AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Eventually, he realized that I wasn’t the typical young kid, that I was obsessed with dark themes, that I would always pick a thriller or horror movie over something geared toward my age group.
Then he would slip up, little by little, while we watched those movies, telling me all the ways that the plots or action or fight scenes were inaccurate. Sometimes, we would even recreate the scenes to show me how itwaspossible to bring about the desired result.
And, of course, I was a curious kid.
How did he know all of that?
Where did he learn it?
Could he teach me?
That was when he told me—carefully, of course—about his previous job.
“Secrets, munchkin, are a universal currency.”
“That always stuck with me,” I admitted to Cato.
“It’s a fucking good line,” Cato agreed.
“I didn’t understand him at first, of course.”
It wasn’t until he taught me to start observing people, watching him the way he saw them, that it started to click for me.
The neighbor across the hall suddenly started working out, dressing better, and got a stylish haircut. Why would he do that, munchkin?
I would come up with several theories until he taught me to hone in on the fact that people did things for very, very basic, universal reasons.
Love.
Money.
Power.
Revenge.
“Changing his appearance won’t give him any money,” he’d insisted. “It could give him power, but not in his line of work. And the only person who changing his appearance would get revenge on is an ex. He’s married.”
Then it clicked.
He was cheating on his wife.
Sure enough, as I started to watch him more myself, even without my uncle, I saw the signs. The way he would stay out late, then come home, spraying himself in his car with his cologne. How he would take a walk to the corner store to call the girl where his wife wouldn’t overhear.
I took that information and applied it to life. To school. To classmates.
Everyone, it seemed to me, had secrets.
And if you learned how to use them to your advantage, you could get anything you wanted.
“That was how you came up with the idea to blackmail your father.”
“Yeah. I was a master at small manipulations by then. I even managed to fuck over my mom here and there. Much to my delight. That makes me sound like a bitch…”
“Your ma didn’t even make sure there was enough food for you in the house before she took off, leaving you alone, baby. I think she had whatever you did to her coming.”
It was nothing big.
Just petty things.
