My name is Daniel Cole.
And Maplewood is the place that raised me… and ruined me.
People call it a quiet Christian town, the kind where the church bell rings every Sunday, and neighbors bow their heads at dinner. The kind of town where children still ride their bikes down Main Street, and the mayor still waves at you from his front porch. They say Maplewood is a place of light.
But I've learned—light can cast long shadows.
From the outside, it looked perfect. Sunday morning services where Pastor Graham preached about grace and judgment. Wednesday evening potlucks with casserole dishes lined up on long wooden tables. Friday night football games where the whole town crowded into the bleachers, cheering for boys who thought touchdowns could save them from obscurity.
But behind closed doors? Behind the polite smiles and "God bless yous"? People whispered. They judged. They remembered. In Maplewood, nothing stayed hidden.
Back then, I thought I had everything. Rebecca's hand in mine. Her laughter echoing by the lake at night when the fireflies danced over the water. She had this way of tilting her head back when she laughed, her long auburn hair spilling down like a waterfall. We were young, reckless, and in love. We believed love was enough to fight poverty, enough to silence doubt.
We were wrong.
I should have seen it sooner. Rebecca's eyes would linger too long on the baby clothes in Jenkins' store window. My stomach would sink whenever I counted the crumpled bills in my father's old tin box. We were kids playing at adulthood, thinking we could bend the world to our dreams.
There are choices a man makes that never leave him. Choices that dig into the soul and whisper back in the dark. I made one of those choices.
And now, years later, I can feel it coming for me.
Some nights, I wake in a cold sweat, hearing the faint cry of a child that isn't there. Other times, it's just silence—but even silence feels heavy in Maplewood, like it knows the truth I buried long ago.
I used to believe sins could stay buried. That Maplewood's silence would cover my mistakes. That if I worked hard, if I sat in the right pew, if I bowed my head low enough, no one would see the cracks.
But some truths claw their way out, no matter how deep you hide them.
And when they do… they destroy everything.
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