I could picture the disappointment scrunching her eyebrows up in the middle, her mouth pursed and her tongue clicking. I flipped the notebook to the first page anyway.
Friday, June 19th
Dear…
I don’t know what to call you. Writing “Dear Diary” feels a little too cliché to me. Like something out of one of those “Babysitter’s Club” books. But it’s important to get it all out. To write it all down so it doesn’t eat me up inside.
Things have been hard. I thought they would get better with the move.
No, that’s not true. I didn’t expect them to change at all. But I also didn’t expect them to get worse. And right now, things really are worse.
The city is cold. Much colder than back home. People aren’t kind. Though I guess that is sort of refreshing. People weren’t kind back home either. They just pretended they were. They smiled in your face and ran their mouths behind your back. Here, they don’t bother with the nice words. They cuss you out no problem.
I did make a friend, though. Nina says she may even have a job for me. In one of those big houses behind fancy iron gates. She lives there with her daughter. It would mostly be cleaning and keeping dust off some rich man’s expensive knickknacks. But money is money. I am not too proud to humble myself for a few years.
Besides, if I can live there too, I’d be saving on housing and I could focus more on my classes.
I know. Now it sounds like I’m trying to talk myself into it. I can’t help it. You know what they say: When something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
I hope that isn’t the case all the time.
—V—
“I don’t believe it…” Gabby whispered.
“Which part?” I asked, confused. There were no big, bad, dark secrets revealed. Nothing we couldn’t figure out by questioning Vee ourselves.
“The part where Vee said she made a friend.”
We both laughed, so loud that we didn’t hear the sound of footsteps clicking down the hallway until they stopped outside my bedroom door. The knob jiggled. I cursed. And Gabby quickly hid the notebook.
Vee walked in just as I was turning around with a stupid grin on my face. “You’re home early,” I purred like the cat who ate the canary and still had a handful of feathers in her mouth.
“The door was locked,” Vee stated.
She didn’t have a key. She didn’t need one when she could pick anything you put in front of her. I didn’t know how she did it with those long nails, but I guess that was one of the many mysteries of Veera Vaughn. Along with whatever else she was hiding in the notebook currently incubating under Gabby’s ass.
“Sometimes us girls just need our privacy.” I shrugged, and Vee made that noncommittal noise in the back of her throat. It sounded like both a hum and a growl.
She’d already scanned every little visible crevice of the room before she crossed the threshold. Nothing had caught her attention. Which for most people would be a good thing. For her,it was suspicious. I usually had something lying around here I didn’t want Vee to find.
I sighed, pulling my keychain out of my pocket and dangling it in the air. “I went and saw Allie.”
Vee nodded her understanding, the tension easing from her brow and her lips pressing into a thin line. “How was it?”
“Same as it always is.” I smirked. “Everyone dying to get in.”
“Right, well, I won’t try to pull it out of you. God knows I’ll be wasting my breath anyway.” She rolled her eyes. “But if you don’t get it all out some time, it will find a way to eat you alive, Bellatrix.”
I could feel Gabby burning another hole in my head. Likely thinking what I was thinking. Either Vee was a mind-reader or she accidentally quoted her younger self at exactly the right moment. I didn’t believe in coincidences. But I didn’t believe in getting tripped up because of a sudden case of guilt-induced paranoia either.
“Yeah, and what do you suggest I do? Write it all down in my handy-dandy notebook?”
Gabby choked, covering the sound with a cough.
Vee didn’t react at all. No expression change, no deep inhale of breath. The woman didn’t even blink. “If you trust a piece of paper more than me—more than your sister—if that’s the only way you can say the things you don’t want to hear yourself, then yes.”
I wasn’t even going to argue with her about Gabby not being my sister. Vee was baiting me. Instead of biting, I dipped my head to one side. “Seems a little dangerous, doesn’t it?”
