IX

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"CHLOE,

YOU INCONSIDERATE, NOSY A-HOLE. This is none of your business so divert your eyes.

- Jasper."

Is sprawled in at the very top and unfazed, I read further down the paper, my eyes already perusing down the page before i knew what was happening and my curiosity dying to be quenched.

"I MEAN IT, READ NO FURTHER CHLOE."

I groan out loud but somehow those words weren't enough to put me off on reading the page. I couldn't help it, my curiosity had been piqued and the fact that he didn't want me to know made me the very more interested.

"CHLOE YOU LITTLE BITCH I MEAN IT."

I reluctantly groan and give up, rolling my eyes. However, while I was rolling them my eyes catch a few words below that.

"GOD DAMMIT CHLOE, STOP."

"I have!" I grumble while I nestle into the signature uncomfortable plastic chair beside Charlie's bed and begin folding the letter and placing it into the manila envelope, "I have."

I place the paper back in the envelope and slide the top down, shutting the contents from my sight. It does nothing for my curiosity, if anything, it makes me want to rip the envelope to shreds but one glance at Charlie and the thought of him not liking this had me placing the envelope on the ground beside my chair. The contents weren't that interesting anyway, containing only a toothpick, a fancy King piece shaped like some sort of key, Jasper's letters the one I was allowed to read and the forbidden one, and a folded piece of paper.

I shrug, brushing it off and pulling my phone from my back pocket, scrolling through my Instagram feed. Then, I backpedal. Replaying everything over again. And again. And again.

Hastily, I pick up the envelope, sift through its contents and pluck the folded piece of paper out of its domain.

Don't.

Jasper never stated that this was private... In fact, he had said Charlie left it over at his place. It's being returned and he most definitely doesn't know what Jasper's talking about so I might just read it to him, ease his troubled mind a bit...

The paper was small, like it belonged in a journal or something and not on ruled paper. One of its sides was cut to perfection but the other looked completely opposite; like it was torn out of a tightly bounded book with haste and imprecision. Some parts of the paper are long and others are short as they follow a zigzagging pattern until the bottom.

I inspect the paper closely. It seems vaguely familiar to me. It's bare of any ruled lines but the top has these free birds pattern printed at the top, beginning from the top left and then the birds were flapping their wings until they disappeared towards the right.

It hits me mere seconds later that this is a page from the leather book that Ellie and I had given Charlie for his sixteenth birthday a few years ago. It wasn't our initial plan to get him a journal, but after money used on transport (Charlie was the only one with a driver's licence at the time and we couldn't ask him to drive us without telling him the reason we wanted to go), food and nail polish, the money we had managed to scrape together was close to done. We had initially planned to get him hair products because he had this weird thing for his hair but, after the nail polish and food, not to mention the cost of the ride back home, we had close to twenty dollars left. So, we bought the nicest journal we could and Ellie had it leather-bound.

It wasn't much but he treated it like everything once he saw what Ellie had filed inside the first few pages, he treated it like it was everything.

I look down at the paper.

I trace the curly line with my finger and it leads me to the back of the paper

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I trace the curly line with my finger and it leads me to the back of the paper.


I trace the curly line with my finger and it leads me to the back of the paper

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[ i know it's way too short but i really wanted to update as fast as I could because ahhh! tmca is #315 in action. saw this and stopped breathing,

it got ranked (it increased by 300+ yesterday and i just don't know what to say

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it got ranked (it increased by 300+ yesterday and i just don't know what to say. first sugarcoated humblepie then this?!? thank you so much!

so if you read sugarcoated humblepie then you can guess that this is a part of the book, but since this page was torn out I don't think I should add it in the book, but if you guys want me to, i will because i'm so happy!!

there are so many mistakes, i know (from the first chapter until now) and i apologise for all of them and i will get to editing them as soon as possible

the real drama now begins, i hope you're ready...]

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