My mother, in her relentless campaign to tidy my life for college, pulled a dusty box from the back of my closet. "JM, what is all this? Are you keeping trash now?"
It wasn't trash. It was the archive of our investigation. The oilcloth we'd wrapped the evidence in. The fake ledger we'd used as a decoy. The printed social media messages with Hector. And at the bottom, nestled under everything else, was the stick of a melted ice candy, the paper wrapper still faintly visible.
Holding each item was like touching a live wire. The fear, the adrenaline, the late-night whispers in the safe house—it all came rushing back with a visceral intensity. This wasn't just memory; it was trauma and triumph packaged in cardboard. I couldn't throw it away. It was a part of me now, a chapter of my life that was more real than all the years that had come before it. I carefully repacked the box, sealed it with tape, and labeled it "History Project." Some secrets weren't meant for the trash; they were meant to be stored, acknowledged, and eventually, understood.