The Mysterious Diary of a Lonely Boy(Paulina P-M) September 6, 2019

"Someday you will find me. Caught beneath the landslide. In a champagne supernova in the sky. Someday you will find me. Caught beneath the landslide. In a champagne supernova. A champagne supernova…” I sang with all my might from the backseat of my parent’s car. My dad sang along with me as he drove us from New York to Boston and my mom simply laughed at how stupid we sounded as she cut some apples for us to eat. My dad had recently gotten promoted, however, he was now required to work in Boston. I have to admit that at the beginning I wasn’t so happy about the news, however, after some time I got used to the idea and now we’re here, sitting in a car on a 3 hour and 37-minute road trip. Singing ‘Champagne Supernova’ like there is no tomorrow.

At some point in the trip, I fell asleep and before I knew it we were in Boston, my parents had already taken everything from the car to the new house. I noticed that only a few miles away there was a park, it seemed like some little kids were having a birthday party, and for some reason, that lifted my spirits, they just looked so happy playing there without a care in the world. There isn’t much to say about the house, it was a brick three-story house with one living room, one kitchen, and one dining room on the first floor. Two bedrooms (each with their bathrooms thank god) on the second floor. The final floor wasn’t above the second floor, but it was an attic beneath the first one. It was the biggest attic I had ever seen in my life.


September 10, 2019

My dad has left for work, and my mom went to her work interview. They won’t be home for a while, which means I can play my music as loud as I want. For my fourteenth birthday, my parents got me a record player and a bunch of records. To this day I still haven't got a present I have loved as much as my record player and my records. Now I listened to ‘A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation. I was pretty bored and decided to familiarize myself with the new house.
I walked through the second floor, then the first, and finally the attic. There wasn't much to see in the attic, a bunch of boxes scattered over the space, there was the old desk my dad used to use in one corner of the room. In the center of the room, there was a wooden tile that didn’t match with the others and curiosity got the best of me so I went over to check it out. The wooden tile was indeed different however it also sounded shallow on the inside. Maybe, there is something inside it I thought. I pulled the tile up and it surprisingly came out very easily. As I suspected there had been something hidden on the inside, it was a dusty book. I took it in my hands, its cover was bright red, or as bright as a dusty book could be, the edges were a little worn out, and the pages were yellow. I placed the tile back in its place and took the book back to my room.


September 14, 2019

It has been four days since I found the mysterious book in the attic and since then I hadn’t thought about opening it. I don’t know why but something about it just doesn’t feel right to me. Honestly, I find it pretty weird, I’m usually a very curious person, and I find the fact that I hadn’t opened that book until now weird. I don’t know ​​perhaps I just have improved my self-control or something.
I had nothing to do today and I start school next Monday so I decided to go for some ice cream or whatever I found on the way. I’m aware that the streets in Boston aren’t the safest but I had a small switchblade with me so I wasn’t as worried as I should have been. I walk for about 20 minutes after finding a decent-looking ice cream place. I went in, there at the counter was a tall girl, with brown skin, and small box braids, some of them were dyed blue. She had several piercings on her ears and she was looking down at her phone. She was the only one in the small store. I walked closer to her, once I was about 5 feet away from her she realized that she wasn’t alone in the shop. She jerked her face up, pretty surprised.
“Um, hello, how may I help you?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m just here for some ice cream,” I thought. Why else would I be here?
“You are?!” she sounded surprised at my comment, “I mean of course you are, you know people usually come here to ask for directions and stuff but they never stay for the ice cream. It’s not that our ice cream sucks, it’s just that they prefer to go to the other fancier and expensive ice cream place across the street.”
“Oh, is that so? Well, I’m not really into expensive ice cream so I’ll just have some chocolate ice cream in a cone please.”
She laughed a little, “One chocolate ice cream coming right up!” She walked towards the chocolate ice cream and started singing the song that was being played on the speaker, it was ‘Moving to New York’ (she was a surprisingly good singer).
“Hey, I come from New York,”
“Really,” The girl said with a warm smile, “Why did you move here?” She handed me the ice cream cone, “By the way, that will be 5 dollars
I reached into my sweatpants pocket to get my wallet, “My dad got promoted and we had to move here.”
“I see, well have you been here for long?” She took the money I placed on the counter and started checking if it was the correct amount.
“I just moved here, on September 6 if I’m correct,” I tasted my ice cream and was surprised at how good it tasted, “This is really good. You know, it’s a good thing I live so close to here, now I can come and have this ice cream whenever I want.”
“Really? That’s great! Anyways, how close do you live?”
“Oh, my house is like 15 minutes away.”
She frowned and started thinking about what I just said, “Do you by any chance live in a brick house near a park?”
A cold shiver ran down my back, “Yes, but how do you know?”
The girl leaned in a little bit and talked in a low voice as if not wanting to be heard, “That house belonged to the Clark family. It was a small family, there was only a mother and a son. Last year, around Christmas time the son disappeared, his mother died shortly after he disappeared. She committed suicide, left a note saying that the pain was too much to bear, apparently she felt like the disappearance of her son was her fault. Poor woman.”
My stomach dropped, and at that moment I knew that the diary had something to do with all of this.

