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“Yeah. Something’s…unlocking. But it’s not a gentle process.”

She watches me, and then her eyes light up.

“Oh no, what is it?” I ask her.

“Well…since it’s snowing and we’ve got the house to ourselves, what do you say we decorate?”

Decorate? What could be running through Daisy’s mind?

“Maybe later,” I murmur, not wanting to involve myself in much more than I needed to. “I think I just want to rest. Is that okay?”

She shrugs. “Sure. Just eat something. Your body’s been through hell.”

I move toward the closet, reaching for whatever I can find.

“Don’t—Gross. You have other choices.” She tugs the dress from my hands and then selects something else, a floor-length crimson dress, soft as petals, and tosses it my way with a wink and a wool cardigan. “At least look the part you’re playing,” she says with a grin before vanishing around the corner.

“Daisy—” I start, but the door slams in response.

Grimacing, I throw the dress onto the bed. She may be strange, but at least she’s on my side.

Once dressed, I make my way to the library. The fire is easy to spark, someone having laid the logs already. I curl up on the lounge beside it then wrap myself in blankets. I open the book to the last page I had read, its leather spine groaning like an old door.

Inside, I’m met with the familiar cursive writing. This must have been a forgotten diary; its writer intending for the reader to witness each word. Or I’m just a woman curious for gossip in written form.

I allow the elegant handwriting to pull me away from the hush of a house that watches more than it sleeps. Outside, the sea crashes on, taunting me.

FIFTEEN

THE JOURNAL

June 2001

The year flew by as I prepared for the inevitable: graduation. Kane’s graduation had arrived faster than I could have expected. I’d grown onto him like ivy along a wall, entwining myself into him until I could no longer tell where he began and I ended. I was a literal thorn in his side and the thought of being so far away left a hollow ache that churned in my stomach.

Poised on a cushioned bench below a portrait of my mother, I studied her pale olive skin, wine stained lips and siren eyes, bolstered with tenacity and confidence. What would the woman in the picture think about me moping around? She would tell me I was such a wounded, lovesick puppy and that I didn’t like Kane, he was simply the only cute boy within close proximity.

My senior year loomed around the corner, and Kane—he would be thousands of miles away—untethered and unburdened by this cold, dreary town. This place held nostalgia, and over that last year, I preferred it to where we once lived. The bittersweet feeling was not happening to Kane. He was bound for Archmouth, leaving behind a past he never intended to keep.

The house felt colder, despite the it being the first day of June. Goosebumps bloomed along my bare arms and legs. I’d worn my cutest outfit—a strapless yellow that was all sunshine with daisies clipped into my hair, and chunky white heels that made me taller, but not any bolder. If I were going to be sad, I’d do it looking good. Kane needed to rue the day he ever met me.

Back in December, the stars did not witness a kiss, nor did midnight hear romantic promises between us. Nothing but silence. He hadn’t made a move at the dance, just kept his distance with that old camera. Documenting me like the dead specimen he found in the forest. I was drained. Emptied like the forgotten wells that dotted the edge of town. I might as well have been invisible to him. But anger toward him wouldn’t stick, even if I tried. My mind rejected every hateful thought about him as my body rejecting poison. I couldn’t hate him.

Much like myself, Kane’s mother, Anita, lingered at the windows arms crossed against her chest. She was waging her own internal war, and I feared she was losing. Her son was leaving, and grief clung to her skin like perfume.

My parents‌ were distracted with work as usual. But this particular weekend they’d planned on a family filled outing. Maybe they sensed unwillingness on my part over the last few months. Was it loneliness, if self imposed? Or did I recognize that whatever love my parents had left for one another was fading away?

The worst betrayal of all came the night before graduation. Never mind Kane was leaving for England. Kane was flying out right after the ceremony. He didn’t want to wait to start a new life.

“But what about this one?” I had asked him the day before; our toes curled into wet sand, the tide nipping at our ankles.

“What about this one?” he’d replied, eyes on the horizon.

My heart had all but collapsed in that moment. And I hadn’t spoken a word to him since. All the emotion I had placed in one human being was packing it into his luggage and flying away with it, leaving an ocean between us.

“Sara?” my mother waved a hand in front of my face. She’d found me, sitting there staring into space. Her face crinkled in confusion. My teary-eyed gaze met hers, and her face never softened. “Smile, a beautiful girl shouldn’t be pouting.”

I hadn’t spoken to my mother about all things Kane, not even after the multiple dates we had over the last few months. I nodded, complying with her only to save myself from the lectures.