In retrospect, hiding in the kitchen cabinet wasn’t the smartest move. I have effectively trapped myself as Thomas prowls the house with the sole purpose of finding me. But if we’re considering wise choices, agreeing to play wasn’t one of my brightest moments, either.

I can hear his footsteps echoing around the house. After all, we are the only ones home, the only ones playing this ridiculous game with an even more ridiculous name, dubbed by my adversary himself. Hide-and-Seekrets is a Thomas Gavener original, and as the name suggests, it’s simply hide-and-seek with the twist of telling secrets as you play. When he first pitched it to me, I was more than skeptical. Secrets—especially sharing them—aren’t really my thing. But Thomas is even more brooding and private than I, so I would be a fool not to leap at the chance. Besides, as much as I hate to admit, the game has a certain beauty to it. Sharing secrets takes a lot less bravery when you don’t have to look into someone’s eyes. When you don’t have to gauge their reaction and brace yourself for the worst. No, in this game, you can hide from all of that.

“When I was 18, I got a tattoo of a McDonald’s M on my arm,” Thomas calls out from another room. I can hear him enter the kitchen and pause. “There was some daring and drinks involved.”

I press a hand to my mouth to stifle my laugh. I can’t imagine the stoic, mysterious Thomas Gavener with a tattoo of something so stupid. A teasing quip is on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow it for two reasons. One; I am too much of a coward to say it. Two; I am competitive, so as outlandish as that comment is, I cannot risk replying and giving away my hiding spot.

Still, I say it to myself, to applaud my brain for coming up with something original, for once. _You’re so obsessed, you got my initial tattooed on you, huh, Gavener? There’s no need to lie._

Many people may ask why two young adults such as ourselves are playing a game as stupid as Hide-and-Seekrets, much less taking it so seriously. But Thomas and I take everything as a competition and between the two of us, everything just _is_. Is _real_. Adrenaline-pumping, blood-rushing, distracting, and definitely not good for either of us. Which is why, I suppose, sitting in a cabinet while he tells me about a secret McDonald’s tattoo makes perfect sense.

I hear his swift, intentional footsteps walking past my cabinet and I hold my breath. He is playing to win, he always does. We always do.

“Your turn, Maya,” he says, and from the distance of his voice, I know it is finally safe enough for me to leave. I slowly push the cabinet door open and blink into the darkness. One of the few rules of the game: all lights must stay off.

I crawl blindly across the floor and crouch near the entrance to the hallway. It’s my first time ever playing, but I’ve quickly learned one of the best tactics. When the hider, it is best to spill your secret and then run to avoid being located.

“When I was seven, I stepped on my friend’s hamster and killed it,” I say, just loud enough for him to hear it. I pause, waiting to hear his reaction from across the house. I repeat my words in my mind and quickly add, “On accident,” for clarification.

As I rush to the office, trying to soften the sound of my footsteps, I can hear him chuckling in another room.

“On accident, right,” he teases, “And I’m supposed to believe that? I’ve always known that you have a dark side. I never thought murder, but I wouldn’t put it past you.”

Now curled up under his desk, I roll my eyes and scoff, but don’t rise to the bait. He’s trying to get a reaction out of me, to cheat his way into winning. Or perhaps he’s just being his naturally annoying self. Either way, I’m not stupid enough to bite back with a retort.

Besides, he hasn’t even heard the worst part; after killing said hamster, seven-year-old me had placed it back in its cage, and upon my friend's return, I told her he was sleeping. She believed it.

I was never invited back to her house after that.

“You’re telling me the whole story later,” Thomas says, his voice getting louder as he walks closer to the office.

Yeah, right. If he’s lucky.

I can hear him think of his next secret, mentally sifting through memories. When I hear him laugh, dread cools in my body.

“I had cameras installed in my room when I was younger because I suspected my brother, Aiden, was stealing my candy,” Thomas begins, and I know this secret will be a long one from the tone of his voice, “Long story short, we ended up switching rooms and I forgot about them. By the time I remembered, a few years had passed and I could’ve easily taken them down but…” I can’t see him, but I can picture the way he smirks and shrugs oh so casually. “The leverage was too good to pass up. To this day, there are still cameras in that room and he has no idea.”

I hear him walk away from the office and use the chance to leave as well, hiding behind the corner as I contemplate my response and my next secret. Both of which have to be short if I don’t want to get caught.

