That was the last entry until after we got divorced, and it was dated right around when we got married. Then the next one was right after West stopped his father from attacking me.
I think I fucked up.
The next entry was marked April of this year, a few months after I’d started sleeping in West’s bed.
Every night Story falls asleep in my bed and I watch her until the sun comes up or until my eyes force themselves shut. I think about the beginning, trying to pinpoint where it all went wrong. Was it that night? Or was it the first day I saw her, and I realized how little I actually had?
Because suddenly I had something for myself—a feeling in my chest no one could take.
Maybe that’s when it went wrong, because I was too young to know what it was. I lingered around her, clung to her, stuck to her, but I didn’t know why. I was just addicted to it.
Then I was caught hanging with Story, and that feeling I thought was all mine, corrupted into hot shame. It became theirs.
I didn’t want to admit—couldn’t admit—that what we had was real. So I took the bet. There was no harm in it.
She’d never find out.
I’d never get that far with her.
I just liked talking to her. I liked that there was a piece of this planet my parents didn’t touch. A piece for me.
Then that night—
It cut off abruptly. I wondered what would have caused him to stop writing so quickly, for the ink to bleed halfway into the blank page like he’d hurriedly stopped writing and slammed the book shut. I scanned through pages and pages looking for more, addicted on insight, until I found the next entry, dated March.
Every now and then, I get a ghost sensation. I feel their hands slam into mine when I come out of the servants’ quarters. I hear their laughter.
And I hear mine.
I didn’t even fucking know they saw me go down to her.
It was easier to stop going to Crowne Hall than it was to see her. Why would I explain anything to her anyway? My father had my life planned out for me. She was a blip. A nothing.
But there had been a few minutes, when through the small, uneven window in her bedroom, I could see the moon. Her breathing was soft, and she was warm. For a moment, my life wasn’t laid out for me. I didn’t see every year until my death.
It was perfect.
It was the only perfect moment in my life.
How do I say sorry for that? If I say sorry, it means the only perfect moment in my life was wrong.
Tears fell, wetting the ink on the pages. There weren’t many pages left, and West had written in a way that left many blank, but I kept flipping them.
My fingers felt numb as I did so.
The only entry after that, was dated the night before he died. It was weird, I wanted to know what had gone through his mind all the time he was with me, keeping me captive. I wanted to know why he did the things he did, but there was nothing, no entry.
So I read the final entry, dated the night he’d kissed me and called himself the villain.
I took it for granted. I thought her song would wait until I returned.
I ignored the unwritten line in that poem.
Feed the bird.
If you don’t feed the bird, the bird fucking dies.
I fucking raped her.