It had certainly been more than a few years since I last stood in the center of Chester Falls town square.
Despite the colder than usual fall, somehow everything was blooming. Proof, if any was needed, that the town had its own magic spell. Or maybe just a really good gardener.
The square, as well as the buildings surrounding it, hadn't changed much. I knew that because I remembered every single time I'd been here. And like most of the locations in the small town, the square held my secrets.
It was here that I had my first hotdog from a street vendor after the book fair when I was eight. My grandad had sworn me to secrecy because if my parents knew about it, they'd definitely forbid our weekly adventures into town.
That was the first secret I kept. Inconsequential, now that I thought about it, but it had a much longer-lasting effect on me.
Secrets existed.
Secrets meant I could do normal things.
Secrets kept me safe.
Until that safety became a gilded prison. A self-imposed retreat from myself. And who do you become when you can't be yourself?
