He is too kind and hardworking to be considered a snob, shunning his lazy trust fund acquaintances who accomplished 'nothing on their own,' but he's certainly an elitist, having always traveled in prep school, power circles. It's one of the many things I admire about him-his fine taste coupled with his firm belief that life is too short for unexceptional wine.

After several stops and starts, winter seems over for good, and the balmy spring night is made warmer by the bottle of Barolo Peter ordered. I should have taken those words to heart-the ones that started it all on that sweltering night so long ago: You can run but you can't hide.īut those words, that night, my secret, are the farthest things from my mind as Peter and I stroll down Bleecker Street following a lingering dinner at Lupa, one of our favorite restaurants in the city. I never forgot, not for a single day, yet I was also convinced that sometimes, the past really was the past. My father knew nothing of it-and I didn't even discuss it with my mother, the only person who was there when it all happened, almost as if we took an unspoken vow of silence, willing ourselves to let go, move on. Not to my closest friends in my most intoxicated moments or to my boyfriend, Peter, in our most intimate ones. But I truly believed I was the exception to such portents, and never once breathed the smallest mention of my nearly two-decade-long secret to anyone. Maybe that's the case for some people and some secrets.

That in the end, only the truth will set you free. That they can poison relationships and divide families.

Where We Belong by Emily Giffin