CHAPTER 3
958 Words
The Wrong Question
Leah woke up thinking about the diary. The realization annoyed her immediately.
Not because it surprised her because it didn't. She had spent most of the previous evening pretending she wasn't waiting for an answer. By midnight she had nearly convinced herself that the entire situation was ridiculous. People did not communicate through stationery.
Mysterious strangers did not emerge from blank pages simply because someone asked a question. Yet the first thing she did after opening her eyes was glance toward the bedside drawer. The diary waited exactly where she had left it.
Very quiet, ordinary, innocent.
Leah lay motionless for several seconds, staring at the ceiling. Then she sighed.
"You're losing your mind."
The ceiling offered no opinion.
Unfortunately, neither did the drawer.
By the time she finished getting dressed, curiosity had become impossible to ignore.
She crossed the room, opened the drawer.
And pulled out the diary. Her pulse quickened despite herself. The page fell open almost immediately. Directly to the question she had written the day before.
Three words.
Simple, embarrassing and dangerously hopeful.
“Who are you?”
For a moment Leah thought nothing had changed. Then she noticed the new writing beneath it. Her stomach tightened. The answer consisted of only one sentence.
“The wrong question is often more interesting than the right answer.”
Leah stared.
Read it again.
Then a third time.
The words managed to be irritating and unsettling simultaneously.
"That's not an answer."
She immediately felt ridiculous. Because she had just argued with a notebook. The diary remained unimpressed. Leah sank onto the edge of her bed and read the sentence again.The wrong question is often more interesting than the right answer.
Who even wrote like that?
The reply sounded less like a confession and more like something a lecturer would write on a whiteboard before assigning homework or a lawyer because they were renowned for handling complicated English, or a psychologist, perhaps someone who enjoyed being difficult.
The thought lingered. Then another one arrived. What if that was the point?
Perhaps whoever was writing the messages didn't want her asking who they were, they wanted her asking something else. Leah hated how quickly the idea interested her. Because interest implied engagement. Engagement implied participation. And participation implied she had already accepted the possibility that someone was genuinely communicating with her.
She closed the diary.
Then opened it again almost immediately. This time she picked up a pen. The movement felt strangely natural. As though the conversation had already begun.
Before she could overthink it, she wrote:
“Then what question should I ask?”
For several seconds she stared at the words. Then she laughed softly.
If any of her classmates walked into the room right now, they would think she had finally cracked under academic pressure.
Maybe they would be right. She closed the diary and forced herself to leave for school. Unfortunately, leaving the diary behind did not stop her from thinking about it.
The day passed in fragments, she attended classes, teachers spoke, students laughed, assignments were discussed and given. But none of this interested Leah. Her attention kept drifting elsewhere.Several times she found herself replaying the reply in her head. The wrong question is often more interesting than the right answer. It sounded deliberate.
Calculated.
As though the writer wanted her curiosity to do most of the work. And the frustrating part was that it was working. By lunch she had already begun mentally composing new questions. By afternoon she was wondering whether that was exactly what the writer intended. The realization unsettled her. Because it suggested something she had not considered before.
Whoever was behind the messages wasn't simply responding.
They were steering the conversation. Guiding it. Choosing where it went.
The thought followed her all the way home.
That evening Carris found her sitting at the dining table with a textbook open and the same page untouched for nearly fifteen minutes.
"You've read that paragraph six times."
Leah looked up.
"I have not."
"You have."
"You counted?"
"I noticed."
Carris smiled and set a plate beside her.
The smell of food immediately filled the room. Normally Leah would have been grateful. Tonight she was distracted.
Her mother studied her for a moment.
Then sat opposite her.
"What's going on?"
The question was gentle and Simple.
Exactly the sort of question Carris always asked when she sensed something was wrong. Leah opened her mouth. Then closed it again.
What exactly was she supposed to say?
Hello, Mum. Someone is answering my diary and I may be developing a correspondence with them.
The conversation seemed unlikely to end well. So she smiled instead.
"Nothing."
Carris continued watching her. Not suspiciously. Just carefully.
The way mothers did when they knew their children were carrying something they hadn't yet learned how to share.
Finally she reached across the table and squeezed Leah's hand.
"You don't always have to carry everything by yourself."
For a brief moment guilt twisted inside her chest. Because Carris meant well, she cared despite that, Leah knew exactly where she was going the moment the conversation ended.
Back to the diary. The house was quiet when she finally returned to her room.
For several seconds she stood beside her desk. Staring at the drawer. Finally she opened it.
The diary was waiting. The page fell open immediately. And this time there was an answer. Beneath her question. Written in the same careful handwriting.
“Ask why you needed a stranger to notice what the people around you already should have.”
Leah felt her breath catch.
Because for the first time since the messages began, the diary wasn't answering her question.
It was asking one of its own.
- Writer
