Hey Punk, Keep This a Secret

Chapter Three: Landon Cartor

 My wife came downstairs again to find me still half asleep on the basement couch. "I'm so sorry Landon," she told me, "I got another call, and I have to be at the office sooner than I expected."

"That's okay, babe. I'll be alright," I half lied.

She kissed me on the cheek before turning to talk to Devin. "Come on, Devin. We gotta go a little bit early, okay?"

Devin followed her out the door, but didn't utter a word.

I remembered the first day I laid my eyes on her, and I'll be totally honest, I hated her. She was so spoiled and naive, at least to me. She wasn't even popular or anything either. She was a huge dork. Yet despite how badly I hated her, she was so in love with me.

She was magnetic, always attaching to broken people. She told me that she knew I was victim of something horrible from the very beginning. And she was right. I was a victim of many things. Maybe my jealousy was radiating off of me like light off of a glow stick, and she could see into it with those amber brown eyes.

Now, she lives in this house with me, and she's always taking these calls. These stressful calls for her stressful job that she chose, maybe partially because I told her her life wasn't hard enough. They almost always end in her running out of the house saying things like, "Gotta go, babe. Someone just called in a new case, and it's urgent." At least she kisses me on the cheek before she bolts out the door- like she just did moments ago- but that still leaves me with a quiet empty house that I can perfectly hear these voices in.

It makes me feel sick.

I got up and made my way into the bathroom. I had to clean up and get ready to go to the studio for the day. Andrew was going to be disappointed to hear that I didn't have Devin with me this time. But I didn't care, because the kid's well-being was far more important than that.

I went to look in the mirror, curious as to how tired I looked (spoiler alert, I looked like I was dead). When I was walking over, however, my eyes caught a glimpse of an unfamiliar object. Beside the sink there is always a trash can, but behind that was a notebook. A notebook and a strange pen, actually. I wasn't fully convinced that I was seeing properly until I touched it.

I was too curious now to not open it. I turned to the first page and read the back cover. I only read "This belongs to: Devin Milan" before I closed the thing and put it back where it was. That was none of my business and I knew it. I refused to read any further, however I planned to ask him about it upon his return. I could only hope that whatever was in that journal wasn't too concerning.