THE DIARY THAT ANSWERED BACK

CHAPTER 2

A Reasonable Explanation

Leah spent the next ten minutes trying to convince herself that she was being ridiculous. Unfortunately, the evidence refused to cooperate. The diary remained open on her bed, its cream-colored pages illuminated by the pale morning sunlight filtering through the curtains. Nothing about it looked extraordinary. There were no glowing symbols. No hidden compartments. No signs that it possessed any business rewriting reality while she slept.

It looked exactly as it had the night before.

Except for the handwriting. Leah drew her knees to her chest and stared at the message again. She had always believed that every mystery had a logical explanation. People lied. People misunderstood. People jumped to conclusions. The world appeared complicated only until someone bothered to look closely enough.

That belief had served her well for seventeen years. It was serving her rather poorly now. The handwriting wasn't hers.

Of that she was certain. Years of examination papers, practice essays, and handwritten notes had made her intimately familiar with every curve and flaw of her own penmanship. The writing in the diary was neater than hers. More deliberate. The letters slanted differently. Even the pressure of the ink looked wrong.

Someone had written those words. The problem was that she could not think of anyone who should have been able to.

Her eyes drifted toward the closed bedroom door.

Carris?

No.

The idea collapsed almost immediately.

Her mother barely had enough time to sleep. Between court appearances, client meetings, and the endless paperwork that seemed to follow lawyers home, Carris spent most evenings fighting exhaustion. Sneaking into bedrooms to write cryptic messages in diaries hardly fit the schedule. Besides, if Carris wanted to talk to her, she would simply talk to her.

Drake?

Leah nearly laughed.

Her younger brother once spent twenty minutes looking for a pair of glasses that were sitting on top of his head. The chances of him orchestrating an elaborate psychological prank were approximately equal to the chances of him voluntarily cleaning his room.

Grandma?

The possibility lingered longer. Not because it made sense. Because it felt uncomfortable. The diary had come from her grandmother. The words she had spoken yesterday echoed through Leah's memory.

When people don't listen, paper will.

At the time, the sentence had sounded like the sort of wisdom older people collected and distributed whenever they felt particularly philosophical. Now it felt different, more intentional. Leah immediately hated herself for thinking it. Her grandmother had given her a gift, not a conspiracy. Yet the coincidence sat heavily in her mind. A knock interrupted her thoughts.

"Leah?"

Carris' voice.

"Breakfast."

Leah looked down at the diary.

Then, acting on instinct she didn't entirely understand, slid it beneath her pillow.

The movement felt absurd the moment she finished it. She wasn't hiding state secrets. She was hiding stationery. Still, she left it there.

"Coming."

By the time she reached the kitchen, Carris was seated at the island with a mug of coffee in one hand and a collection of legal documents spread across the counter. Leah had often wondered whether her mother secretly possessed extra hours in the day. No normal person should have been capable of accomplishing as much as Carris did while remaining so annoyingly cheerful.

"Morning."

Carris glanced up and smiled. The smile was immediate and effortless. The sort of smile that made people feel noticed.

"Morning, future barrister."

"There should be a law against you calling me that before eight o'clock."

"I'll have Parliament look into it."

Leah poured herself a glass of juice. Normally the exchange would have amused her. Today she found herself studying her mother instead. The way a detective studies a witness. The realization made her uncomfortable. Carris noticed immediately.

Of course she did.

"You keep staring at me."

Leah looked away.

"I wasn't."

"Leah."

"I wasn't."

"You inherited your lying skills from your father."

That earned a laugh despite herself. Carris smiled in satisfaction before returning to her paperwork. And just like that, Leah's suspicion weakened. Not because she had evidence. Because the idea felt wrong.

There was something fundamentally dishonest about sitting across from a woman who had spent years loving her through every disappointment and secretly wondering whether she was sneaking into bedrooms to leave anonymous messages.

The guilt stayed with her all morning. Unfortunately, so did the curiosity. By the time she returned home from school, curiosity had won. The diary was exactly where she had left it. Leah locked her bedroom door. Sat at her desk.

And opened it.

The message remained unchanged.

Waiting, Patient.

Almost as though it knew she would come back. Her pulse quickened. Then she reached for a pen. If someone was writing in the diary, there was a simple way to find out. She lowered the tip of the pen to the page. For several seconds she hesitated. Feeling ridiculous.

Then she wrote:

Who are you?

The question looked embarrassingly small on the page.

Three words. Nothing more. Yet writing them felt strangely significant. Like knocking on a door and waiting to discover who lived on the other side.

Leah closed the diary. Placed it back inside the drawer. And spent the rest of the evening telling herself she wasn't expecting an answer. She repeated the lie several times. By midnight, she almost believed it.

Almost.