Keep Your Mouth Shut

At age eleven there was a great deal of things I did not know; however, I did know the general rules regarding everyday social dynamics. There was not much I would say to people other than close friends and in return you could say that I was not particularly involved in heaps of drama. Beside the fact, every once in awhile I was trusted with a secret. It was particular custom for every single person to have a crush, and also for people to want to tell somebody who they had one on. So, my close friend, Matt, walks up to me in that awkward loping gait of his at recess, and we talk for a little bit, then it seems that out of pure eagerness to reveal his something, he says,

“Can I trust you with a secret?”

Calculations race through my naive head. I already do not talk much, and furthermore, I do not spark drama, as well as just knowing when to keep my mouth shut. Even when reflecting on that moment, there is still a man in the back of my head, sitting in a dark leathered chair, reading a newspaper and drinking coffee and telling me, with eyes fixed on the text of the news, that there is absolutely no positive outcome of learning Matt’s intriguing secret. Yet, here I am, fully well aware that the secret will presumptively be Matt’s crush, and that I will be a liability, but I say,

“Yeah sure. What is it?”

Matt’s eyes, with trust now embedded in them, dolefully set his gaze upon a girl across the playground. He leaned his head towards me and quietly whispered into my ear, with seemingly great enthusiasm,  

“I have a crush on Shawna.”

Then he swore me to secrecy.

Now the man in the chair was shaking his head, steely eyes locked onto my own, having wringed the newspaper in his hands, and then with a displeased and intense cast, bitterly stating,

“keep your mouth shut.”

I really did not understand why Matt told me his crush. Anybody with half an ear and eye could comprehend the interactions between the two, and I am pretty sure that they had “dated” in previous months, or had been off and on. Anyways the two were like best friends, a big brother to her, or maybe that was the problem. Poor kid must have been stuck in the friend zone.

The next week or so we were on the playground and playing football like usual. Only this time, it had become slowly, yet increasingly, normal for the girls to join in on the fun. Due to snow on the ground, we had to play on the plowed pavement, so there was not abundant room to run around and the teams were rather large. So, most of the time the kids just stood around and talked, maybe a few here and there were actually playing hard, but not like during the fall. With the added time to talk with others, more drama flew about, eventually everyone was put upon the fiery stake and forced to confess their secrets. Soon Matt was being set aflame. He deflected just about everything set upon him; however, someone mentioned Shawna’s name, but just like a well trained politician in a press conference, he cooly parried the prying inquiry and became sidetracked in other activities. Meanwhile, Shawna, having heard her name, asked who liked her, and me being me, kind of spilled the beans. I’m not sure how it happened, but for some reason it was not a big deal to me. Then I turned around to see Matt’s face. Hurt. Flushed. He became fidgety, and then he shrugged in a seemingly indifferent way, yet you could almost see a drip of sweat begin to form on his head and a ever so tiny smile of shyness cross over his face.

Now the man in the chair just smirked, which then slowly turned into a booming laugh, then he began slapping his knee with his heavy hands. Eventually his great lungs produced only wheezing and coughing, until he finally returned to the smirk and newspaper. Before my mind wandered off, his last words were,

“Ya should’ve kept your mouth shut.”