You Can't Hide From Yourself Novels & Stories

No matter how many layers I hide behind, it doesn’t go away. “I can still control this,” I whisper. I say it again. “I have to.”

I whispered to myself, barely audible: “You can handle this. One step at a time.” And somewhere in the back of my mind, All the Hidden Places waited quietly on the desk, a reminder that maybe some things weren’t meant to stay hidden forever—and maybe some truths weren’t easy to ignore. ---

I can’t stop people from trying to weaponize my humanity. But I can stop helping them by pretending it doesn’t exist. Tomorrow, I’ll still be careful. Still strategic. Still precise. I won’t give them easy angles or careless mistakes. But I won’t disappear parts of myself to make others comfortable anymore. I close my eyes with that decision clear and solid in my chest. No hiding. Not from them. Not from myself.

It reached beneath performance toward rawness. My chest tightened sharply. One aware pattern finally admitted quietly. “I don’t know who I am without the masks I use to protect myself.” Another whispered. “I’m afraid that if someone sees everything… they’ll love me less.” More silence followed. Then another confession. “Sometimes I hide parts of myself even from people I trust most.” That one spread deepest. Because beneath the longing for closeness often lived an equally powerful instinct toward concealment. I remained silent for a long time before speaking again.

“You call this thinking? Standing in the middle of the forest, trembling, afraid, avoiding me? That’s not thinking, Mara. That’s hiding.” Hiding. The word cut through me like a blade. That was exactly what I had been doing my entire life—hiding. From the pack, from my parents’ memory, from myself. From the truth that had been waiting for me for ten long years, buried deep under layers of fear and guilt. “I’m not hiding,” I said, my voice stronger than I felt, trying to assert control over the storm raging inside me. “I… I’m just trying to… make sense of all of this.”

I want this world to know that I'm strongest, nothing can beat me but, I act this way to hide my emotions, I hide my true self, even from myself. The beast inside me would eat it up leaving no trace of that one string I'm holding on to. When she suggested me the stuff about therapy claiming it as a mental disorder, it shook my insides. I don’t want to face that, I don’t want to be weak, the word would spread and the fear they have in their eyes for me will vanish turning into ashes.

It feels like it’s pressing down on me, pushing me deeper into myself until I can barely stand it. I keep thinking about what kind of man I am. Or what kind of coward. The evidence against Sandra and Marcus—it’s all there, laid out like a trap they set for themselves. I could use it. I could drag them down. But here I am, hiding in a lake house, pretending the world will stop moving if I stay still long enough. I whisper it out loud, just to hear my own voice: “What kind of man am I, if I can’t even fight for myself?”

I’m hiding. "What the fuck am I doing?" I whisper, staring at my hands. They are shaking. "Leading a cult? I’m not a prophet. I’m a graphic designer who got horny and broke the internet." I look at the mirror on the wardrobe door. The reflection stares back. Disheveled hair. Wild eyes. A white slip dress stained with grass and sweat. I look like a villain. The kind who starts the fire and then cries about the smoke. "You are hiding," Echo’s voice whispers from my phone on the mattress. "From them. And from yourself."

(AHVI'S POINT OF VIEW) "You can run, dear, but you can't hide from your destiny. When you fear and love something, it becomes your greatest flaw." There are a few things I know I can't run away from. First is the reverberating sound of my grandmother's words in my head for no good cause and some so-called destiny she invariably speaks about. Second is the loud cheers of the audience right outside the backstage, waiting while their screams get vociferous. I swallow the lump that has cropped up on my throat and rub my moist hands together. And thirdly-