Can you keep a secret?

Screams Contest Entry 2/4/22
Prompt: A self-fulfilling prophecy
2,414 words

“Can you keep a secret?”

I read the tiny little strip of paper a second time before my surprise at its message turned into a chuckle. I crunched into the fortune cookie that had housed it with a smile on my lips.

“That’s what it says?” said Jim, his shining eyes incredulous.

I nodded, laughing as I munched.

“What secret do you think it’s talking about?” said Jim, setting down his bag of chips before motioning for me to give him the message.

“Heck if I know,” I shot back at my roommate, handing him the fortune before scarfing down the other half of the cookie.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Jim rubbed his chin as he leaned back. “That’s quite a fortune, dude. Any idea what the secret is?”

“Not a clue, but apparently someone in whatever factory in China produces these things has something to hide.”

“Apparently so. Maybe this is how they plan to get past the Great Firewall,” he said with a grin. Taking a swig of his beer, he crumpled up the message with a single hand and tossed it into one of the mostly-finished boxes of rice, forcing me to fish it back out. “Maybe when our band makes it big, we’ll play a show in Hiroshima and liberate all those repressed Chinese people.”

I dropped my head into my hands. “Do you have any idea how many things are wrong with the statement you just made, Jim?”

Jim waived a hand dismissively. “You’re always too anal about insignificant little details, man. Just ‘cause you finished high school doesn’t mean you get to act like a fucking know-it-all 24 hours a day.”

“Insignificant? Like the fact that Hiroshima isn’t even in China? Not that we would want to actually go there no matter where⁠—”

“Whatever, dude,” Jim interrupted. “You know what I mean. So I didn’t study Geology in school. Big whoop. So change the city to North Korea, then. We’ll tour in North Korea. I know that’s in China.”

I just shook my head.

***

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I said, straightening as I pulled the message from a fortune cookie a week later.

“What, dude?” said Jim, his speech slurred. He lifted his head from the armrest of our threadbare couch just enough to see me, the arm and leg of his non-beer-holding side dangling over the cushions.

“The fortune!” I breathed. “It’s another weird one. Just like last week’s.”

“You seriously need to stop getting Chinese food every week,” he mumbled, head falling back to the armrest.

“And eat chips and drink cheap beer every night? No thanks.”

“This ain’t cheap beer,” he slurred, pointing at the skull-and-crossbones label. “It’s the good stuff.”

I rolled my eyes, reading the message a second time. Written in typed font across the tiny paper were the words: “Cross your heart and hope to die?”

“Do you think someone commandeered the machine that prints these things or something?” I asked. Hearing no reply, I turned to see Jim asleep on the couch, bottle fallen from his fingers, pouring over the cushions.

“Son of a…!” I hissed, then ran to his side, extracting the bottle before cleaning up the mess with paper towels. I seriously needed a new roommate.

***

“Do you guys order your fortune cookies from somewhere?” I asked the girl at the register as I picked up my order from Szechuan Palace the following week.

“No. Everything here handmade,” she replied in a Chinese accent, tucking a few errant strands of her silky black hair behind her ear. She looked up at me, biting her lower lip. For the first time, I noticed how cute she was. Attractive in an understated, demure sort of way. She couldn’t be more than five feet tall with delicately sculpted features and gorgeous eyes.

“Do you, um, know who makes the fortune cookies?”

The girl blushed, her eyes falling to study her fingers. “I make cookies.”

She made the cookies? Did that mean she was responsible for putting the messages inside? I wanted to ask her more, but she already seemed to be embarrassed by my question. Besides, I wasn’t exactly sure what to say. Should I just come out and ask her what her secret was? In public? With people at tables eating within earshot? It didn’t feel right. So I simply nodded and left.

As I was on my way out, however, I caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window. She was staring at me. Intently.

When I got back to our apartment, Jim was watching one of the Harold and Kumar movies. Again.

