I took a big gulp of coffee and chewed my way through four pieces of bacon and half the cake slice. It really was deliciously vile. When I was done, I hugged Mrs. Weaton and went up to the attic.
I sought out my little reading nook I’d created as a young girl. Ripping open the large envelope, I expected to find a letter. Albeit a long one based on the thickness of the envelope. Instead, I pulled out a folded sheaf of white pages tied with an aged and faded red string. The pages had clearly been torn from a lined book and were filled with Jack’s scrawl that I recognized from the grocery lists he used to leave.
As I sank down onto the old mattress and pillows, my heart thudded heavily. The pages were dated. It really was a journal or diary of sorts. Why on earth would he share his private thoughts with me? I sifted through the pages dating from January through to last month. I began seeing snatches of my name, and I quickly folded the pages back up and held them against my chest, exhaling a long breath. Did I really want to do this?
Despite saying I didn’t need to know, I was desperate to understand what had happened when Jack left and why he hadn’t come back. It was obvious now too, after two failed attempts at speaking in person, that it was impossible to be around him long enough to hear him out before the fight or flight response I was so damn good at, kicked in. And he’d obviously realized it before I had and known this might be the only way to reach me. And the only way I might believe he wasn’t just spinning me a line.
God. It was real.
He was real.
This was real.
I unfolded the pages and started reading.
I can’t believe I’m back here. In England. I’m fucking freezing. The air is white, and wet, and thick with tiny, icy, droplets. The green everywhere I look is so deep and dark, I feel like no other colors exist.
My mum used to give me blank journals when I was younger to help me “sort things through” she’d say. “Put it on paper if you can’t talk, and get it out of your head so it doesn’t fester.” That was how she’d found out about the drugs when I was sixteen. Getting me to write everything down was a smart move on her part.
Of course, I went to see Mum as soon as I arrived. I needed to apologize for not coming home when I’d been in London with Audrey. Of course she forgave me. She always does. I went to bed in her and Jeff’s guestroom and slept for two days. When I woke up, she gave me a cup of tea and this bloody journal. There’s nothing like being with a parent to regress you straight back to childhood. “I don’t need it,” I told her. But here I am already, baring my soul to the pages of a book instead of to the one person who has ever even tempted me to open up.
Keri Ann.
Just writing her name causes a weird current inside me. Like I shouldn’t be writing it.
It’s an echo of what I experienced when I was with her. Like she was too good for me to drag into the bullshit that comprises my life. I should have listened to myself.
I’m on set. I just met all the crew and the screenwriter today (Alistair McGowan) and he’s a total prick. I hate to say that about people I hardly know, but he was drunk at the meeting at seven this morning and proceeded to stick his hand up the skirt of this poor runner girl who was delivering coffee to us. He laughed it off and told her she shouldn’t wear a skirt to work. Like I said, a prick. If I hadn’t promised Peak I’d get this project back on its feet in return for them keeping Audrey quiet and stop her from bringing her scorned woman act down on Keri Ann, I’d walk.
We’re all going into London tomorrow night, the cast and crew. Luckily we’re only twenty miles out. It will be my first opportunity to have some pap pictures taken. Duane texted me to say Audrey’s been rocking the boat again, complaining the fans still hate her, and I needed to get on with my part of the deal. Maybe I’ll ask that runner girl, Suzy, if she’d mind having pictures taken with me. We can ham it up. I’d rather it be someone I can sort of trust, rather than a potential stalker nutcase. Give Audrey what she wants as quickly as possible and hope to God Keri Ann doesn’t see it and think I truly don’t give a shit.
I’ve been playing the part of the happy, go lucky, flirty movie-star for so long I’ve begun to believe it. At least I had started to believe it before I met Keri Ann. I wore the cockiness, the surety, the knowledge that I could, if I wanted to, have anything, and do anything I wanted. Wearing that skin had become easier. I’d buried my true self so deep inside, I’d forgotten him. Or I didn’t think he was ever worth digging out. I’m still not sure.