NKIN

Chapter 20

/

The first entry of the journal is brief, but you can already tell by the way she writes that the moment she arrived there, she wanted to come back.

It doesn't say it in words, but as you read over it, you can hear her voice in your head and imagine her face as she was writing it. You can imagine her pained expression and feel the single teardrop in the top right hand corner from where she cried.

I am trying to understand why I bought this journal, Lis. I think I want to feel like I'm connected to you somehow, even if I'm not sure you'll ever read this.

But I'm here now. I'm in London, and I'm confused because it's already been two weeks and I still can't understand what anyone's saying. They all sound really posh, and I even asked a guy where I could buy a cup of tea and a scone-that's a British snack food, if you didn't know-and they laughed at me and said that I was a stupid yank.

I don't know what that is, but it's pretty likely offensive.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you about my first few weeks, and I promise to write to you every day.

I won't break this promise.

Forever and always,

Roseanne.

You sit there and laugh through your tears for ten minutes.

/

You spend the rest of the day reading her letters.

You barely even stop, only when nature, hunger or your dry throat calls; but otherwise you spend hours upon hours, reading over her scribbled, messy writing and learning about her life without you.

You sit on the sofa, soaking in her words, feeling her emotions. Your eyes trace over the few pictures stuck messily to the page, placed next to crumpled paper and you become jealous of them even though you can't be because they got to have her.

They got to experience her when you didn't, when you needed her the most, and you come to hate these random villages, cities and towns you see through pictures. You come to hate the stupid red brick buildings you see and the weird black taxis. You come to hate the miles and miles of green fields and the clear blue skies that you're sure you'd love if you were there with her; all because when you yearned for her, when you thought you physically couldn't live without seeing her face or her smile, they got to have her. They got her and didn't appreciate her in the way you would've done.

But you still push through all the emotions brought to the forefront of your mind and read on.

/

Among her writing, you find a few undecipherable words and black smudges from where you were assuming she was crying as she wrote about her time.

It makes your heart clench in the most painful of ways, and your eyes fill with tears because you might have been in pain, but you would've rather have been in pain than known she was suffering.

Yet you still find your fingertips tracing over the smudges, over the crinkles in the paper where her tear drops fell and shut your eyes, trying to feel what she did.

You don't, but you still feel pain from knowing she was in pain, too.

/

When you begin crying for the third time, on the third page, you stretch over to reach for the tissue box on the side table and the journal falls off your lap.

You abandon your search for a tissue and reach for it, gasping as if the drop would've broken it and spend a good two minutes checking over it, stroking the suede and eying the floor to make sure nothing fell out. Though when you do, you find a small folded up piece of paper lying on the edge of the rug and gingerly reach for it, bringing it to your lap and pinching the sides, opening it to show what's written inside.