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Poet stood there for a bit and watched the three head to the elevator that led to the geographical photography display.

Turning away, she moved through clusters of crowds, visitors from all over the city, state and country.

A heaviness fell over her as she thought about April.

The sounds of chatter echoed in her head, growing louder, then hushed.

She tumbled into her dark memories, visualizing all that worry and panic in the little girl’s eyes.

How the poor child’s mother had recently died, and she was so young.

So very young. She recognized that hurt, hating it so.

At last, she reached her small office, away from the big, sterile room she typically worked in with other colleagues, and closed and locked the door behind her. She sat at her desk, blankly stared at her computer, and burst into tears.

She couldn’t recall the last time she’d fallen apart like this. Two years? Three? Maybe four?

After a few moments, she pulled herself together and pulled out her cellphone from her purse that was locked away in the top desk drawer.

She dialed a number. Her heart line and hotline to healing.

“You comin’ for lunch?” Aunt Huni questioned.

Poet smiled, sniffed and shook her head. “No, not today, Auntie. Too busy.”

“What wrong with you? You sound funny… been crying? Sound like it.”

Poet hesitated, then turned to face her window that overlooked part of the outside parking lot.

The staff offices were all on the fifth floor.

She watched people coming and going. Cars moving about.

Folks living their lives. Everyone looks so small from up here.

Little people, places and things. Little voices.

Little hopes and dreams. Small, but alive. Small but important. Small but worthy.

“Poet, what wrong wit’ you, girl? You on your period?”

She giggled at that, then dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.

“No, I’m not on my cycle. I saw… I saw, uh, a little girl.

She thought she’d been abandoned at the museum, but her aunt and brother were only in a different bathroom.

When I looked… when I looked at her, Huni, she just looked so much like me at that age.

Such an innocent child. She was so, so scared!

She felt all alone.” She started crying again, but stopped herself before she turned into a blubbering fool. Aunt Huni was quiet for a spell.

“It remind you of what happened long ago?”

“Yes… It still haunts me, Huni. I know, I know. You don’t even have to say it… it’s just, I don’t know, every now and again I get overcome.”

“But you never told me you still hurt ’bout dis. I did all that I could, girl. I got that psychiatrist, too, and—”

“Yes, you did, and I continued therapy for years. I didn’t tell you about these rare episodes, Aunt Huni, because I didn’t want you to worry.

” A tumble of jumbled thoughts and feelings assaulted her.

“I know that none of that shit is on my record, that I am free and clear to live my life as I see fit, but sometimes, every blue moon… I’m triggered.

” She shrugged. “There’s no warning. It just happens.

I hate that word! Triggered. It’s so overplayed, but I can’t think of anything else to call it.

Then the little girl’s aunt, when I brought her niece to her, was a little strange but well-meaning, I suppose.

She was talkin’ about my hair, just like that demon used to!

I had to stand there and pretend like everything was fine.

Like I wasn’t having a horror movie play in my head right then.

It’s just the way she said it… she sounded just like that… that beast ! I wanted to scream!”

“But she not her, and it is not happening again, Poet. That was an innocent lady giving you a compliment, right? What happened is not your fault. You stop this!”

“I know… Huni, you just don’t understand. Logically, I know it isn’t my fault, and I’ve come a long way, and I know it wasn’t her, but I am so disappointed in myself! I thought I had healed from all of this!”

“Just because you’re still upset sometimes ’bout it does not mean you not healed! You stop crying. Just a bad day, okay? You finish work. You come home. I cook dinner for you. I love you.”

“I love you, too. What are you cooking?” she asked, blowing her nose.

“Right now, or for dinner?”

“For dinner. I’m already hungry. I just had lunch an hour ago though. I’m famished anyway.” She smiled sadly.

“I was gonna make ribeye steak, broccoli and potato. You like that?”

“Yes, that sounds good.” She drew quiet for a spell. “Aunt Huni?”

“Mmm hmm?”

“I ain’t never told anyone about it. Do you know that? I think that might be part of why it still upsets me. I’m ashamed somewhere deep inside of me, but at the same time, what she did is kept secret, too. That bothers me. It’s like a ghost, but I need to find a way to set it free.”

“You don’t have to tell people. I know. You know. Police know. Dat’s enough.”

“Yeah… I used to think that. I didn’t want people to, uh, misunderstand, or see me as some monster.”

“You could never be a monster. Beautiful girl wit’ beautiful heart.

Stop it. No cry, no pity party. You survived bad time!

You strong, like me!” Aunt Huni’s voice trembled.

Despite how Huni was so Americanized, she had some cultural bits of her personality that remained with her.

Like being strong in the face of pain and hurt.

She didn’t appreciate crying. She hated it.

Not because she saw it as weak, but out of fear of such things being used against her, and others.

She’d raised her to be strong, but it was okay to fall apart behind closed doors.

Alone—not in front of others. It gave them weapons against you.

Cruel judgements. All of this time, Poet believed her aunt to be right, but right then, at that moment, she questioned it.

“Aunt Huni, I have to get back to work. I’ll be home in a few hours, okay?”

“Okay. You no more cry. I mean dat!”

When Aunt Huni got upset, her English sometimes had holes in it, strange pronunciations, and became rougher around the syllables.

She’d grown up speaking English and Filipino, but some things she still said incorrectly, admitting that her Filipino was stronger than her English ever was or would be.

Typically, they’d both just laugh it off.

After all, it was funny in most circumstances, but right then, she was too lost in her own world to enjoy the innocent mistakes.

She ended the call with her aunt, assuring her she’d be fine, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed by the time she got home. And she meant that.

Poet sat there for a while, folded inside herself like a letter in an envelope. No sounds but her own breathing and the muted noise of a honking car from the parking lot, way in the distance.

Secrets. I don’t want to keep this secret anymore.

I want to scream it! It wasn’t my fault!

Just like Aunt Huni said. Aren’t I just protecting the person who did this by not tellin’ the truth all of these years?

But by tellin’ the truth, I have to talk about what I did, too…

I can’t do that… it’s too horrible. It seems I could forgive myself, and most days, I can, but sometimes I can’t.

After all of these years, it still makes me squirm.

She’d come so close to telling her secret to a few of her good friends over the years.

Besides, she was never one to keep deep dark secrets from those she loved and cared about.

Life happened. People make mistakes. People grow.

She was fairly honest and expressive with folks she believed she could trust, but this one thing…

this one, awful thing she simply couldn’t talk about.

She’d tested the waters with her ex-fiancé years ago, and it had become clear that he wouldn’t be a good candidate to lay her burdens down, to be so vulnerable with.

Once the words were spoken, the confessions made, they could never be unsaid.

She’d dated plenty of men, and never considered the majority of them for such a thing, including the ones she’d gotten serious with.

Getting to her feet, she looked in a mirror that hung on the wall, and fixed her makeup.

When she was satisfied, she walked out of her office, pushing the ugly past behind her.

For now.