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“Uh, I don’t know,” Ben says, leaving through the pages in search of a date. “It looks like maybe 13 years ago about?”.
My blood runs cold.
Holy shit, this entry is about Ben,I realize with horror.
I stare at him nervously, hoping he won’t do the math and put it together. If it was 13 years ago, that’s when he and Nanette lived with us, here at Rose Manor.
Luckily, Ben is too busy perusing the pages of my old journal to do the math. I breathe a sigh of relief before panicking all over again.
What else did I write in there?What if I named him at some point? Could I have been that stupid?
Of course you could have been that stupid,my brain shouts at me,you were a dumb teenager!
I’ve got to get that book out of his hands now.
“How about you give me that,” I say, snatching it out of his grasp yet again, “and you go get your guitar from downstairs. Then we can get some songwriting done for real.”
“Now that’s a solid plan,” Ben says, jumping up eagerly and striding out the door.
“And maybe put a t-shirt on while you’re at it?”
“Ugh, Lace it’s so hot in this house in summer,” he groans. “Why are you always chasing me to put on a t-shirt?”
Because staring at your ripped abs and chiseled chest is making me have thoughts about my stepbrother nobody should ever have about their stepbrother!
“Hey, if I have to wear a shirt, you have to wear a shirt.”
“I mean, I’m not forcing you to wear a shirt, you know, but whatever,” he says with a grin before disappearing out the door.
While he’s gone, I quickly leaf through the journal, checking the pages for any names or other key identifying pieces of information. Luckily, it looks like I kept my poetic lamentations about my unrequited love for my stepbrother at the time pretty vague. Thank goodness.
“Okay, here we go,” Ben comes back into the room, an acoustic guitar in hand and wearing a t-shirt. “Let’s see.” He sits down on the bed and starts strumming the guitar, humming along, jotting down bars of music and writing lyrics as he goes.
Part of me wants to kick him out of the room. After all, it is technicallymyroom. Or it was. But another part of me doesn’t want to interrupt his creative flow. He said that this was the first time he’d felt a ‘creative rush’ in six months. As a creative person myself, I know just how frustrating writer’s block can be.
Instead of kicking him out, I decide to leave him be. But I’m going to observe him and make sure he doesn’t figure out who that diary entry is really about. I grab a duster and start wiping down shelves, setting aside books I read as a child. I smile as I come across the Twilight series. Robert Pattison was another teen crush of mine, I have to admit.
As I dust the room, I peak occasionally over my shoulder at Ben. He’s still sitting on the bed, hunched over his guitar as he strums notes here and there, sings lines, and then jots things down in his songwriting book. He has a calm, content smile on his face and looks happier than I’ve seen him since I arrived. I smile to myself and keep working my way around the room.
A groan from Ben interrupts me. “Ugh, I don’t know, Lace, I can’t get it quite right.” He throws himself back on the bed in despair.
“Want to show me what you’ve got?” I ask gently. I can sympathize with the creative hurdles.
“Yes, please.”
He hands me the notebook, and I sit down on the bed next to him to read it.
The lyrics are clearly a love story—an unrequited love story. But, unlike the diary, they’re written from the man’s perspective, not the woman’s. I can see where Ben took inspiration from my diary entry, as some familiar words and phrases pop out:
Eyes you can dive into…
I didn’t know I needed water…
I’m parched and can’t get enough…
I skim over the lines quickly, marveling at how he transformed my angsty teenage drama into a cohesive song that tells a full story.
“This is good!” I say, handing it back to him. “What’s the problem?”
