FEBRUARY 7
It’s my BIRTHDAY!!! I got books AND a perfume AND CDs AND everyone was there!
I could go on and on about all of the insignificant things I wrote, but we don’t have the time before someone bursts. I cringe myself into closing it and never looking at it again. I flip the pages, my fingers tracing the paper and my eyes going through all of the words too quickly. After an infinite search, I found nothing but hate declarations relating to him. At this point, our relationship was already different.
Just as I’m about to give up, while I’m shaking the diary angrily, many photos fall from the last page. I grab them and quickly look through them, astonished that they’re here in the first place. They all look from the same day, by the outfits and scenarios. My 5-year-old self is dressed in a white dress. The second photo is starred by me and-My mom.My first instinct is to drop the photo. My heart spiked just by looking at her face. We do look alike, more than I remember. I hate how I also want to keep this photo forever, stare at and wonder what went wrong. She’s smiling at me, and I’m laughing with my tiny hands around her neck. Tempting right now.
This is the first photo I have seen of her in seven years. I feel my eyes water, and I press it to my chest, feeling guilt over wanting to keep it. So I don’t think about it and do. It will be like my guilty pleasure.
I save it in a locked drawer, and when my eyes go to the pile, I go back to it, determined. My dad, Emily, Joey, and Jake’s photos have been found. Our sisters weren’t born yet, apparently. I run through all of them until I reach the last. My jaw drops, and my cheeks burn. This image is of Jake and me,happyand not putting each other’s wet fingers in the other’s ear.It gets better. We’re not just smiling to the camera; in fact, we’re not evenawareof it. I’m posing jokingly and pouting while he is smiling and taking pictures of me with another camera. An open, wide field full of flowers surrounds us, and that makes me feel my stomach flip. We look so tiny and so joyful. My heart warms, and my hand goes to my mouth to cover it from being that open. This picture will be another guilty pleasure that he can never know of. I can’t even explain the attachment I gained just from finding it. I don’t know what I would be like if I lost these two photos. My two guilty pleasures.
I hide all of the pictures together, and when I hear movement of someone going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I run downstairs to go do the one thing that could unburden my head successfully.
After grabbing a towel and then a blanket, I lay them and light up a tiny, tiny light. I look over at his house, and his bedroom light is on. I feel a kind of shame for ruining our date. He put effort into it, and I… Cried. Maybe I should repay him.
Let’s just stop this shit show.You want to see him.
I hear a voice in my head laughing, making my heart beat fast with the thought of him being next to me. This is ridiculous. Just forget about it.
I look over, and the light is off. Great. Now, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t ask him to meet me here. He’s already asleep. I breathe out. Silence surrounds me for the second time, and I shift uncomfortably. I don’t like this silence. I don’t like the crickets being the only sound my ears can hear.Just close your eyes. Yeah, like that could fix your hearing. I breathe slowly and grab the flashlight I brought with me in a swift motion. This is good. This silence. It’s nice to change for a bit.
Just keep on believing that…
Why do I feel sad about being alone? Ilovealone time. It’s so good, but now I’m just nervous for no apparent reason.
I’m in a blind spot that gets zero light coming from my house, so everything is black. The only thing shining is the stars.The stars…Look at them. I gaze into the vast sky before my eyes, and that calms me for a bit. At least until I hearfootsteps. I never considered being kidnapped in my own garden, but stranger things have happened… I can’t see anything, so I don’t know if it’s paranoia or if someone is actually coming towards me.Just close your eyes, really shut.Real survivor instinct, huh? The supposed steps come relaxed, its pace amusing. They start to get even closer, which shuts down the whole idea that someone might have been here for the house and not me. The steps stop, and I feel someone besides me.
“Hi-”
I don’t let the person finish. My paranoid self hits the flashlight into a member of their body, which I assume is the leg, and right after, I sweep their legs, hearing then a grunt and someone falling harshly onto the ground. Without thinking, I place myself on top of the person to make sure they stay pinned to the ground, my legs around their torso, and myself sitting on top of the belly. I turn on the flashlight, ready to punch it in someone’s face, when I realizeit’s Jake. My jaw drops, andI gasp, my hand moving quickly and ending up slapping my mouth.
“Holy shit, I’m so sorry.” I mutter, my heart still recovering from the death scare I just experienced.
You know, my heartbeat going stupidly wild and my stomach hurting is not a very good feeling. But then again, being hit in the leg and swept to the ground must not feel amazing either.
He groans in pain, biting his lip so hard.
“You know Brown,” He starts, his voice hollow and dramatic, “when I make new friends, I don’t usually go around smacking them and pinning them to the ground- God, this hurts.” He whines, closing his eyes.
“Baby…” I deflect, knowing damn well that if it were me, I would be insisting on an ambulance. “I thought you were asleep!” I whisper-yell in his face, still not believing the strike I just pulled on him. With the flashlight not quite on his face but allowing me to see his expressions, I observe the lip bite turn into a smirk.
“Been spying on me?” He raises his eyebrows bemusedly, and I roll my eyes.
“Don’t make me hit you with the flashlight again.” I say bored, and he chuckles, making me feel his belly go up and down, therefore making me realize I’m still on top of him. But that doesn’t make me blush or immediately get off. With the flashlight still raised up in the air, ready to smack someone, he slowly moves his hand and grabs it, not breaking eye contact. He easily takes it away from me and lays it near us, still allowing us to see each other. He gazes at me with that dangerous look. That irresistible,recklessone. He moves his arms closer and out of reflex — and honestly a bit afraid of him getting me off him — I grab his wrists and pin his arms to the ground, making our heads too close. My lips are literally hanging above his, and he releases his croaking voice.
“Calm down, Brown. I was just taking you off me, but,” Jake looks at my lips, and I look at his eyes, “I’ve come to realize that you like being here.” His voice starts crispy and gradually turns into a raspy whisper, making my heart beatintensely. I think he can hear it. Doesn’t he?
“You’re so funny,” I say,waymore confident than I am right now, and a sarcastic, playful tone is present in my voice, “as if you don’t like it.” The words slip out of my mouth before I can even catch myself saying them.
I blush in the dark, and I almost gasp, not because of the comment that is most definitely not like me, but because of the fact that we are shamelessly flirting with each other. I didn’t realize it, but our noses are almost touching, and my lips are actually ready to kiss him.
After rolling his eyes due to the comment, they end up on my lips again, making my own eyes end up on his. The distance is desperately magnetic.I could kiss him…And he wants it too.
What good could come of this? He’s a womanizer. Any woman who gets on top of him makes him give that fake look.
I roll my eyes and release his hands, almost throwing them, then I get up and sit beside him, waiting for him to leave.
“Did you just-Flirtwith me?” His incredulous and amused voice breaks.
