Her words come with an ebb and flow like a midnight tide. They build slow, creeping toward the shore, gathering their strength. Then, once mighty enough, they rush forth and crash upon the sand with the salty water. There's a catharsis in it for her, a weight lifted off her shoulders with the revelations and confessions and tears. The things she never shared with anyone else float away into the great beyond, the embers and smoke of a bonfire. Her exhale escapes in a long relief. She had held those secrets close in her heart all her life, not even telling her husband about what had happened all those years ago. They had been a lifetime ago, she said, and now with the memories aired out like summertime laundry she can finally move on. Live life anew. Repair those old bridges once set ablaze. Say goodbye.

If only I could do the same. If only I could light a flame to the things I know and watch them burn. If only I could say goodbye to tainted reflections of my past. If only I could see someone minding their own business, sit down next to them, and after a few minutes of polite small talk unleash the hounds of my sins and traumas upon them.

I know she means no harm in it. None of them ever do. They don't know. How could they? I don't wear a lapel pin warning them of the burden it places onto me. I don't have a sign to ward off the confessors. Hell, I don't even stop them once they get going with their stories. I just let them carry on until the tales are told to their end. It's good for these people to talk through it, let it all out, get it off their chests. Why they can't do it with a licensed professional, I have no idea.

She gives me a tearful thank you, a look of clarity and lightness on her round face. Saying no more, she leaves me to my half-eaten sandwich in the middle of the park. It's a good thing they don't often give their names. If anyone were to come around with questions, I wouldn't have to worry about identifying them. The only info I would have on my odd visitors were the things they told me. I would have deniability if asked to rat them out. And heaven knows I wouldn't speak a word of their secrets. Not out of morality alone, though that does factor into it pretty heavily. The consequences of spilling the beans are far worse than just a guilty conscience, depending on the secret. It's only happened a few times to me, and those instances have more than enough drilled in the lesson to keep my mouth shut.

The first time had been a complete accident. My best friend, Sheila Hamm, had been flirting with one of the boys at school, Jeff Young. Sheila and I were in seventh grade, Jeff was in eighth. During recess one spring afternoon, they were going back and forth about whose favorite baseball team was better. They were set to face off that evening, so Sheila and Jeff made a bet: whoever lost would have to do whatever the other one said for a day. Come the next morning, Jeff was aglow with pride and gloating about his team's victory. At recess, he and Sheila went over the terms of their agreement once more, and she reluctantly agreed to comply. He whispered in her ear the first thing he wanted: a kiss after school. The only catch was that she wasn't supposed to tell anyone about it. Naturally, Sheila told me right away.

Later that night, hours after the last bell of the day rang out, she called me on the house phone to tell me how it went. I crossed my heart and hoped to die, as was common practice of the day, to never let anyone know about what happened or the fact that Jeff still had a wad of Hubba Bubba in his mouth when they kissed. After the phone call, my older sister, Callie, cornered me. She had picked up the landline near the end of my conversation with Sheila and was curious as to why my friend was so giddy and giggly. At first, I lied and said Sheila had gotten an A on some paper she wrote for English that she busted her ass on. Callie, ever a bloodhound for dishonesty, could tell I was fibbing. After many threats to cut my hair in the middle of the night and record over my favorite VHS tapes with the scariest movies on TV she could find, I caved and told her the truth.

That's when it happened. Sitting in my room, her sharp brown eyes staring at me from the foot of my bed, I felt it. A sweet and gentle press on my lips, scared yet brave and eager. I could even smell a hint of the bubblegum, feel his hands taking a loose hold of mine, see the gold flecks in his eyes as he smiled after. It was over as quick as it began. Callie gawked at me, asked why I zoned off for a second, and left when I didn't answer.

People started coming to me with their secrets after that. It was slow at first, only one or two over the course of a month. But after a while, they came more frequently. Sometimes it was a kid at school revealing they had a crush on someone or that they cheated on a test. Sometimes it was ladies from church telling me how they regretted getting married and having kids so soon after graduating high school.

