The Diary

by Julia Derek

  I’m confused. “Handle what?”

  “Handle waiting till late spring to find out what happens to Celeste?”

  Placing my hand over his, I reply, “Well, it seems I don’t have a choice.”

  Chapter 8

  I’m the one who turns off the alarm clock when it blares loudly the next morning.

  It still feels weird that both Jason and I are going off to work the way we used to with me having been home for so long. But we are because what happened is behind us now and we’re moving on. It’s not easy, but we will persevere, find happiness after such tragedy.

  After I have switched off the alarm clock, I roll over and shake Jason to life. He looks like he’s sleeping deeply still. He shoots up in bed, his eyes darting everywhere and his dark hair on end.

  “What time is it?” he mumbles, a wild expression on his face. “Did I oversleep?”

  “No, baby, you’re just hung over, so you didn’t hear the alarm clock,” I reply and kiss him. “I just turned it off. We both need to get up and get to work, but we’re good on time.”

  Again, I’m reveling in the fact that I’m the one who’s in control for once, not the one who needs guidance. I hate being a blubbery mess.

  Soon the two of us are up and getting ready for work. I take a quick shower while Jason fixes coffee and makes us breakfast. Well, if bringing out milk from the refrigerator and cereal from the pantry counts as making breakfast, that is what he is doing.

  I’m already half done eating my cereal and drinking my coffee when he returns from his shower. Neither of us is talkative in the morning, so when he joins me at the kitchen table and fills up his bowl with cereal and milk, we don’t talk, just eat in silence.

  Twenty minutes later, we are ready to go to work. As we stand in the hallway, about to leave, I realize that I have forgotten my cell phone in the bedroom, so I head back to pick it up. Jason waits for me because we will share a cab to work, both of us going downtown.

  When I enter the bedroom and spot my phone still charging by the bed, I notice out of the corner of my eye that the drawer where Jason keeps his diary is not fully closed. I don’t know what prompts me to do so, but before I can think twice about it, I walk up to the drawer and find the diary under a stack of shirts. A few seconds later, the worn book is in my purse, next to my phone.

  I feel guilty as I join Jason, who’s standing by our apartment’s front door, waiting for me.

  “Did you find it?” he asks me.

  “Yep,” I say and don’t meet his gaze. If I do, I’m sure he will see exactly what I have done without me actually having to say a word about it.

  As we ride the elevator down to the lobby, we do small talk with one of our neighbors, an older man, who joins us a couple of floors below ours. As we talk with him and laugh at his jokes, life feels just like it used to. Thankfully, our neighbor is sensitive enough not to ask us how our new baby is doing. Then it strikes me that maybe Jason has told him already that there is no baby and that’s why he’s not asking. After all, we run into this man often and Jason is bound to have run into him at some point during the months I just sat at home, barely leaving the apartment.

  Even though I have not been back to work more than one day, I’m already feeling used to walking down the meandering corridor that leads to my new, secluded office where I’ll be doing junior-level work until I’m ready to take on more challenging tasks again.

  I get some coffee in the kitchen ahead of it, then continue to my office and take a seat at the desk. I turn on the computer and get ready to do some work, but before I can open the first file, my hands leave the keyboard and I look for my purse. It’s as if the diary has turned magic and is beckoning me to open it and see what else might be in there. I try to resist its pull for a minute, but it doesn’t take long before I have given in. So I find it and get it out from my bag.

  I’m not surprised to find that Jason hasn’t written anymore in it since the day I last read all those horrible words. Or maybe I am surprised, I can’t be sure. Maybe I did expect him to continue that creepy, rambling, internal monologue of whatever character he was working on.

  Again, those final three words capture my entire attention: I killed her.

  The paper around the capitalized words is stiff and slightly dented, as though he has spilled tea or water on it and then let it dry again. Most of the page is dented, actually. He must have spilled the liquid after writing them since the words aren’t blurry the way they would be if the ink hadn’t dried yet.

