This Diary I Found

02 :: The Morning After

CHAPTER 2: The Morning After

It was all a bad dream.

I woke up with a hammer pounding my skull and blinding lights seeping into my bedroom window. But it's all good, because it was all just a bad dream.

Or at least, that's what I kept telling myself.

I sat up, cupping my face. My eyes immediately went to my bedside table where I remember plopping the diary last night after taking it home.

I smuggled the green notebook along with my drunken ass last night, careful enough not to wake up my dad or my sister. But as I searched the countertop of the table, I saw no diary. It was gone!

Damn, I must have imagined all of that shit last night.

"I'm never drinking again," I murmured to myself, even though I knew it was just bullshit.

A sigh of relief escaped my lips as I realized something. It wasn't real. It was just a bad dream. Now, I've woken up and everything's normal again. I didn't get anybody knocked up. Life is good again!

"Morning, bro!" the familiarly irritating voice of my little sister, Lally, rang from behind me.

"What are you doing in my room?" I groaned, turning towards her.

My eyes widened at the sight. My little sister was sitting on top of my study table, criss cross applesauce – her butt squishing the crumpled stacks of paper on it. And she was reading something. Something green. Something leather-bound. Oh, God, it's the bad dream again!

"Just readin'," the 8-year-old answered, not even sparing me a look as she flipped over the page of the diary.

Despite my current state of being hungover, I scrambled out of bed and leaped at her. I snatched the diary from her grubby, little hands and threw the thing into my garbage can.

"Lally!" I chided. "I told you not to go through my stuff!"

"Am I gonna be an aunt soon?" she asked, ignoring what I just said.

"No!" I exclaimed, but then did a double-take. "You read the diary?!"

"Doy," she said mockingly.

I froze. "Please don't tell dad," I pleaded.

Lally didn't reply, but only wore a smug smirk on her face and crossed her arms.

"Lally, I'm serious!" I said. "Don't tell dad."

She rolled her green eyes – which are nearly identical to mine – and jumped off my table. "Don't sweat it, bro," she said, patting my arm as she made her way towards the door. "I won't tell."

I breathed. This was certainly not the wakeup call I was hoping for. I collapsed back in bed and buried my head under a pillow.

"Oh, and Trev?" Lally called.

I peeped out of the pillow and saw her standing by the doorway. "Yeah?"

"You should really check up on that girl," she said. "I feel bad for her."

I thought about it for a while. Then, I nodded.

Lally waddled out of my room completely and I was left with my thoughts. I rolled over the bed to reach the trash can. I scooped the diary out of it.

"Who are you?" I asked the thing, recalling the girls I've slept with for the past two months. I opened it up again to see the penmanship. It wasn't familiar. I tried to recall the girl from the alleyway. Hell, I couldn't even remember what the alley looked like.