“I just…ah, forget it.” Bobby walked away.
“We probably will,” Tia said with a snarky laugh.
“Look at you, being a badass!” Laura said to Tia.
“I had to give it to him.” Tia shrugged and sat back down.
After that, we just lay in the grass trying to make sense of the universe. The stars were like a big game of connect-the-dots. I rested my head by the journal and thought about Clay looking at the stars with us.
“Hey, what’s with the diary?” Taylor asked.
“Oh, this?” I sat up. “I uh, I journal a lot, I guess.”
“What do you journal about?” Laura wanted to know.
“It’s…personal.”
“Fair enough,” Taylor replied. “Hey, that reminds me, when I didn’t pass grade ten English, I had to retake it in the summer. Mr. Brooks was the teacher. He had us journal all summer long. It was a really reflective experience that I appreciated a lot.”
“He had you journal too? What did you journal about?” I sat up.
“He had us write about experiences from our past. Y’know, like where we grew up, and why certain things influenced us the way that they did. I wrote a lot about my older sister, and how important our relationship was for me while our parents went through a divorce”
“Did he ever mention anything about his past?” I was eager.
Tia raised an eyebrow.
Taylor thought for a moment before she said, “Not really. He did talk about the little things, like coming to Canada from England, and starting a new life here.”
At that moment something clicked. What if Grampy left those entries in his classroom? I had felt so drawn to the room earlier that day—something had been pulling me in before Bobby interrupted.
“Hey, I think I’m gonna head out.” I stood up.
“You okay?” Tia got to her feet slowly. She was a little tipsy, but she definitely noticed how jumpy I was all of a sudden.
“I’m fine, I just…I’m just tired, I guess. Do you need a lift home?”
“Uh. Yeah, sure,” Tia said sounding a bit disappointed. “Do y’all wanna crash at my place tonight?” she asked the girls. “There’s room.”
“I’m down,” Laura said, and she got to her feet.
We all got back into the truck and made our way to the main road. Tia was up front with me again, the other three girls in the bed.
I didn’t say much on the ride back. What Taylor had said kept going back and forth in my mind. Of course Grampy made other students journal. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of that before, and I couldn’t believe it had taken going to a house party to get that information.
“Everything okay, Anna?” Tia asked.
“Everything is fine. I think I just wanna get home and lay down.”
“I see. Well, if you need anything, let me know….” Her eyes lingered on me.
“I know,” I said with my eyes on the road. I couldn’t take Tia with me, she was drunk and I needed to focus. I would tell her all about it once she sobered up.
I parked in front of her driveway and she gave me a huge hug.
“Thanks for everything, Tia.” I hugged her back. “You being there when everything went down…it means a lot.”
“Any time,” she said. “I always got your back, Anna. And I always will.”
“Likewise.” I let go. “Though, I think right now what you need is some water and a bit of sleep.”
“You right.” She laughed as she got out of the truck. “Girls, let’s go!” she called. Then she turned back to me. “I’ll text you tomorrow, and if I don’t hear back, I’ll come find you.”
“Pffft, I’ll bring you a cheeseburger to work tomorrow, my treat.” I closed her door, waved to the girls, and hit the gas.
“You lied to her.” Clay faded into the passenger seat.
“She was only going to hold us back,” I replied.
“Maybe she could have helped when she, well, sobered up.”
“Maybe. But I want answers sooner rather than later.”
“What’s your plan, then?”
“We get Grampy’s keys to the school. We go to his classroom, and find those missing entries.”
“If they’re even there.” Clay shrugged.
“They’re there, I can feel it.” They had to be there. Where else would Grampy put them? I was running out of ideas.
“Anna, we’re talking about breaking and entering.”
“Whatever.” I turned onto the path and drove up towards my grandparents’ house. I didn’t need Clay second-guessing me every time we had to do something different. He was too innocent, always wanted to play safe. He wanted to follow a set of rules, but when had that ever gotten anything done?
When I got into the house I checked key rack, and found Grampy’s school keys at the very end. Before I could grab them, Clay reappeared beside them.
“You know if this goes south, if we get caught, bad things could happen.”
“We won’t get caught. We’ll be in and out. Nothing bad will happen”
“Just like nothing bad happened last time?”
I froze. I couldn’t believe he would use that as leverage. Of all the things.
He saw my face. “I didn’t mean it like—”
“I know what you meant,” I said, walking back out to the truck. He got in the passenger side. It was deep into the night, and no sign of Mom, so that meant Clay didn’t have to vanish, but that didn’t mean I wanted to talk to him.
Our ride to the school was silent.
Chapter 19
When we rolled up to the school, Clay faded and I stuck the journal in my bag. The moon was still high above our heads, so I knew there would be no one around. I walked up towards the entrance, trying to avoid the street lights. Who knew if there was a security camera or something? I looked through the glass front doors but couldn’t see a thing. It was too dark inside. I reached for Grampy’s key and stuck it in the lock, and immediately pulled it back out.
“What if an alarm goes