  I know it’s probably unwise for me to do so, but I can’t help myself. I flip back a few pages to read some of the words he has written about Celeste. Not the ones that describe when he first met her and she suddenly left—I’d have to go back many more pages for that—but the ones that talk about what happened after he had bumped into her again and they were deep into their affair. The ones that describe what must be the latter stages of their relationship.

  I tell myself that the reason I’m doing this is because I want to see if I experience the same intense emotions as I did the first time I read them. I want to see what it feels like to read them now that I know that they’re only part of Jason’s very lively imagination, which will one day help him become a best-selling author. Hopefully. Will I feel as much reading these words now? I hope not and it seems unlikely that I will, but I want to be sure.

  So I go back to where they start and begin reading:

  Celeste is lying on the bed and she is looking as delectable as she always does, wearing only a purple bra and a garter belt with sheer stockings attached to it. No panties. She almost never wears panties. She gives me one of those come-hither looks she knows makes me go crazy as I start walking toward the door. She doesn’t want me to leave, but I must. I need to end this affair once and for all. It was never meant to be more than a one-night stand, but somehow it turned into more, into something that can’t be contained. I have become addicted to this woman. I can’t get enough of all the things she does to me and all the things she lets me do to her. The exquisite pain we inflict upon each other.

  We see each other several times a week now, usually in hotel rooms, but tonight we’re in her apartment. It’s a messy, run-down studio, but its shoddiness only adds to the excitement flowing through me. It’s so different from what I’m used to and it makes me relax. Here, with Celeste, I can be who I really am. I don’t always have to be in charge the way I am at home, but I can let my other woman run the show. It’s a wonderful, freeing feeling. I wonder if my wife would have been less uptight, more adventurous in bed, would I have been able to resist Celeste? There’s no way of knowing. The only thing I feel sure of is that one day she will make me choose between her and my wife, and I don’t want to have to choose.

  But of course I must and the choice can only be but one. When I do, I will be heartbroken because I love them both. Well, my wife will always be my one and only, the one who holds the biggest piece of my heart, but Celeste has made her way in there too, and I can’t get her out now. And her piece is growing, which is another reason this must end soon. Surely my wife will leave me if she finds out about Celeste and that thought is more than I can bear. I feel trapped. No matter what I do the situation is awful. But right now, the only choice I have is to go to back to Celeste and join her in bed.

  So I do and I’m glad that she’s not wearing panties because I’m already hard and I want to enter her right away. She smiles seductively at me as I return to her and begin opening my pants. I struggle to get them down, but they are by my knees soon enough. She spreads her legs for me and I lie down on top of her, my cock in my hand that I place against her—

  I snap the diary shut and throw it into a drawer that I’ve pulled out in my desk and slam it closed. Even though I know that this is fiction, I can’t handle reading anymore of it. I can’t believe I was ever able to read all of it once before, it’s so painful. I hate this imaginary woman, Celeste, who feels so real to me. I truly hate her. Why did I bri
ng this stupid diary with me to work?

  I shiver and give myself a hug to warm up. Then I sigh. The day that Jason does decide to share his story with me is not going to be easy. I’m honestly not sure if I will be able to give him the support he needs and deserves to hear from me, his wife, in regards to his creative efforts. But I need to find a way to cope with it. After all that I have put him through lately, he deserves my full support and love even if the subject of his writing makes me uncomfortable.

  Then it strikes me that maybe he already understands that it might make me uncomfortable and that is the reason why he is so reluctant to share it with me. I sit up straighter in my office chair. Oh, my God, of course that is why. How can I not have realized this sooner?

  Well, he shouldn’t have to feel this way. I don’t want him to feel this way. I’m his wife and I want my husband to always share everything with me, no matter how disturbing or difficult he might think it is for me to hear it.

