Chapter 2

Of course I didn't really want to read Ryan's diary. But I laid it down by my bed next to my lamp. I slumped down on my bed and stared at the bare ceiling above me. If I read a little, perhaps I would find other things about him I never knew. It called out to me. I wanted in one way to keep Ryan's feelings private and in that book. But, on the other hand, I just had to know more about him. One page wouldn't hurt. Would it? But it was full of secrets, one's I perhaps should never know. I was so confused. I guessed one page wouldn't hurt. I slowly picked up the diary and dropped it onto the floor. It landed, face down, with one distinct page open.

I read with curiosity. At first it seemed like an average diary. 'Today I did this, then I did that…' or that's how it began anyway. As I read more into it, it seemed as though it was more of a letter, rather than a record of feelings. I flicked back a page. It began 'Dear Mum'. I was scared at this. It was like a suicide note, except without the suicide bit I suppose. I wondered if there was any for me. I flicked through then I came across it:

2nd April 2005

Dear Kailyn,

If your reading this then I guess you sneaked into my room without me knowing and stole it! You probably thought this was an average diary. Well, it isn't. I write my feelings in here, sure! But I also write other stuff. Like…well…

I've wanted to tell you something for a long time now. You see, I don't know how to say this. You might be mad or angry with me, because I haven't told you, and I don't want that. I can't tell you. I'm afraid you'll laugh or say something to me. Plus I know how much you're against all this sort of thing.

Ok I'm gonna come out and say it now. Ok, I've become a religious dude, Bible bashing, God loving, Bible abiding freak. Ok I said it. There. Are you mad at me yet? I guess I'd better explain myself. I became a Christian about 3 months from now. You probably haven't noticed much change in me. I haven't plucked up the courage to go to church yet, well because I have to come up across Dad about it, and you know what he's like! So, yeah anyway, I'm going to a festival in August. I really haven't plucked up the courage to ask you yet. But I will soon. I don't want to push you into anything you don't want. But, it's for the best. Honest.

I stopped reading. It was starting to freak me out. It was in such detail of his feelings and his plans for the future I couldn't go on. He made it obvious to me he wanted me to become a Christian. But it just wasn't practical. All this praying and going by the rules of some book, it just wasn't me. Suddenly my brother wanted me, the most inappropriate person he knew, to become a Christian! I was far from believing there was a God. If there was, look what He'd done to the world. It was in a terrible state. All the pollution, wars and death it was terrible! If He was all-powerful or whatever, he could stop all of these. The world is in a terrible state! I looked at the front page; it was crammed with addresses and phone numbers. Where did they all come from? Ryan never hung around with friends; he was always at home! There was so much more to Ryan than I ever knew.

" Kailyn, can you come in here a sec." My mum called from Ryan's room. I reluctantly left my room and walked across the corridor.

" Yes?" I asked walking in. I went into Ryan's room a lot before he died. But this time I actually looked at the posters on the walls, stuff lying around. I sighed.

" I know Kay. But we have to get it sorted out." Dad sympathetically said from the window.

" Anyway, we wondered if you wanted anything from his room?" Mum asked. I looked around. I couldn't think of anything in particular. I had the diary. " We'll give you a sec if you want us to?" I nodded. Mum nudged Dad in the ribs and he followed her obediently out of the room.

I sighed once more. I looked on the shelves and in the draws. Nothing took my eye in particular, a few books. I looked under his mattress, where Ryan kept his most secret things, such as his diary. I saw two books. A small notebook, on the front was written 'Private'. I decided that I knew just about everything about Ryan now. One small book really couldn't change anything. Near the notebook lay a larger blue book. I had an idea in my mind what it was, but I picked it up and looked anyway. It was a Bible. On the front it read a mixture of words. Although I didn't want it, I couldn't risk Dad seeing it, I picked up Ryan's favourite t-shirt and covered the Bible with it.

