Page 126 of The Design of Goodbye
I didn’t care I’d promised him I’d never make him talk about something if he didn’t want to. I’d made that promisebefore. Now this wasafterI’d learned how destructive secrets could be.
“Why?” he asked flatly.
“You’re hiding your past from me! You went through something that not only changed you butbrokeyou.” His jaw clenched, and I hastily added, “I have no idea what happened to you. I help you through panic attacks and have no idea why you have them. That’s not fair. We’re dating, but I feel like I barely know you.”
“You said it was okay.” His voice was tight with unwanted emotion. “I couldn’t talk about...what happened. You said—”
“Forget what I said. Things change.” Like how I’d lived my entire life thinking my mom liked me. Loved me. “I need to know.”
Remember what I always told you.
His face darkened. He didn’t speak.
“You’re not going to tell me,” I said. “Are you?”
“No.”
No one wanted to tell me anything. Not my mom. Not my boyfriend.
“Ever?”
“The past is the past.”
I grabbed my pillow and hugged it. “But how do you expect us to work if you don’t open up?”
“This is who I am now.” He leaned against my desk as if he needed the support. “That’s all that should matter. My past shouldn’t.”
Remember what I always told you.
I thought of my past and how it’d always follow me. “It does. Your past is part ofyou. It always will be.”
He wrapped his arms around himself. “I’m trying to forget my past.”
I clutched my pillow so tightly my arms hurt. “There’s a difference between forgetting something happened and acting like it never did.”
Remember what I always told you.
He flinched. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
“It’s exactly what you’re doing.” For a moment, the only sound in my room was our shaky breaths. Finally, I admitted, voice quivering, “I’m not sure I can do this.”
“Do what?”
I gestured to the air. “Us.”
“You’re saying if I don’t tell you what happened”—his breath caught—“we can’t be together?”
Is that what I was implying? Were we...were we on the verge ofbreaking up? I didn’t want to break up, but could I be with him knowing he was keeping such a significant part of his past from me?
“I don’t know,” I said.
His face crumpled. “I’m going to go.”
“Good idea.”
He bent down to grab his backpack, but he missed the strap. It took him three tries before he got his backpack on.
When he walked over to my window, I snapped, “Use my door.”
