Someone Else's Secret

by Julia Spiro

There are certain things that are simply not yours to discuss.

I was that girl once.”

Sometimes Lindsey wished her parents would stop being so nice to her. It made it difficult to shut them out when she needed to. And it made it impossible to think about ever telling them something that might break their hearts.

if she would have done things differently if she could turn back time. The answer was always the same. She wished that she had felt like she could have done things differently, but really, she probably wouldn’t have. Wanting to do things differently wasn’t the same as actually having the ability to do things differently, she knew. It was so easy, in retrospect, to say that she would have called the police, asked for help, pressed charges.

The world was different in 2019 than it had been in 2009. There was a different discourse now about sexual assault. Women were coming forward all the time about sexual assault and harassment. It was an empowering time for women, she thought.

she heard her own words from years ago echo back into her mind: She’s stronger than you think.