CHAPTER 4
1008 Words
Before It Happened
Leah had always believed that silence came in different forms.There was the comfortable silence she shared with her grandmother while drinking tea in the garden. The kind that felt complete without requiring words. There was the tense silence that sometimes settled over the dining table whenever her father's name surfaced unexpectedly. And then there was the silence currently hanging over her bedroom.
The silence of waiting, she hated it. She hated the fact that a notebook had somehow become the most interesting part of her day. Most of all, she hated the fact that she kept checking it. The diary sat closed on her desk while she attempted to complete an assignment that should have taken no more than thirty minutes. Nearly an hour had passed.
The same paragraph remained unfinished. Her eyes drifted toward the diary again. Then immediately back to her laptop. Then back to the diary.
"You're ridiculous."
The diary offered no defense. Leah rubbed her forehead and tried to focus. The assignment concerned legal ethics, a topic she normally enjoyed. Usually she would have spent twenty minutes researching arguments and another ten dismantling them. Today, however, every line of text eventually led her back to a single question.
Who was writing in that diary?
Not a stranger, she was becoming increasingly certain of that. A stranger might know facts, could gather information, could even pull off a clever prank. But understanding someone was different.
The diary understood things she had never spoken aloud, that was what bothered her.
A knock interrupted her thoughts.
Before she could answer, Drake pushed open the door.
"You're doing that thing again."
Leah looked up.
"What thing?"
"The staring."
"I wasn't staring."
"You were."
Drake wandered into the room and collapsed onto her bed.
"You stare at things when you're thinking too much."
Leah rolled her eyes.
"Thank you, Doctor Drake."
"You're welcome."
For a moment he remained quiet. Then he added casually,
"Dad called."
The words landed like a pebble dropped into still water. Small. Yet capable of disturbing everything. Leah lowered her gaze to her laptop.
"Oh."
"He asked about you."
Another pebble, another ripple.
"Okay."
Drake frowned.
"That's all?"
"What do you want me to say?"
"I don't know."
Neither did she. That was the problem.
Her father had become difficult to discuss.
Every emotion felt simultaneously correct and incorrect. She missed him, resented him, loved him and was tired of being disappointed by him. All of those things could exist together. And that annoyed her.
Drake sat up.
"He said he's visiting this weekend."
Leah laughed. The sound escaped before she could stop it. Not because she found it funny but because she had heard that sentence before many times, too many times
Drake's expression fell.
"He sounded serious."
"They always sound serious."
The bitterness surprised even her. For a second neither spoke. Then Drake quietly changed the subject. A skill he was becoming increasingly good at. After he left, Leah remained seated for several minutes. Eventually her eyes drifted toward the diary. Without thinking, she opened it.
The previous message greeted her immediately. Ask why you needed a stranger to notice what the people around you already should have. Leah stared at the words. Then she grabbed a pen.
Perhaps she was becoming too comfortable with this, maybe she should have been alarmed. Instead she found herself writing.
My father is visiting this weekend.
She paused.
Then added:
At least that's what he says. The words looked smaller on paper than they felt inside her chest. For a long moment nothing happened. Of course nothing happened. The diary didn't respond instantly. It never had. Still, a strange disappointment settled over her as she closed it.
The following afternoon, Leah arrived home exhausted.
A surprise quiz, two assignments.
One overly enthusiastic teacher was determined to convince the class that weekends were optional. She dropped her school bag beside the stairs and headed toward the kitchen. The sound of laughter stopped her. Carris was smiling, actually smiling. Not her usual polite smile, not her courtroom smile. A real one.
The kind that reached her eyes. Leah slowed. Through the partially open doorway she caught sight of a man sitting across from her mother.
Richard Kingsley.
She recognized him vaguely. A family friend. Or at least that's what she had always assumed. The sight lasted only a few seconds. Then Carris noticed her the moment vanished, the smile softened.
The conversation ended.
Nothing looked suspicious nothing looked wrong. Yet something about it lingered in Leah's thoughts. That evening she opened the diary again. The new writing was already there. As neat and careful as it had always been. Waiting. Her heartbeat quickened.
Don't expect too much from Saturday.
Leah frowned. That was all. No explanation. No dramatic revelation. Just one sentence. She read it again. Then again. Irritation quickly replaced curiosity.
What does that mean?
she wrote beneath it.
The next page remained blank. The message offered no clarification. Eventually she snapped the diary shut.
"Helpful."
Saturday arrived bright and cold. Leah checked the clock more times than she intended.
Ten o'clock. Eleven. Noon. One.
Drake remained optimistic. Carris remained quiet. By three o'clock Leah had stopped pretending. By four, she knew.
The phone rang shortly after. She didn't need to answer. She already knew who it was.
Adrian.
Apologizing again. Something had come up. Another delay, another explanation, another promise. Leah listened from the hallway while Carris spoke softly into the phone. The familiar ache settled inside her chest. Not sharp enough to wound. Just familiar enough to hurt.
Later that night she sat on the edge of her bed and opened the diary. The message waited exactly where she had left it.
Don't expect too much from Saturday.
For the first time, the words frightened her.
Because they hadn't described the future.
They knew it. And the worst part wasn't that the diary had been right. The worst part was that somewhere deep down before Saturday arrived.
Leah had known it too
- Writer
