious—told from a very young age that the world is theirs for the taking—and those who create their own legacy.

One person after the next gave their condolences and told me things about my mother I wished I’d known while she was alive.

cotton candy, the sweetness of revenge disintegrates immediately. And now that it was gone, what did I have left to keep me going?

He’d rather die as a traitor on Russian soil than live as a free man abroad.