I know how to sound honest while leaving out the center

Dear Delyara, I know how to tell a story with enough truth in it that no one suspects how much is missing. I know how to answer questions without fully answering them. I know how to move around the center of things with enough grace that the room stays comfortable and I stay partially hidden. That kind of concealment becomes very hard to challenge because it doesn’t look like struggle from the outside. It looks like social fluency. It looks like maturity. It looks like being private but composed. But inside, it is exhausting. Because every time I do it, I can feel the split. One part of me is present and conversational and legible. Another part is standing just outside the interaction, knowing exactly what never made it into the room. I think secrecy is heavy not only because of what it hides, but because of the architecture it creates around the hidden thing. Whole habits form around omission. Whole identities begin to bend around what cannot be said plainly. I am tired of bending.