As I left the room I could hear Mum crying again. I wasn't crying anymore. Not because I wasn't sad. Don't get me wrong I was still sad. But I don't know, the pain seemed to have gone. I can't say what I was feeling, I was still sad and I still loved and wanted Ryan back but, like I said, there was no more pain inside of me.

The phone began to ring. I put Ryan's things into the draw beside my bed and ran downstairs.

" Hi, Kailyn here!" I said cheerfully.

" Hey! It's Lor. You sound tons better!" She replied.

" How did you…?"

She laughed. " You live in the same house as Ryan does!"

" Did." I corrected.

She ignored my last comment. " I was wondering if you want to come to the park? Me and some mates are going, and I think it might do you good to come out."

" I don't know." I said, who did she think she was my mother? "I haven't been out since, you know. And plus I don't know you very well. No offence"

" Exactly!" She exclaimed. " Come anyway. 2 o'clock ok? See you there!"

" Maybe, bye!"

I placed the receiver down. I went to the kitchen where Mum and Dad were. Mum had finished crying now and was stirring her tea continuously. She had a dazed expression on her face, as if she as cut off form the world. What was it about tea? Adults have a strange obsession with it! Tea, for every occasion!

" I'm going out in about an hour to the park. Is that ok?"

" For God's sake Kailyn!" Dad shouted angrily, looking up over his paper. " Your brother has just died and you're already organising your social life!"

" Leave it Tom. Mum argued back. She turned to me. " You can go."

" Sarah! You should back me up! She shouldn't leave her family at this time!" He argued once again.

" What do you want to do Tom? Lock her in the house? Tell her what to do? It's up to her when she goes out, not up to you to tell us when to show our faces! I'm her mother and I'm saying, no I'm telling you, SHE GOES!"

" I've had enough of this!" Dad said. He grabbed his coat, walked out of the kitchen door and slammed the front door behind him. Mum put her head in her hands and sighed. She began to cry again. I went over and hugged her. I felt helpless. My whole world was crumbling down around me, first Ryan and now Mum and Dad.

I turned to go back upstairs. I may as well listen to music or something. I wanted to read Ryan's diary again. But, perhaps not the part I had read before. I wanted to know more about him. I was so confused. I curled up onto my bed and fell asleep.

By the time I woke up it was almost 2:30pm.

" Bugger." I muttered under my breath. " Stupid dreams." I'd dreamt about Ryan. We were away together. He had told me everything in the letter except in person. Then Lauren had come up behind him and said something in his ear. He then said to me 'Dew for 39.' Then I'd woken up. It made no sense. Dew for 39? Sounded like bet on the horse Dew on the 39th race or something. I shrugged off my thoughts and grabbed my bag.

" Mum I'm off out to the park now." I called whilst running down the stairs. "Mum?" I came to the bottom of the stairs and went into the lounge. I couldn't see her. "Mum!" I shouted in frustration. "Argh!" I grabbed the notepad and scribbled a quick message. I ran out of the door and slammed it behind me.

"Damn it! Keys." I mumbled to myself. The park wasn't far away, perhaps 10 minutes if you walk. I was doing a sort of half walk half run when I bumped into Lauren.

" Kailyn! I didn't think you were coming." She said to me.

" Me neither. But I fell asleep and had a bizarre dream with you in. And I woke up and realised I should be at the park."

" Happens to me a lot!" She exclaimed. " I was just on my way to the shop for some ice cream. You wanna come?"

" Yeah why not?" I said and changed my direction.

We walked a little way in silence. There wasn't really much to talk about. I couldn't complain about the weather as the temperature had soared. We kept walking in silence until we came to the footpath, a shortcut through to the shops.

" How have you been?" She asked inquisitively.

" Fine." I answered. She sensed my lack of truth.

" Really?" She asked once more.

" Well, you know…" I hesitated and she nodded. " Mum and Dad aren't getting on well at the moment. And that isn't really helping in the circumstances." She looked down at her shoes. I was shocked, no comments, no Bible verses! Now it was my turn to sense something was wrong. " But you're not ok are you?"