I stand up, my knees popping, and sidle closer to the stairs.

“Stalker,” I say, though I know the epithet doesn’t hurt him in the slightest. “And my girl best friend kissed me.”

The silence is loud as I go up the stairs, but Thomas may be too distracted to even listen to my footsteps. I can tell his mind is reeling and I know an amused smile is making its way across his face as he tries to figure out more about what I said. That’s what he does: you can tell him one word and he will somehow learn the whole story.

“I’m guessing you haven’t told anybody, until now,” Thomas muses. He’s right, but I don’t have to tell him that, he already knows. Then he pauses and I curse under my breath, creeping into the bathroom and huddling behind a shower curtain when I hear him begin his way up the steps.

I know the gears in his brain are turning, that he is putting two and two together. If he wasn’t so damn logical and good at guessing…

“Delaney?” he asks. I don’t have to wonder what he is asking. I know. But I don’t respond, again for two reasons. One; I am too embarrassed. Two; I am not about to lose.

I realize I like this game much more than I should. I can spill secrets while hiding and I have every excuse not to answer any questions. I don’t have to elaborate or seem suspicious for keeping my mouth closed. Of course, Thomas puzzles out his answer from my silence and continues his one-sided interrogation. At this point, I think he only asks the questions for my benefit, so I can know how much he has figured out.

“Recently, I presume,” he says, opening a door to a different room. “And she made out with you. Not you with her. So I’m guessing you don’t know how to feel about it. Or you do and you don’t want to admit it.”

My hands grip the shower curtain tightly. It wasn’t like she was a bad kisser, I just wasn’t into her like that. But of course, I don’t say that.

“Was she drunk?” Thomas asks bluntly.

I don’t respond. I think we were both a little tipsy.

“Did it mean something to her?” his voice gets quieter as he gets farther away. I step out of the shower, out of the bathroom, and into the concourse area where the hallways meet, or as Thomas calls it, the upstairs foyer. I stand behind a pillar, trying to make out the rest of the room in the dark as I think of his question.

I don’t think it did. I hope it didn’t.

“Did it mean something to you?” Thomas is closer, but I don’t know where.

Of course it did. My best friend kissed me. But it didn’t mean anything, not in the way he meant.

“Your turn,” I say instead, my voice soft and quiet enough that I hope he cannot pinpoint its source.

He is silent. I hold my breath, and suddenly, a realization dawns on me. Thomas Gavener, the damned boy, has been losing on purpose. He hasn’t really been looking for me. He could’ve found me easily from the moment I left that kitchen cabinet. He just wanted to hear more of my secrets.

I don’t know whether to be mad or confused, so I decide to be both.

And suddenly, his voice is behind me.

“Found you,” he says and I turn so fast I almost fall over. There’s a lazy, scheming smile on his face that makes me want to simultaneously punch him and kiss him. _Wait, what?_

The darkness makes the moment much more real, much more intimate. He looks at me intensely, in such a way that makes me want to high-tail my way out of there. But my feet are rooted to the spot, and I swallow.

I’ve just lost a game of Hide-and-Seekrets to Thomas Gavener. I am so disappointed in myself.

“You could’ve found me sooner,” I point out, crossing my arms and squinting at him, trying to figure out what angle he’s playing at.

Thomas doesn’t seem surprised that I came to that conclusion. No, in fact, he seems like he was waiting for me to say that. He shrugs and leans his head in closer. “I had one more secret to tell.”

“Well, the game is over,” I reply shortly, trying to keep my voice even and my mind focused on the game, “You should’ve told me before you found me.”

“I wanted to look at you when I told you,” he says, and his voice is all too soft, all too genuine. This is not who we are. We are people who hide our emotions and our feelings behind carefully crafted masks so that we may never be used or made vulnerable.

“Isn’t the whole point of the game to tell secrets without people looking at you?” I ask, and I hate how my voice wavers and cracks, making my uncertainty clear.

“Maybe, originally, back when I was a kid. But it’s my game, and today, its point was to get us here,” Thomas blinks at me and tilts his head. “I would be a coward to not tell it to your face. So, what do you say? Will you allow me to say my final secret?”

“I was never stopping you,” I breathe, pressing my back against the pillar. He leans in closer, taking my face gently in his hands.

“My secret is that I love you, Maya Sinclair,” he whispers.

With those words, our game ended. We stopped playing. We dropped our masks. We became real.