  I think about how worried he was when I was late getting back home last night and didn’t respond to his calls and messages. The reason I didn’t hear any of his attempts to reach me was exactly what I had thought—I had accidentally turned off the sound on my phone. Even though I should be grateful that I’m married to a man who cares so deeply for me, I find myself getting annoyed again. I don’t want Jason to think that I’m a different person than I used to be because of Matthew, a brittle person who can’t handle any stress. I huff as I think about how he thought I might have had some kind of a breakdown my first day back at work, because the stress of regular life is too much for me now.

  I draw in a sharp inhale as I ponder how fragile he must think I’ve become, so fragile that I won’t be able to deal with life in all its shades and forms, some of them ugly.

  Well, I’ll show him differently, I decide with determination. Just because I got so depressed after what happened doesn’t mean that he will now forever have to tiptoe around my feelings, hide certain things from me just because he worries that I can’t handle hearing about them. If he can fuck me like a beast—and see that not only could I handle it, but that I also thoroughly enjoyed it—he can tell me everything that’s on his mind, certainly what he is writing about in his first book, no matter how dark a subject matter it is. Come on, it’s only fiction! I need to find a way to get that notion through my mind and his, too. I haven’t changed.

  I smile as I consider my decision. Tonight when we have dinner together, I will explain to him that he can tell me anything, share everything with me just the way we have always done. And I can certainly handle hearing about his dark stories and thoughts today as much as I’ve always been able to do.

  ***

  It’s eight o’clock when we’re having dinner later that night, accompanied by only bottled water this time, no wine, for the both of us. I spent the entire ride back home on the subway planning what to say in order to make Jason share his writing with me sooner. Luckily, I got home before him, so I could put back his diary where I found it in his dresser in our bedroom. I regret deeply having taking it with me in the first place this morning and am so glad now that I get to put it back before he has discovered that it’s gone. I’m not a snooper, at least not when I’m back to my normal self.

  I know exactly how to word my request to see his writing, what to say if he acts reluctant to show it to me: I will tell him that the fact that he doesn’t want to show me makes me feel removed from him. Like he’s hiding things from me because he doesn’t trust me. If he wants me to truly heal from the stillbirth, I need to feel as close to him as always. Yes, it’s emotional blackmail, but I have no choice if he’s going to be difficult about this.

  Only when we’re almost done eating do I feel it’s time for me to start talking about it.

  “How’s the writing going?” I ask him in a light voice.

  He sighs. “Lately it hasn’t been going so well actually. I feel like I’ve gotten stuck.”

  I tilt my head and frown a little. “How so?”

  He gazes out the window behind me. “I just don’t know what’s going to happen next. No words are coming out of me. It’s very frustrating.”

  “Sounds like it. Maybe I can help?”

  His eyes find me again and a smile curls the edges of his lips. “How can you help me?”

  I can tell that he’s not opposed to the idea, which I take as a good sign. Maybe this won’t be as hard as I had expected.

  “If you let me read some of what you’ve written, I could give you some ideas. I read somewhere that some writers break out of writer’s block by talking about plot points with other people.” That’s a total lie—I haven’t read such a thing anywhere—but as I say it, I think that it doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

  “Okay,” Jason says and nods. “Let’s give it a try.”

  I stare at him. “Really? You’ll let me read what you’ve written?”

  He gives me a confused look. “Yeah. Why is that so surprising?”

  I consider telling him my thoughts from earlier today, but I change my mind. Why complicate things when it’s going so well? I turn my palms upward and shrug innocently. “I don’t know. You’re right. I shouldn’t be surprised. Can we go read it now?”

  “Sure.” He glances at my plate on which there is still some pasta and meat sauce. “Are you done eating?”

  “Yup.” I push my plate away from me to emphasize how stuffed I am. “Are you?”

  Jason takes a look at his plate that is practically empty and nods. “Yeah, I’m full. Let’s go to the office.”

