Picturesque

Chapter 31: The Fall

The next day was just like any other day. Reluctantly, Jo left my room in the morning and went to hers, and I went down to breakfast. Marty sipped his coffee and read the paper. Katie sipped her tea. Holly and Judd bickered and played with their food. Jo ate a little and occasionally touched my foot under the table with hers. We had French lessons in the classroom. I was teaching the kids longer sentences now. We ate lunch. We went out to the pool to play. Jo got in the pool with the kids. We played with blocks. We ate dinner.

At sunset, Katie wanted Jo and Judd to go outside and move some of the gardening equipment for the gardeners who were coming the next morning. It was an odd request. She never cared about the work of the gardeners. They always got the equipment from the shed themselves. At sunset, they went outside, and Holly went to watch them. Since it was almost dark, I decided to go up to my room to take a shower for the night. I remember walking up the stairs, turning down the hallway. I remember the feeling of the cold doorknob in my hand, the way my fist turned around it, the sound of the door opening.

My heart rattled in my chest, and every muscle in my body stiffened as I opened the door and looked up to see Katie sitting in the chair at my desk. She was in a dark pink robe tonight, her blonde hair in a loose, curly beehive. She had her pearl necklace and pearl bracelet on—I never saw her without jewelry. Matching pink lipstick coated her lips that were pursed. She was looking down, the eyeliner around her cat eyes stretching upwards with her skin. I followed her stare.

First, I saw the top drawer of my desk open, and then I saw the picture of Greg sitting discarded on top of the desk. My first instinct was how I felt when I had seen Jo with the photo—to grab it and hold it to my chest and feel betrayed that another pair of eyes had seen him.

Then I saw what she was looking at. It was my journal. Not my movie journal. Not my French journal. My diary.

Katie didn't even look up at me as her red fingernail cut through the top corner of the pages and turned the page, her eyes moving to read. "Jo kissed me softly. It was sweet and a little desperate. Her hands were holding my face with upmost gentleness."

My body started to shut down. Katie's voice, as she read the words I had written in the diary with the intentions of no one but myself seeing them, faded out of my ears and turned into a harsh buzzing noise. The room, lit only by the desk lamp that illuminated Katie's figure and the pages of the journal, from which I could see my handwriting where I stood, started to spin. My heart started to pound hard behind my ribcage, my chest aching so sharply as if it were being stretched thin and threatening to rip right in half. My stomach turned painfully in my gut. My knees grew weak.

I thought it was a dream. I thought it was a nightmare. I even blinked, hoping that when I opened my eyes again, I would find that it was all just a hallucination. I'd rather have been put in a mental hospital for seeing things than for that to be real.

But it was real, and it hit me like a ton of bricks when Katie's eyes, sharp as lightning, flashed up at me. She closed the journal and gently set it down on the desk. It scared me how carefully she put it down. I would've felt better if she had thrown it at my head.

"Close the door," she commanded, her voice steady and even, lulling like a cat.

I couldn't move. I felt frozen where I stood. She watched me for a moment, her face not making one expression or another, before she sharply stood up and stalked towards me. I thought she was going to strangle me. She stood right in front of me and reached behind me, pressing the door shut. But she didn't stop there. She raised a finger to my chest and dug her sharp, manicured fingernail right into my sternum and pushed me against the door until my back was flat against the cool wood.

"You sicken me," she spat, towering over me. Visibly trembling, I stared up at her with wide eyes and a parted mouth. I felt like I was looking into the jaws of a lion. "I knew from the first look at you that you were going to be no good for my family."