The journal
937 Words
The Journal
Avril stayed in bed long after the sun came up.
She wasn’t asleep.
Just… suspended. Caught somewhere between reality and the spinning thoughts in her head.
Khaid had broken into her apartment.
And she hadn’t reported it.
What did that say about her?
What scared her more than his sudden appearance was the fact that part of her wasn’t angry. She was intrigued. Like her curiosity had teeth and now it was gnawing at her peace.
By midday, she forced herself to work.
The document glared at her—half a chapter, cursor blinking like judgment.
She couldn’t write about imaginary men when a very real one had cracked her reality open like an egg.
So she reached for it.
The journal.
The one she’d meant to return. The one she kept telling herself she was only borrowing. For inspiration.
But the truth was uglier than that.
She’d been using it.
Feeding on it.
And now, it was the only thing that could pull her out of her fog.
She flipped to a page she hadn’t read before. It was dated almost a year ago.
"I hate how easily I lie to people. Not because it feels wrong—but because it doesn’t. I can’t remember the last time someone saw the real me and didn’t flinch."
She exhaled, quietly.
Another entry, from a few weeks later:
"I’m scared one day I’ll disappear and no one will notice. Or worse—someone will. And they’ll be glad."
Avril’s hand tightened around the edge of the notebook.
Who was this version of Khalid? Broken, self-aware, unraveling in ink?
It was nothing like the man who sauntered into her apartment like he owned it.
Or the man that had taken over her mind and rendered it useless
But it made sense.
Pain like that didn’t just vanish. It buried itself deep and turned into something sharper. Something colder.
She didn’t want to understand him.
But she did.
Too well.
A knock at her door startled her.
She jumped, heart in her throat.
It wasn’t Khaid.
Just Priya.
“Hey,” Priya said, poking her head in. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Avril gave a tight smile. “Something like that.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” she lied. “Just writing.”
Priya narrowed her eyes. “Is this about your therapist mystery man again?”
Avril said nothing.
Priya groaned. “Avril. He’s not in the book. He’s in your life.”
Avril looked down at the journal in her lap.
“That’s the problem.”
“So you’re sure it’s his?”
Priya sat cross-legged on the couch, one eyebrow raised and a mango popsicle halfway to her mouth.
Avril blinked at her. “What?”
“This journal.” Priya pointed lazily. “The one you’ve been obsessing over. You said you found it in your bag, but you never told me how you know it belongs to Khaid.”
Avril hesitated.
She hadn’t thought about that in a while.
“I... don’t know for sure,” she admitted.
Priya stared.
Avril looked down at the journal in her lap. “It was just there. That day I filled in for Dr. Mukasa’s emergency session. I packed up my things in a rush, and when I got home, it was in my bag.”
“And you just assumed it was his?”
Avril was quiet.
“No name?” Priya pressed. “No ID?”
“No.”
“Then what makes you so sure?”
Avril ran her fingers along the frayed edge of the leather cover. The journal felt like Khaid. Dark. Elegant. Cold to the touch.
But that wasn’t proof.
Still, one thing always stood out.
There was a symbol drawn on the first page. A small, hand-sketched falcon, talons outstretched, done in sharp ink.
And then, written faintly under it—in pencil—was a name.
K. Malik
The memory returned like a whisper from the past.
Flashback:
Avril sat alone in Dr. Mukasa’s office, spinning slowly in the swivel chair.
It was supposed to be a favor. A one-off.
The patient had canceled, but she'd stuck around to organize notes. There was a knock at the door. A new client. Walk-in. No paperwork. Just said his grandfather had insisted.
She met him briefly—five minutes, maybe less.
Tall. Quiet. Unreadable. He barely spoke. Only mentioned his name at the end when she asked out of formality.
“Khaid,” he said. “Khaid Malik.”
Back in the present, Priya’s eyes narrowed.
“You’ve been writing about him based on this thing?”
Avril bit her lip. “I wasn’t going to. It just... helped unblock something. I didn’t know where the inspiration came from until he came back for therapy. Then everything started making sense.”
Priya leaned forward, face suddenly serious. “You know this is dangerous, right? If this is his, and he finds out you used it…”
“I didn’t use it,” Avril snapped. “I just—borrowed his pain.”
Priya said nothing.
And in the silence, Avril knew she’d crossed a line.
Later that night, she opened the journal again.
This time, she noticed something she hadn’t before.
A line at the bottom of a page she’d skipped over before. Faint, scrawled as if written in the dark.
If someone ever finds this—don’t pretend you understand me. Just return it and leave me alone.
Her throat tightened.
It was him.
It had always been him.
And somehow, he knew.
- Writer