“For goodness sake,” I muttered, wrinkling my nose at his choice of food this time. He was wolfing down Taco Bell, lettuce, cheese, and something that was supposed to pass for meat dribbling into a crinkled wrapper—with an omnipresent beer in his hand, of course. “Shouldn’t you be eating White Castle when you’re watching that movie? Besides, awful as those sliders are, they can’t be as nasty as that taco.”

Jim merely shot me a grin, bright orange grease smeared around his lips. He raised his beer in his standard greeting.

I merely shook my head, bringing my Chinese food to the table. As I laid out the boxes and retrieved a plate, I noticed the fortune cookie at the bottom of the bag. This time, I didn’t wait until the end of the meal, cracking it open to take a look at the message inside.

“Sometimes I like to do naughty things…”

My eyes widened in surprise, breath catching as my mind whirred. Had this message come from that cute girl? I sat back, stunned by this revelation. This must be the secret! Her secret!

Was she hitting on me or something? I thought back to our exchange at the restaurant. To the flush of her pale cheeks, her shyness. What kinds of naughty things was she into? Did she like to get kinky or something?

I’d heard that sometimes introverted people could be some of the wildest in bed, but I really didn’t hang out with those types that often.

“What has you looking so dazzle-eyed over there, Mitch?” asked Jim, apparently noticing my reaction to the message.

“Nothing,” I said, throwing the message and cookie back into the bag.

Once Jim latched onto a juicy bit of potential gossip, however, he didn’t easily let it go. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you got a new girl…”

For all Jim’s many⁠—many—faults, the guy was damned insightful. He teetered his way to the table, plucking the fortune out of the bag to read it. I watched as his eyes slowly turned into saucers.

“Holy fuck, dude! Your fortune cookies are weird as fuck! This almost seems like something a chick would say as a come-on after an off-the-hook fucking show!”

His gaze shifted from the message to me, his beady eyes narrowing with suspicion. “You know who’s writing these messages, don’t you?”

How the hell had he figured that out? “How would I know that?” I shrugged nonchalantly. Apparently not nonchalantly enough, however, as my prevarication didn’t fool Jim for an instant.

“You are such a shitty liar,” he said, grabbing a chair and spinning it around to take a seat. As he settled into place, he rested his chin on his arms atop the back of the chair. “Dish, bud. Now.”

“Geez, Jim. Why are you always so nosy?”

“Who me?” he said, his grease-covered lips curling into a sly smile. “I’m not nosy. I just have keen insight into the human condition. It’s what makes my lyrics so fucking good.”

I had to give him that. His lyrics were the one thing that the record company had complimented in their otherwise scathing rejection letter. “Adequate” wasn’t much of a compliment, but it sure seemed like it was after reading all the less-complimentary-but-oh-so-colorful adjectives they’d used to describe everything else about our music.

I sighed. “So there was this girl at the restaurant,” I started.

“Hot?” asked Jim, a single eyebrow rocketing up his forehead.

“Damn it, Jim! Can’t you let me finish a single sentence about a girl without asking that question?”

“No,” said Jim flatly. “Hot?” he repeated.

When I didn’t reply, he asked the question again, his eyes widening for emphasis, tone one of warning. “Hot?”

I knew that there was no point in arguing. He’d just keep asking his stupid question until I answered.

“Yes,” I said, making sure my exasperation came through in my voice.

Jim didn’t seem to notice my tone, his eyes twinkling with excitement. “Noted. Go on.”

“I asked her who made the fortune cookies, and she told me she did.”

“And the messages too?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

“You are so getting freaky with this girl,” Jim’s face practically flickered with excitement.

“Shut up, Jim.”

“I think we should go back there right now.”

“Shut up, Jim.”

“And get you some action for tonight.”

“Shut up, Jim.”

“And then you can record it on your phone, so I can⁠—”

“SHUT UP, JIM!!!”

“Fine. But you are going back there tonight, right?”

“No. The girl was all sorts of embarrassed.” I didn’t admit that I had been too. “I’ll go back there next week. Besides, that’s when she’ll be expecting me. I’m pretty much a Monday night regular.”