When I got home I rushed to my room and looked for the diary. I hid it on the back of my bookshelf. It took me a while to get my hands on it but I eventually did. I climbed to the top of my loft bed and opened the cover, there was a name written on it. Noah Clark… he must be the owner of the diaries, but is it the guy who disappeared?


September 16, 2019

I haven’t touched the diary ever since I opened it for the first time. I don’t know why, I just couldn’t bring myself to read it. But… whatever, I started investigating a little bit about this Noah guy, and it turns out that he might be the guy the ice cream girl told me about. HeHis disappeared last year, nobody knows what happened to him, he just… vanished one day… that’s all.
I would ask the girl in the ice cream shop if Noah was the guy who disappeared but I’m afraid it will take a while for me to see her again. Today is my first day of school so I’ll only be able to go see her in the afternoon. I hate this so much, the suspense and curiosity are killing me!
Right now I’m sitting at the back of the bus on my way to school, nobody has really sat next to me, but it’s okay, right now I’m in my world, listening to Mr. Brightside while the colors of houses, trees, streets, and other cars flash beside me. The bus comes to a sudden stop and some people get in, at that point I’m not paying attention to who’s getting in. It’s not like I know any of these people, the bus started to move again and I noticed that someone was sitting next to me. I looked up from my phone just to see the same girl that served me ice cream the other day. She was wearing some ripped jeans and an Arctic Monkeys shirt. She noticed me looking at her and gave me one of her warm smiles.
“Well, hello again stranger,” she said
“Oh, hello,”
“I don’t think we have introduced each other, my name is Amara.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Amara, my name is Olivia.”
“A pleasure to meet you Olive.”
For the rest of the ride, we both talked and lagged. Turns out we had a bunch of classes together too. During lunch she presented her friends to me, they were all surprisingly nice for sleep-deprived high school students.

At 3:00 school was over Amara and I were walking towards the bus.
“Hey, Amara… can I ask you something?” I had meant to ask her this all day but I couldn’t seem to find a moment to.
“Yeah, sure.”
“So, about the guy who used to live in my house… do you by any chance know what his name was?”
“Oh, yes. If I’m correct his name was Noah, Noah Clark.”
What?! So the diary belongs to him!

The moment I got home I rushed to my room and took the diary from its hiding place. I read the first page.
Today was the first day of my senior year in school, and honestly, it wasn’t that bad. James and I ended up having most classes together so that wasn’t so bad. I was happy to see everyone again, however, I was more excited to see that James was still here this year, he didn’t get the scholarship he worked so hard for last year but he is confident that he’ll get it this year. I know I should feel bad for him but honestly, I’m glad he didn’t win that scholarship. I just know that things will be different once he leaves, so in the meantime, I’ll just enjoy every moment I have with him. After all, he is the first friend I ever had, he is also the only friend I think I have. Sure I may hang out with other people, but they are only “friends” with me because of James. I know they don’t hate me or anything like that but I also know they don’t consider me a friend.
After that, he just wrote about the classes he had, the teachers, and the students, whether or not he liked them, etc.


September 17, 2019

Today was my second day of school. It was… well it was fine. Nothing really exciting happened to me, however, Alex (one of Amara’s friends) did tell me that someone’s shoe did light on fire during their science class. That was probably the most interesting part of my day… Well, that was until I got home and read the diary a little more.
The first pages I read were just about how Noahs’ days were during school and at home. His school life seemed pretty normal, however, his home life was a little more complex. His mom was rarely home, she spent most of her days out in a bar or a club. When she was home she would only sit on the couch and drink until she passed out. Yet he didn’t care, he loved her. They barely talked to each other and yet he loved her so much. I suppose his mother also loved him a great deal, she did kill herself because she couldn’t stand the pain. Or maybe she didn’t know how much she loved him until he disappeared.”
I can’t do anything but feel sorry for him… and her… I can’t do anything but feel sorry for them.


September 18, 2019

Mom came and woke me up today, “Darling, your alarm has been going off for half an hour, you have to wake up,” she shook me a little.
I stayed until 4 a.m. reading about Noahs’ life. Apparently, his mother didn’t have a job, and his rich father paid for everything they owned (even if he never met him).

Amara didn’t come to school today, apparently, she came down with a cold and had to stay home all day. It was a good thing she presented all her friends to me, they are all so nice and I feel like we were able to bond today. I’m happy, now Alex and I are super close, they’re loads of fun and interesting as well, I enjoy their company a lot.

