Confessions Of A Dead Girl

Ch9: Seeking Truth

Chloe and I sat down on a bench with hotdogs and nachos in small red baskets after a long time of playing carnival games to forget all about Emily and her diary. Chloe stayed quiet the whole hour of us playing games and I felt uncomfortable at the sudden change in the atmosphere. And I knew she felt it too. The awkward side-glances and the small talk was painful and I wanted to leave this place before I start to go crazy.

To keep me busy, I looked around the festival grounds, not only to ignore the tension between us but it's also because I felt someone's eyes on me and I wondered who it was. I was probably paranoid especially with what was going on these past few days. When my eyes lingered behind a stall through the trees, I caught a silhouette of a man, taking pictures of me. His black hoodie covered his face but I knew exactly who he was.

"What the heck?!" I shouted, causing Chloe to turn head towards me.

"What? What happened?" I got up from my seat and sprinted towards him, leaving Chloe without an answer. He stood there, frozen and caught off guard by my sudden movement.

I grabbed his camera and smashed it down on the ground.

"What the heck are you doing?! That's an expensive camera!" He said, fumbling for his backpack before kneeling down to pick up the pieces.

"Why are you taking pictures of me?! You did it once and I completely let that slide, but here you are doing it again. Who are you doing this for? Sarah and her group of friends? Are you keeping tabs on me?"

"At the beginning, it was for Sarah. She suspecting that you found the diary so she asked me to spy on you. But now..." he stopped talking. He just sat there, staring at his now broken camera.

"But now, what?"

"But now, I'm doing it for your safety."

"What? That doesn't even make any sense. You're stalking me because you're worried that I might be in danger?"

"Well, when you say it like that, it sounds bad. I knew Sarah was out of her head when she asked me to do it but I couldn't let her tell everybody my secret. Anyways, I'm afraid she might be after you. Like by herself, without using me or her boyfriend." He said, his blue eyes staring at me.

"You should've told me this without acting like a creep. Now, what am I supposed to do?" I sighed, looking to my right to see Chloe making her way towards us.

"Great. You brought Chloe along."

"Hey, I had no choice. It was my parents idea."

"What were you guys figh- Oh! Eldon, what a surprise." She said, her eyes focusing on his face before looking down at the broken glasses laying on the floor.

"What do you want Chloe?"

"Oh, nothing. Just wondering what's going on here. Lisa's parents are waiting for her at the entrance and they are expecting her to be  there in 5 minutes, so I have to, sadly, cut this short." She replied, her eyes making its way to mine and I knew what she was doing.

"Yeah, I got to go. You know how parents are." I chuckled.

"Okay, but we still need to talk about this."

"Yes, we will. Later."

Chloe and I made our way to the entrance, fully knowing that my parents weren't waiting for us but Eldon didn't need to know that. Not now, anyways.

"Thank you for saving me." I said, causing her to smile.

"It's no problem. It didn't look like it was going too well."

"You could say that." I sighed.

"And Lisa? I'm sorry for making things awkward between us. Gosh, it's so weird. I knew Emily, we were practically sisters and I thought I knew everything about her, but I guess not."