Write a story involving a character who cannot return home.
https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/contests/98/
She told me that she loved me and I believed her. I believed her so much that it gave me the confidence to be open with her. I felt for the first time I could finally tell someone the truth. I can finally be free and live my truth with the person that loves me. I didn't know that once the truth came out that I couldn't take it back. I wish I never said anything. I wish I could have foreseen what trouble I would be in if I told anyone. No one told me that it could be like this. No one told me that my life would forever change.
The day that Emily told me she loved me was the day I decided to ask her to marry me. The sun was shining so brightly that day that her dark hair seems to have red streaks in it. The brown in her eyes seemed bright especially when she smiled at me. Life couldn't have been any less perfect. She made my life complete and I thought I made hers complete too. I wanted to believe that she was the one for me so badly that I didn't see the flaws that she displayed so freely in front of me. I was so blinded by her beauty that I didn't see what was standing right in front of me.
The problem was I never had someone that loved me. I never truly had a person that could see beyond the physical faults that I deemed ugly. So, when a beautiful girl came in my life and just smiled at me and accepted me, all I could think of was how I wanted to be with her. All these years that we have been together and she finally told me she loved me. She made me the happiest man in this world. I remember her smile and how it didn't really reach her eyes and for some reason it didn't click in my head that she might not really love me. I smiled back and the words just spilled out of my mouth like vomit. "Marry me!" the look on her face afterwards didn't register in my mind when she said that she wasn't ready for that step in the relationship. "We need to be completely honest with each other before we can get married," I remember her saying that. I remember that something in me didn't sit right when she spoke those words but I wanted to desperately have her as my wife that I would have laid down right there in front of her and spill every last darkest secret that I had. When I opened my mouth to utter my deepest darkest secret, nothing came out. No matter how hard I tried to word it, the words didn't want to come out of my mouth. Her face cringe in an ugly manner and she lets out a sigh. "You know where I am when you are ready to be honest with me." She left me standing in front of my home and feeling empty inside. All I could do is watch her leave and enter her house next door. I really didn't know what stopped me from telling her my secret and for some reason my mother's face popped in my mind. I let out a laugh, realising that she was the one that I needed permission from if I ever wanted to tell outsiders about our secret.
I wanted nothing more than to hear my mother say yes but she looked at me in such a way that I flinched at the sight. "Nothing you say will allow me to give you permission. You know the rules." Her voice was stern and cold. My mother was never a warm or loving woman. She always put the secret first. The secret is everything and it is the reason why our family have survived for so long. We never accepted anyone that didn't know the secret and if you were an outsider there was a long list of challenges that you needed to pass in order to know the secret. I hated that we kept the secret to ourselves. I hated that I couldn't share a part of me to the person I love. I knew that keeping the secret was keeping me alive but there were moments where I wish that I didn't need to keep this secret. I wanted to argue more but my mother said something under her breath and I couldn't make a sound. I shouted out but still no sound came out. I stood up and my chair flew behind me against the wall shattering into pieces. My mother slowly stood up just as I was about to say something. The look in her eyes seemed like fire and I knew at that moment I screwed up big. "Fine, if you want to tell her, just know that you will never be welcomed back into this house. You will not be part of this family and you will have to protect yourself. Is that what you want? To be an outsider and to be on the run because that is what going to happen if you say anything," I wanted to interrupt her but she lifted her hand up to stop me. "You have a choice to make and if you tell Emily then better be ready to not have a home. You will not be welcomed here anymore and sure as hell not in this province. I don't want you to danger this family." For a moment I wanted to take everything that I said back but the love that I felt for Emily seem to fuel the urge to tell her even more. My mother left the room shaking her head and there was a small pain in my heart. The test or the curse as they refer to it, is placed on my heart. The curse is for the person that is going to reveal the secret and if the receiver of the secret cannot accept or is any way a danger to the family, the person that revealed the secret will not only be excelled but silenced to never reveal the secret ever again. They would have no home, no family and no safe place to live. They would forever be on the run.
