The response ain't great, but I need a break from Dark and Light,
so to whomever wants to read it, Enjoy!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The rest of the day was spent unpacking, cleaning up, and moving furniture around. Eventually I flopped down on the hammock I'd tied up on the porch. I'd been too busy and too tired all day to think much about the notebook I'd found. I'd put down a rug over the floorboard after I'd decided not to tell my parents of it. My walls were dry, my posters up, my books and CD's in their shelves, my bed in place. Now I lay to rest in my good old hammock, the diary and the CD's and the pictures still under the floor of my room. My mind was with them.
I hadn't gone back to check them, I didn't want my mom to see me with them. I'd unearth it all again tonight, and see what I could find out. I wanted to read the diary, and part of me felt guilty for it. They were much too personal, much too intimate. Whoever's diary it was, however old or far away they were right now… It would be strange reading it, and rude.
My parents both joined me outside, sharing a rocking chair together. We were all quiet, since we were usually rather silent people. They read books, I lay in my hammock, thinking of what I'd left behind in San Francisco, what I'd have over here, and the diary that was calling for me from upstairs.
"I'll write you a mail when I get there," I'd promised my best friend, Ally. I still had to go do that. But Internet wasn't up yet. Another thing on a list of stuff we had to set straight.
"Dad, when can you hook up the wireless?" I lifted my head to look at him.
He looked up thoughtfully, "Tomorrow, I guess. Depends on how much we still have to do, today was pretty hectic. Why, do you need to do anything online?"
"Yeah, I promised Ally I'd write."
He was silent for a moment. "Well, you can call her, if you want."
"Can I?" I asked hopefully.
"Sure, go ahead."
"Awesome, thanks Dad!"
"Tell her Hi for us," My mom commented.
"I will!" I got out of the hammock quickly, and headed inside to the phone, excited to talk with my friend. It'd been a couple days since we'd last spoken.
I was so excited when I heard Ally's voice on the other line, and we spent hours and hours talking about everything. I missed her, she missed me. I'd visit sometime soon, and we'd go down to Haight-Ashbury, like old times. I smiled at the thought of it.
It was late when I said my goodbye and hung up the phone. I was reluctant to hang up, but my curiosity for the objects hidden in my room had been rekindled. I dashed upstairs and pulled away the rug, gripping again at the floorboard and carefully lifting it once more.
The CD had been first, so I quickly headed to my stereo and put it in. I didn't know how old it was, so I wondered if it still worked. When a sweet piano tinkled out a melody, quavering in the air and sending out beautiful waves of emotion, I had my answer. I sat quietly for a moment, listening to the beautiful surreal composition I'd never heard before, but that drew to me more than any piece ever before.
It shifted over into a different melody, and I moved on to the pictures. At a first glance, the first picture seemed to be just a boy and a girl. When I looked more carefully, my jaw almost dropped. The boy in the picture, who could've been no older than I was… he was breath taking. I'd never seen such a handsome face. But the look in his eyes scared me. His eyes were cold, and far off in some distance. The girl was pretty, too. But she looked sad, and worried, her eyebrows creased slightly. She looked familiar. He had his arm around her, and it seemed as if something was wrong. Something just didn't click there, and it wasn't about the way the picture seemed to have been folded in half, dividing the two down the middle. And how was it possible for someone to be so amazingly beautiful?!
I moved on to the next picture. Same boy, sitting in a room that looked mighty familiar, watching TV with an older man in a police uniform, the top buttons of his collar undone. That must be Charlie Swan, I thought to myself. What disturbed me most about this picture, though, was that, again, the boy's eyes, his stunningly dark eyes, seemed cold, and harsh. As if he were planning to do something rather painful. It hurt me to look at it.
Because of this, the next picture took me by surprise. There he was again, this god. But instead of the icy vehemence I saw in the pits of his eyes, the detachment, I saw warmth and love. And his eyes weren't even so dark anymore. Oddly enough, they seemed almost… golden, of colour. It struck me how inhumanly beautiful he looked. I stared at the picture for a long time, trying to figure out what this meant. The pictures, the music. The diary.
I sat staring at the notebook a long, long time. I couldn't quite bring myself to open it. It was much too personal, a diary. It would be strange and uncomfortable. But perhaps it would hold names, dates, and identities. It would perhaps explain the photographs, the compositions.
I bit my lip and reached slowly for the diary, opening it up carefully. A cloud of dust rose from it, and I coughed. The first page was blank, and the second said, "Isabella Marie Swan, 2005."
My heart raced; was Bella short for Isabella? Was this my mom's friend, whom she hadn't heard of in so long? Bella must've been the girl from the picture. And then the boy must've been… Edward. Edward Cullen, I remembered the name.
I considered telling my mother, after all. She'd like it to see some pictures of Bella, and of Edward. I wouldn't have to tell her about the diary, or the CD. But how would I explain them? "Oh yeah, mom, I was just prying loose some floorboards to see if I could find things under them. No big deal."
I shook my head to clear my thoughts; I'd just keep them a secret, for now. I stared at the open diary I held in my hands. Should I read further? I knew who it was; this was my mom's friend! It wasn't like I was reading the diary of a perfect stranger.
Though perhaps it's worse to read it if it belongs to someone you know, or whom your family knows. I couldn't decide, so I let my curiosity win the best of me. The first page started in January.
January 17th, 2005.
Off to Forks today. I'm going to miss the sun; I've already said my goodbyes to it. I hope living with Charlie won't be so bad, probably not very different from being with Renee. I won't have to take care of him as much, though. I hope Renee's happy with Phil when I'm gone. She still doesn't understand why I'm leaving, but someday I hope she will.
I vaguely remembered my mother telling me that Bella'd moved to Forks from Phoenix, to spend time with her dad after her mother re-married. I flipped through the next couple of pages, until the name "Edward" caught my eye.
January 20th, 2005.
Why isn't Edward back at school yet? I still don't understand what happened, and it's driving me insane! Why does he hate me so much? Am I really that horrible? And why do I find myself caring so much whether or not he's here; if he hates me, is it not better for him to be gone? This is so confusing!
I moved from my floor to my bed while reading this, and absentmindedly shoved a CD into my stereo. Edward had hated her? What happened? He left school because she'd arrived? That made no sense at all!
I quickly hid the journal under my pillow when I heard my mother walking up the stairs. A knock sounded from my door soon after. I quickly grabbed a book from my nightstand, pretending to read.
"Come in!" I called, raising my head to look at my mom as she turned the knob and stood in the doorway.
"How are you?" She asked.
"I'm fine, mom." I smiled at her.
"Is the room okay?" She looked slightly worried,
"Yeah, it's fine. No worries."
"So… I'm going to go visit Gran again tomorrow. Do you want to come with me?"
She looked sad when she said this, and my eyes welled up slightly; I loved my grandmother. It hurt us all to see her so terribly sick. I'd heard my mom and dad talking in hushed voices in the kitchen not two weeks ago, back in San Francisco, about whether or not she was going to make it or not. It didn't look too good.
"Sure, of course I'll come. I love seeing Gran."
My mother held her breath at this, and then said, quite hesitantly, "Maya, baby… She's not… You know, she's not doing all too well…"
I stood up from my bed, and walked to my mom, pulling her into a hug. "I know. But it'll be okay."
After my mom left, I looked back at the diary, still unsure of whether I should continue reading or not. But Bella's story called to me, so I opened it up and began poring over her sentences, written so very long ago.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cheerio,
-Mint.