Little Secrets

by Jennifer Hillier

she’s thankful she still has one person in her life who doesn’t feel the need to tiptoe around her precious feelings.

She doesn’t want it to heal, because if it heals, that means it’s over, and her little boy is lost forever. It boggles her mind that nobody seems to understand that.

But hope can also be terrible. It keeps you wanting, waiting, wishing for something that might never happen. It’s like a glass wall between where you are and where you want to be. You can see the life you want, but you can’t have it. You’re a fish in a bowl.

The person who took Sebastian doesn’t have a face. But the woman trying to steal her husband does.

But living in denial is easier than confronting it. Denial is a safe little bubble that protects your soft underbelly from things that scratch, bite, and burn.

“I feel like I’m losing you.” “That’s factually impossible.” He spoke gently, leaning in. She saw the kiss coming, and could have turned her face away, but she didn’t. She wanted his lips on hers, wanted the connection. “Because you never had me.”

Men wreck their own homes.

“You’re a blank slate, and you don’t know how much I need that.”

Even a millimeter forward is progress.”

“There are only three possible outcomes for our children: they stay missing forever, they’re found safe, or they’re found dead. I needed to see what one of the outcomes looked like. To … prepare myself.”