Diary, I know I can’t be with him. I know that the clock is ticking on my time with him and that in a few weeks, he’ll probably hate me with every fiber of his being. And I’ll deserve it. But tonight was one of the best nights of my life.
As always, when the diary entry was complete, she crumpled the paper and tossed it into her bedroom’s roaring fireplace. Her life and personal thoughts needed no paper trail.
Then she showered, thoroughly. Washing her hair proved especially difficult, considering her head was up in the clouds, but she managed. After drying off, she reached for her pajamas, slipping into the clean material as a thundering knock shook her bathroom door.
“Samantha! Samantha, open up in there!”
Thomas. He was the only one who got away with calling her Samantha anymore.
“What? Where’s the fire?” she asked, opening the door to reveal him.
“You”—her brother stuck his pointer finger in her face—“were singing in there.”
“No, I wasn’t,” she scoffed.
Sam had never heard anything so ridiculous. She never sang. She wasn’t the singing type. Until a few days ago, she couldn’t even name a handful of tolerable songs.
“Yes, you were,” he snapped. “The song from that mermaid movie.”
“Part of your world” still rattled in Sam’s throat, as if it’d left a permanent imprint there. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d voluntarily sung. Maybe she hadn’t ever? Besides singing in the required school choir, she honestly didn’t know if she’d ever sung on her own.
“I guess I was,” she said, her voice small.
There was no way to defend something she didn’t understand.
“Why?”
“I don’t know why. Why are you on my case?”
An answer never came. Instead, Thomas stared down at her with the same beleaguered sincerity every TV dad wore when their kids stayed out late or got themselves caught drinking underage.
“How was your date last night?” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Spent the entire week planning a party and you leave twenty minutes in.”
“Thomas, it was—” In spite of herself, her eyes lit up and her chest swelled. The sensation lasted a full second before she caught herself and double-bolted her heart’s cage. “It was fine. I need to keep him on the hook, so when he said he wanted to leave, I figured it was the best thing to do.”
“You got in pretty late. Early, I mean.”
“Sorry, I didn’t know I had a curfew.” She rolled her eyes as annoyance flared up in her. She was a twenty-three-year-old woman who’d gotten along well enough before her brother showed up. The last thing she needed was for him to try and take her father’s place as the leading authority in her life. She was fine if he wanted to adopt TV-dad expressions; she was less comfortable with him trying tobecomeher dad.
“Did you sleep with him?”
Her jaw dropped.
“None of your business!”
“You’re my business and you’re really fucking this up for yourself.”
“I have everything under control.” She was only partly aware her voice and body temperature were rising at an alarming rate. “You don’t need to look out for me.”
Thomas met her volume.
“I’m the only one in this house who is—”
But they were rescued from themselves by the appearance of Mrs. Long. The fight fizzled, though Sam’s anger didn’t.
“Excuse me, miss,” she said, a trained oblivious look on her face. “You have a visitor.”
Dismissing her brother, she exchanged her pajamas for a bright dress and headed downstairs. The dress was green, though the green only made her long for the dress she’d worn the night before. This emerald was pale in comparison, a sham dress. She hadn’t had the time or the thought to ask Mrs. Long who the guest was, but she assumed it was Daniel, here to ask her out again or to ask for his coat back or something. Her heart was shamelessly buoyant at the thought of seeing him again so soon.