She laughed to herself. " You've known me a day and you can already read my like a book. No, I'm fine. Honestly, don't worry about it."

I shrugged. It wasn't my place to interfere if she didn't want to say anything. We reached the shops and picked up several ice creams. We then headed back to the park.

" I'm having a party, sleepover thing." She hesitated. " I don't know if you wanna come. But if you do, you're more than welcome, it's tomorrow night."

I thought for a second. " Yeah sure. It' be good to get out of the house. I don't know if Dad will let me though. He's been all uptight about me leaving the house."

She nodded and we walked back to the park in silence. I wondered who she was at the park with. Were they all Christians too? I hoped not. I didn't want to be dragged into a religious debate.

We approached a gang of guys and girls. A couple of them appeared to be a lot older than me; others seemed my sort of age. As we got closer a few looked up and smiled.

Another girl jumped up and gave Lauren a hug.

" My ice cream!" Her face beamed like a little girl.

" Lou, this is Kailyn, Ryan's sister." Lauren introduced me.

" Great to meet you! Sorry about your brother. I would give you a hug, but I don't want to melt my ice-cream." I smiled. Lou seemed like quite a forward and in your face kind of girl, but I'm sure she was nice all the same.

" Ok everyone! I got ice creams!" Lauren smiled. " Oh yeah, and I want you to all meet Kailyn, she's Ryan's sister." I got a 'hi' from everyone as they got their ice creams from Lauren and me. We say down in the group. It was a big group, perhaps 15 people.

" Hey Kailyn! What church you go to?" Lou asked.

I turned to her and kind of looked to Lauren for a bit of support as well. " I don't go to church."

" Oh." She paused. " Sorry I assumed, cos Ryan was a Christian and all that. Sorry." She apologised.

" Lou you're intimidating the poor girl!" She laughed. " She's coming tomorrow."

The oldest guy in the group stood up, he was about 18. " Ok guys! Listen up! Shut up Marc!" The group went quiet. " I think everyone is in agreement with me that we all want to say that we're really sorry for Kailyn to hear about Ryan. He was an awesome guy." The others nodded in agreement and there were muffled sounds of 'sorry' from the group. " Also! By the way Kailyn I'm Simon. Before you start chatting again. I want to say that Thursday, day after tomorrow for those of you who don't know your days, we're gonna meet here again ok?"

" Yes Sir!" Answered the guy Marc who had previously been told to shut up. The group began talking again.

Simon came over to me. " Hey, I don't know if Lauren has said anything to you about us?"

I shook my head. It was gonna be some Christian meeting I could sense it coming.

" Well we meet here usually every Tuesday during the holidays. Most of us are Christians. We just mostly have a chat about stuff that's bothering us. You can come again if you like. Like I said, I'm really sorry about Ryan. He was a great guy, put a smile on everyone's face." He said sympathetically.

I really didn't want to hear it. I really wasn't in the mood to be told how good Ryan was. I was hoping coming out here would make me forget about Ryan. Several people after Simon came to me personally to tell me how sorry they were. I just nodded in agreement to them all. They were making me feel depressed again. I had the big lump in my throat all over again. But I couldn't cry here. Not now. I held it in for at least 3 minutes. But my vision became filled with tears.

Lauren looked over to me. " I'm just going to the loo everyone." She announced to the group. She turned to me. " You want to come?"

I nodded and we walked off to the grotty smelly park loos. All the time I couldn't stop crying, again. I was doing the embarrassing massive gulps of air. They were painted a vile yellow inside. Lauren grabbed some tissue from one of the rolls.

" I'm sorry." I said. " I haven't cried for ages. But they are all going on about Ryan and talking about the festival and it started me off."

" No it's my fault. If I hadn't have persuaded you to come you wouldn't feel so uncomfortable." She apologised. " Do you want to go home?"

I nodded. " Yeah."

She hugged me. " I'm really sorry. You wanna go on your own?"

I nodded again and left her inside the toilets. I ran across the park and back down the road. Tears streaming down my face.