I got home and started looking for my diary. It was supposed to be behind my bookshelf but it wasn’t there. I started to panic so much. Wait, I fell asleep with the book in my hands. I didn’t have time to do my bed in the morning so it was a mess, I started looking under my blankets… nothing… the diary wasn’t there. Once more I started panicking, I tried to calm down. Olivia, calm down… Mabey the diary is under the bed. I peeked under my bed and felt a rush of relief flow over my body when I saw it was there. That was a close one.
I started reading. Something horrible happened. James got the scholarship, he’s going to leave me. Oh, Noah, no… I keep repeating to myself that I should feel happy for him, but I can’t. I’m not happy for him, I’m not even glad.
I’m mad.
Mad, and sad.
I hate him so much.
I’m sad.
Why? What did I do wrong? Where did I go wrong?
Please, James, don’t leave me here, I’ll be all alone again without you, I need you so much, please, please, please, please, stay.
The page ended there… The diary ended there. The next pages were just blank.


September 19, 2019

Amara also didn’t come to school today. Is she still sick? I went to look for her at the ice cream shop, I’m not sure why I thought she would be there. I’m still shocked about the way the diary ended. I can’t believe that was all… I know it can’t be all… there must be more… I’m sure there must be.


September 20, 2019

I got on the bus, sat in the seat I always sat on, put on my headphones, and let my mind drift off to wherever Queen would take it. Soon after the bus came to a stop, some people got in and then it started moving again. I felt a light tap on my shoulder, when I looked to see who it was I was pleased with one of the most pleasant surprises I had had in quite a long time.
“Hey Olive.”
It´s Amara. She’s back! Her voice sounds a little raspy, “Amara! Your back! How are you feeling?”
“You bet I am! Don’t worry I’m fine now,” she sat next to me, “Although my voice sounds a little weird,” she lagged a little, “Well, there go my dreams of becoming this year’s musical lead role,” she started laughing, even more, I joined her. Neither of us liked musicals. Well, at least we think we don’t.

I suppose I did a bad job at hiding how anxious I felt.
It happened during lunch break, “Hey Olive, can I talk to you?” Amara asked.
“Yeah sure, what is it?”
She hesitated for a moment, “It’s just, you have been acting weird today. Alex told me you have been this way since yesterday… Olive… are you okay?”
I knew I couldn’t lie to her, so I didn’t, “The thing is that… well… there is a problem I thought I could solve,” it’s more like a mystery, “But I just can’t, a lot of pieces are missing and it’s just too hard for me.”
“Well have you tried looking at things from another perspective, maybe upside down? Or even backward! From end to beginning.”
From end to beginning? Of course! “Amara, you’re a genius!” I hugged her as tightly as I could and now we’re here.
Now I’m sitting in front of the diary, telling myself not to get too excited. I take the diary and turn it backward. I open the back. I closed my eyes then slowly opened them again, there was something written on the last page. Don’t worry James, I’ll act happy for you. I’ll act as happy as you need me to act for you. I’ll act happy so you don’t feel bad, so you don’t blame yourself for what will happen next. There was another thing written at the bottom of the page, it was an address, a place somewhere in… New York!


September 21, 2019

Amara had invited me to her house for a sleepover. I told her I couldn’t go because I was going to New York to see my aunt Felicia with my parents. That was a lie. My parents had left for a business trip to Las Vegas two days ago, they called yesterday, and I told them I was staying the night at Amara’s place.
Now I was on a bus, halfway to New York. I don’t know what I was doing. I was lost, I think. Maybe I thought I was lost because I didn’t understand, I didn’t understand Noah. Why did he love his mother so much if they barely saw each other? She never did anything for him, did she? No, she didn’t… I think. Maybe she did something for him when she killed herself. But what if Noah was still alive… would she have done that for nothing? I snapped out of my thoughts when I realized I was listening to ‘Moving to New York’. I remembered Amara, her amazing singing, how she had been the first friend I made here, how she had helped me so much by solving a problem she didn’t know anything about. I’m so glad she’s my friend. Now that I think about it, if she were to leave just like James did with Noah, would I also be as sad as he was… yes… yes I would. It’s funny how I had just met Amara and now I couldn’t imagine living here without her. Now I see why Noah was so upset. I feel so bad for him.

A few hours later I arrived at the location in the diary. It was a creepy old house. Chills ran down my back. It was still bright outside and yet I couldn’t stand but felt scared. Okay, Olivia. You can do this. I walked toward the old house. To my surprise, the door wasn’t locked. I hesitated for a moment and then stepped in.
Everything in the old house was broken and dirty. Some dust got in my nose and I started sneezing like crazy. There was nothing in the old house. No furniture, no weird smells, no nothing. I walked up the stairs to the second floor. There was only one room, so I grabbed the rusty doorknob and turned it. Why am I doing this? There is probably nothing in the room anyway. I was wrong. There in the center of the room was an envelope, browned by time. As I walked toward it I realized how bad the room smelled. Why does it smell like this here, it smelled fine downstairs. I took the envelope. Should I? I opened the envelope, inside there was a piece of paper, it looked like a letter. That’s Noah’s handwriting! I started getting nervous, but curiosity got the better of me so I started reading the letter.