Things got worse after I turned sixteen. It seemed I had a new secret to keep just about every day. I had grown accustomed to freezing people out if they ever asked what so-and-so and I were talking about. Most people wouldn't push the subject much after I gave them the same ole "something about something they saw on TV or YouTube or whatever." To be honest, most of what I had been told wasn't too serious or anything. A bit of petty shoplifting here, a sip of their dad's booze there, nothing really out of the ordinary. The quality of the content was manageable, the quantity less so.

Then Ben Densberger found me.

"Hey, Syd, mind if I sit here?" Looking up from my turkey sandwich, I shook my head.

He took the seat across from me, his own lunch tray mostly empty. All he had was a bottle of water, a small package of crackers, and a cheese stick. It wasn't unusual for Ben; nobody ever really saw him eat anything substantial at lunch. His folks didn't go out to any of the restaurants in town, and none of the kids with delivery jobs dropped food off at his family's house. For the most part, he and his parents kept to themselves.

"How you been?" he asked, cracking open the bottle and peeling back the clear plastic around the cheese.

"Been okay," I shrugged. "You?"

"Same, I guess," he answered as he tore off a chunk of mozzarella.

It was hard to watch him eat. Ben was mostly just skin and bones, and anytime he would have even a little something during lunch, it looked like he was gifted with a luxurious seven-course dinner with a vintage wine that paired perfectly with the meal. Everything seemed to be the most delicious thing he ever tasted, no matter how bland or basic it was. He would eat it slow, getting as much enjoyment out of the simplistic less-than-snacks as he could. It was sad, to be perfectly honest. We all joked that he would explode if he ever ate real food for once.

"Have you ever had these cheese sticks?" his question came when he was midway through it. I nodded a little as he cleansed his palette with a swig of water. "Good stuff. Wish I had it at home, but Ma doesn't let us have any snacks or anything. She doesn't let us eat much at all, really. Says we only deserve homemade food like she had growing up. But she hates cooking and says it ain't my dad's place or mine to do any kitchen work, so usually we just eat a little bit of whatever we have laying around."

"Why don't you eat more here then?" I asked after a long moment, my own food now discarded to my tray. A cold pang cuts into my heart for the boy.

"Ma says she doesn't trust the cooks or the school much when it comes to the food they make," he shrugged, tearing into the small bag of crackers. "Something about how it's essentially glorified pig slop made to look pretty. So she gives me just a little bit of money to get a little something to tide me over until I get home. Usually just enough to cover this."

He gestured to his "lunch", if it can even be called that, and it somehow looked even more pitiful than it had a moment before. Yet he chewed away, a big goofy grin on his face with each bite. My turkey sandwich looked like fine dining in comparison. I almost offered what remained of it to him, but stories from History class about liberated internment camps at the end of World War II gave me pause. Give him too much, and his stomach may not be able handle it.

"Well, good talkin to ya, Syd," his smile turned to me once his food was gone. Ben got up and wandered off, his place taken by Sheila and Jeff not long after.

"Was that Densberger?" she asked as she settled in with her own sandwich, a bag of chips, a soda, and a cookie.

"Yeah," I responded, faraway. "He said his mom doesn't really feed him."

A hollowness made itself known in my stomach with a low groan. I clutched my middle at the sound, an emptiness filling me. Even though my sandwich was nearly gone, it felt like I hadn't eaten in days. I paced myself with the remainder of my lunch, hoping it would ease the dullness within me and suffice until I could get home and eat more.

I knew right away what had happened. Call me crazy, but it was obvious. For some reason, if I told someone's secret to anyone else, I could feel that secret. I could essentially live it. I couldn't explain it, and I certainly couldn't tell anyone about it. My own secret, I suppose. One I intended to keep.

Child services found out about the Densbergers not long after. Sheila and Jeff are still together to this day. And I am left hearing the most trivial to the most heinous things people have said or felt or done.

My name is Sydney Campbell, and I am a Secret Keeper.