  We quickly clean up the table and then head to the office that we share. Even though I’m pleased that Jason is going to show me what he has written and that he agreed to do so without any resistance, I can’t help but feel shaky. No matter how determined I am not to let on how freaky I find it reading about this fictional man and his adulterous affair, it will be hard. I can only hope that the version I’m going to read is toned down from what I read in the diary.

  Well, even if it’s not, you can handle it, Lexi, I tell myself in my head. You keep it together for your husband the way he has kept it together for you. You know that it cannot have been easy for him.

  Together we walk into our office and I’m reminded of the deliciously violent lovemaking we engaged in here only a few days ago. The thought of it even manages to turn me on and I suddenly feel disturbingly hot. Jason loves it when I wear the sexy lingerie my closet is full of; I should put some on later and surprise him. Except for this past Friday, I haven’t worn anything particularly attractive for him lately.

  Jason walks around the big desk with the desktop computer and beckons for me to come join him. He switches on the computer.

  “I save my stuff in Dropbox,” he explains, “so I can pull it up on any device any time I feel like working on it. As I’ve already told you, I write on it when I’m still at the office and after I’ve finished work sometimes. It’s so peaceful and quiet in the evenings there.” He grins at me. “The perfect environment to write in.”

  He pats the black swivel leather chair that’s between us. “You should take a seat.”

  “Okay,” I say and plop down on the chair. Jason types on the keyboard and moves the mouse around until he has found the file he’s looking for. He has named it The Green House. He clicks on the file and a double-spaced document full of words rolls up on the screen. Chapter One it says on top.

  “I’ve only written five chapters that I’ve polished like crazy,” he says, looking a little embarrassed. “I was hoping that if I kept going over them that I would break out of my writer’s block, but I haven’t. The good thing is it should be easy for you to read them. They’re super clean. I guess you should read it from the beginning or you won’t be able to give me any good ideas. Do you want me to tell you the premise of the story, so you know what to expect?”

  “Sure. If you think it’ll make it easier for me to read it.”

  “Yeah, I do think so.” He takes a deep breat
h. “Basically, it’s about this guy who works on Wall Street and feels so guilty by all the shady deals he has to make that he decides to move to Africa to volunteer. Together with the locals he helps rebuild a village only to fall sick with a mysterious disease. The village elders tell him he needs to travel through the jungle to reach a spring and drink from the water there to become well again. Only problem is, no one has ever succeeded reaching this spring before.”

  I stare at him again, feeling how my eyes want to widen with astonishment. But I compose myself and nod mechanically. “That sounds really interesting! Well, I should probably read this while on my own. If you’re hovering above me, I won’t be able to relax and get into the story.”

  “Got it.” He presses a kiss onto my head and then walks toward the door that separates the office from the hallway outside. “I’ll be in the living room when you’re ready. And if you hate it, don’t push yourself to keep reading,” he adds. “It’s okay, really.”

  “Stop it,” I say and shake my head. “Of course I won’t hate it.”

  He grins at me like a little boy. “Just wanted to give you an out.” Then he walks out of the office and I can hear his steps fade away as he walks to the living room.

  My eyes return to the computer and just as I feared, it only takes me a few pages to realize that this story is nothing at all like the one I read in the diary. Still, I keep reading, hoping that somehow it will take a sharp, unexpected turn. I’d much rather see that Jason is a terrible writer whose story makes no sense and is all over the place than find that the nightmare in the diary is in fact the truth. Unfortunately, neither of those criteria holds true—he’s a good writer and the story makes perfect sense. Nowhere in the story do I get the sense that it will ever turn into something about an unfaithful husband and his mistress, Celeste.

  No one in the story is even called Celeste.

  An hour later I have finished chapter five of Jason’s book. I know he’s sitting as if on needles out in the living room, waiting for me to give him my opinion on his writing. Give him some ideas where he could go with it. But I’m not sure I’m going to be able to talk to him with a straight face now.