Jim shook his head disgustedly. “I can’t believe you sometimes, man. It’s like I don’t even know who you are.”

***

The following Thursday, I went back to the restaurant, Jim in tow. Despite my protests, he had insisted.

“What do you think she looks like naked?” asked Jim, practically drooling when he saw the girl at the counter.

“Damn it, Jim! Do you want to blow any shot I’ve got with this girl? Remember her fortune cookie messages about keeping her naughty secret? Shut the fuck up!” My voice rose louder than I intended, and when I flicked my gaze toward the girl at the register, I saw her frown. Her eyes connected with mine for a brief moment⁠—just long enough for me to see the hurt reflected within the dark pools of her irises⁠—before her gaze flicked to Jim, then dropped to the ground. She set my bagged order on the counter, then ran into the back, a different, older woman appearing to take my payment. That woman kept eying us suspiciously.

As we left, I turned to Jim and hissed, “Happy? Now she knows I didn’t keep her secret, and we made her upset. Even her mom’s pissed at us.”

Jim simply shrugged, and we walked back to the apartment in silence. We had each ordered food this time, and there were two fortune cookies. I opened them both, quickly reading the messages.

“...but only to people who deserve them…” read the first.

“...like people who can’t keep secrets,” said the second.

Brow furrowing, I laid out all of the messages in order.

“Can you keep a secret?”
“Cross your heart and hope to die?”
“Sometimes I like to do naughty things…”
“...but only to people who deserve them…”
“...like people who can’t keep secrets.”

Suddenly, the messages didn’t look as much kinky as actually threatening.

“Do you think this girl is unhinged or something?” I mused aloud.

“Wouldn’t that be great?” Jim enthused, stuffing another mouthful of sweet and sour Chicken between his eager lips. Of course, he’d chosen the least healthy option on the menu.

“Serial killers are so hot,” he continued, beady eyes glinting. “And killing people who can’t keep secrets is a pretty novel profile your killer’s got. I’m impressed.”

“Yeah,” I said dryly. “Hot. That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

Jim laughed, clapping me on the back. “Come on, man. Just eat your Kung Tofu Pao or whatever the fuck that shit is.”

I did as he suggested, but I couldn’t seem to tear my thoughts away from the girl in the restaurant and her messages. Did she feel I’d betrayed her? Was she mentally ill? Playing a prank on me? As we sat on the couch, watching a mindless movie on TV, I finally decided that I had to know. I rose from my seat and put on my coat.

Jim arched an eyebrow. “Where you going?”

“To have a chat with a girl,” I replied, closing the door behind me.

I arrived at the restaurant just as they were closing. The older woman and an older man—probably her husband—were just getting into her car. Was I too late?

I tried the door, relieved to find that it was open. As I stepped inside, I saw the cute girl turning off the lights.

“Hi, miss? Do you have a second to talk?”

She startled, taking a step back when she saw me. “No! I don’t want to talk!”

I took a step forward. I had to understand what was going on with the messages, to help her if she needed help. “Look, it’s okay. My roommate is the only other person that knows about the messages, and he won’t say anything. I just want to talk. I just wanted to make sure you’re alright.”

The girl looked afraid, tensing as I neared. “After we talk, I had friend read the messages. Your friend is crazy.”

I blinked in surprise. My friend? In my distraction, the girl bolted for the door. As she flung it open, I saw the tip of a knife appear in the center of her back with a splash of blood.

To my horror, the girl collapsed to the ground, Jim’s smiling face appearing in the doorway. He stepped over the quivering young woman, approaching me with a glint in his beady eyes.

“I write the messages for the restaurant’s fortune cookies, dude. Helps me come up with good lyrics for the songs. Your little cutie here just puts them inside. She can’t read English, you know. It’s perfect, really.”

My mind was spinning. So Jim had been the one in need of help? I glanced down at the cute girl’s prone, writhing form. He was the killer?

“Well, it would have been perfect, anyway. If you could have just kept my fucking secret.”

As I stumbled back, he drew another knife from inside his jacket, raising it as he lunged toward me.