Dear James,

I hope you’re doing fine. If you’re reading this it means that I’m no longer here, and I believe you should know why. But you must promise not to blame yourself. When you left things got difficult. I didn’t have the strength to do anything, but I had to keep going because I knew that was what you wanted from me. Mom has asked me several times if I’m okay. I tell her I am. She once told me that if there was anything I wanted to talk about I could tell her. I’m grateful for her. Honestly, I didn’t expect her to notice. Anyways school didn’t get any better, I became pretty much a loner. Your friends don’t see the need to talk to me now that you are gone.
I feel so alone without you James. I miss you so much.
But I know that your life is better now, that you are doing what you always wanted to do. So I act happy, I act happy for you because acting is the only way I can make you think I’m happy.
I’m not happy James, I’m not. I’m sad. And I hate you because you are the reason for it. I know I told you not to blame yourself for this because I want you to be happy, but that just makes me even more miserable, that just makes me hate you even more.
I have always hated myself and everything around me, James, you know that. But when I was with you, I noticed I hated everything less, even myself. But now you’re gone.
James, please don’t hate me for what will happen next. Please don’t hate the body in the bathroom, instead, just cry. But don’t hate yourself, don’t blame yourself. Just cry.
Cry for me, James.

Take care, Noah.

I looked up from the note and stared at the bathroom door. There wasn’t enough curiosity in me to look inside. I called the cops.

September 25, 2019

I saw the body or more like what was left of it. Noah was found in the bathtub, scars covering his body. He had cut himself and then went and lay in the bathtub. He didn’t even turn on the water, he just lay there, bleeding, crying, dying.
His dead body haunts my dreams sometimes.
After I called the cops they took me to the station to interrogate me. I had brought the diary with me, they asked to see it. I told them everything I could. How I had found the diary, what was written in it, I told them about the address, the note I had found, everything. Of course, they called my parents, they told them everything, then my parents asked to talk to me. They asked me if I was okay, if I needed someone to take me back home or if I’d prefer to stay with my aunt Felicia for the night, etc.
I told them I was fine, that I would prefer to stay with my aunt, and that they didn’t have to worry that this mystery was over.
I liked staying with my aunt Felica, she has two cats (Mario and Bambino), she even gave me some food I could eat during my ride back to Boston.
I didn’t go to school on Monday. The next day when Amara and Alex saw me they started asking me so many questions.
“Is it true you found Noah’s body? Where did you find it? Did you go to New York to see your aunt Felicia or was it only to find his body? How did Noah die?” I answered all of her questions.
“Did he leave a note behind?” Alex asked.
“Yes, he did. It was for his friend, James.”
“Well, do you know James’s last name?” Amara and Alex seem to be planning something but I wasn’t quite sure what it was.
“I believe his last name is King. Yes, his name is James King.”
“James King, huh,” Amara said.
“Wait, James King?” Alex exclaimed, I nodded, “He and my brother go to the same college. Olive, do you by any chance still have Noah’s note?”
Now I understood what they wanted to do. At the police station, I asked them if they could make copies of the diary and the note so I could keep them. They agreed to make a copy of the note for them to keep, however they had to keep the diary.


September 28, 2019

Turns out James was going to a college in Denver. Amara, Alex, and I decided to all go on a road trip there. Alex told their parents that they were going to Denver to see their brother, Amara, and I told our parents that we were going to go with Alex to see their brother. They all believed us. We were going to see Alex’s brother, but we also were going to deliver the note to James. To be honest we were all going there more to deliver the note than to meet Alex’s brother.
When we got there it was around 9:00 p.m. We all walked to James’s dorm room (Alex’s brother told us where it was and that he would be alone at that time since his roommate would be with his girlfriend). Amara was the one to knock. Then she and Alex left, I had told them I wanted to do this alone, but honestly, I kind of wish I hadn’t. I was so nervous, I needed their help. Why did I tell them to go?!
Someone slowly opened the door, “Um… hi? Can I help you?" It was James.
“Hello. I have something for you. You are James King, right?”
He smiled, “The one and only!” I can see why Noah liked him so much, he’s so… colorful, “So what do you have for me?”
I handed him the new envelope I had placed the note in. He looked at it confused, “It’s from Noah, he’s sorry he couldn’t give it to you himself.”
His face turned sad, “Noah…” he said almost in a whisper.
I smiled at him, “Yes, Noah."

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