“I don’t think so,” I groaned, pulling myself to stand, hearing the bones click and pop as I stretched. I placed my hands on my hips, surveying the damage of all the unfinished business in my flat, which resembled more of a residence for a hobo than that of a dental nurse in her twenties. Enough was enough. Time to commit to neatness and get into the land of the living.
I started with the first box in the poky hall, sliding it rather inelegantly toward the lounge as my bed socks failed to gain traction on the glossy tiles.
Shit, it was heavy. I fell to my knees, breathless and confused at what the hell I had packed, as my head tilted to read ‘Books’ written on the side. Now that made sense; I did have a rather impressive book collection, not something many knew about: Ellie Parker, the bookworm. Well, Adam knew, but I quickly wiped that from my mind. I made work on ripping the packing tape from the box and exposing the interior crammed with books, ranging from Enid Blyton childhood classics, Sweet Valley High to Christopher Pike horror books. My entire reading life’s catalogue was here and I suddenly felt more at home than ever. When I wasn’t out with Tess and Adam, I could be found tucked up on my favourite couch with a book. Both my mum and dad were avid readers, and that love had been passed on to me. I didn't need to go out and explore Maitland just yet. Books were my comfort zone, and that would be fine for now.
I smiled. “Rock on Friday night.”
Another bottle of wine and some tunes later and I had all but forgotten about the Onslow Hotel, about Adam, and the messages on my phone, all of it. I was swept away in a different kind of nostalgia, getting sidetracked in long-lost books that I had forgotten about reading.
“Awww, Hating Alison Ashley.” I held it up to the light, pouring over my absolute favourite book by Robin Klein. I was soon lost in its chapters until I snapped my mind back to the task at hand and the half-unpacked box. The room actually looked worse.
“Shit,” I sighed, putting the book aside and pulling myself up onto my knees to look inside the box for the next treasure, when I paused, my brows knitting together in confusion.
“No. Way.”
Gone were all the hardcover classics; the last of the childhood memories had well and truly been cleaned out. Instead, the box was filled with a new layer of history, one that I hadn’t even realised I had packed: my diaries.
I reached in, retrieving the first pink-bound diary, gratified by inky love hearts and the words PRIVATE: KEEP OUT scrawled over its cover with the year 1990 embossed in gold.
I laughed, quickly moving to the next books: 1991, 1992, 1993. My intense, if not shambolic, boy-crazy chronicles that had been documented all through my teens were all there, all with similar warnings of promised death if anyone so much as looked into the pages. I couldn’t believe it: how had I not remembered these? How had I not recalled packing the … Oh God. Sudden sickness flooded me as I recognised the writing on the side of the box as my mum’s.
“Oh no, no, no … please, God, please tell me she didn’t read them.” I cringed.
When Mum had stuck her head into my room the day before I was ready to pack up and leave and was still horrifically behind, I had absentmindedly pointed her in the direction of my bookshelf, which of course included the pretty little shoe boxes on top, the ones containing my deepest, darkest secrets, including probably the biggest, most unbelievable admission of my life. One that I had not had a real chance of pushing into the deep depths of my mind, mainly because it was extremely powerful and the fact I had not long ago written it. I sat there, with a diary marked 1999.
Suddenly, a wave of nostalgia washed over me, drowning me to the point my lungs struggled to expand and make room for the air I so desperately needed.
Don’t open it, Ellie; just put the diary back into the box and slide it into a cupboard somewhere and forget about the things scrawled between the pages.
The thing I tried to tell myself about diary entries was they were usually written at the height of emotion, that surely a huge percentage of it was overly dramatic and not entirely true.
My finger traced along the thin red ribbon that marked a page; I had no doubt what it would say, as I parted the book to sit open on my lap. My eyes ticked over the paper and sure enough my greatest fear had been revealed in navy ink, almost like it had been written in a panic.
Heading to Point Shank tomorrow to see in the New Year, no more than that … a new millennium!! If the world isn’t drained into a sinkhole at the stroke of midnight, it’s time to come to terms with a few resolutions.
Joining a gym
Moving to Maitland
Cutting my hair
Saving for London
I laughed at all these hopeful yet predictable resolutions until inevitably I came to the bottom of the page, to the bold block letters that had been underlined, twice.
And last but not least: TELL ADAM HENDERSON I’M IN LOVE WITH HIM.
I snapped the book shut.
Oh Fuck!
Two
Reading this wasn’t exactly news to me, and that was the problem. The moment I had admitted it to myself had been bad enough, but I had also made another terrible mistake. I had admitted it to Chris’s new girlfriend, Tammy Maskala. Not by choice, mind you; if Point Shank hadn’t become so out of hand with crossed wires, with Tammy mistaking my secret feelings for Tess’s boyfriend, my feelings would have gone to the grave. But in order to clear up the fact, I unwittingly admitted my crush on Adam, and now it was out, like an airborne disease; okay, maybe that was a bit extreme. But I had forced Tammy into a vow of silence, one I had almost made her seal in a blood oath, especially since she was dating Chris, Adam’s older brother. Ugh, this was what I didn’t miss at all: small-town gossip. A lot of the time I tried to put my feelings down to small-town syndrome—that you just run out of boys to admire and then this happens, you fall for your best friend. Inevitable disaster, right? Then why was it that no matter how I tried to convince myself that what I was feeling was a really bad idea, that my heart grew more and more adamant with every moment I spent with Adam? Yep, I definitely had to get away, this could not happen. I was determined to convince myself of it, not even telling Tess my secret, and I told Tess everything. So, yeah, this was big—huge!
I took in a deep breath, chucking the diary into the pile, thinking now was really not the time to reminisce about the summer trip to Point Shank which was pretty much just days trapped in a car with Adam, just him and me and my infuriating feelings. Nope, this would not do; I needed to sleep, to forget, if not momentarily. I was physically exhausted from the week’s work, but not quite mentally. Maybe a trip down ancient memory lane might tire me? I thought reaching for 1991, where a thirteen-year-old, boy-crazed Ellie’s handwriting slanted in an elegant blue ink would help. I smiled, leaning my back against the couch as I read.
Maybe this was the way to go: to understand where I am, I had to go back to the beginning. What was the saying? Hindsight was a bitch. Well, I’ll be the judge of that, I thought, as I started reading and was instantly transported to the summer of 1991.
