The Diary

The First Night

"I'm here, calm down." I grumbled to my mom.
"It's about time." She huffed in annoyance. "What were you doing up there anyway?" She asked.
I hesitated. Should I tell her about my findings? I decided not to, something about the whole thing seemed secretive somehow.
"Nothing. Just cleaning." I mumbled, technically it wasn't a lie.
"Only my daughter." She laughed under her breath.

We ate our meals in silence for the next few minutes. It was kind of strange sitting in such a large dining room with only two people. It felt strange looking at my mother at the opposite end of the table with so many empty seats in between us.
"So..." I began, breaking the silence.
"Why this place? I mean I know you got a good deal and everything but it's giant. We have at least six bedrooms and only two people, you can only have so many offices." I joked
My mom chuckled "Well to be perfectly honest with you cupcake, (I rolled my eyes at that childish nickname) we didn't have many options. This place was really cheap because...of its... history." She trailed off awkwardly.

"I'm sorry what was that?" I asked, "it's history?"
"Uh, this uh...this place used to be an orphanage or something, back in the...(she paused to think) 1940s I believe." She stuttered.
"You moved us into an orphanage? A creepy old place left to rot?!?" I asked in disbelief.
"Abandoned orphanage, technically." She assured me, as if that made it sound better. "And it hasn't exactly been left to rot; the bank has been taking enough care of it, as much as they could at least. It's been checked and inspected, it's certainly a fixer upper but it is quite habitable. There was some unknown reason they all left, I think it became kind of a source for stories to the locals but I assure you there's nothing wrong with it. They probably just needed a larger or hopefully smaller location and that's all." She finished her rant looking quite pleased with herself.

"But why this place? Why not a normal house? Why the size?" I asked not being able to process my mother's craziness.
"Well I didn't want to get into this tonight," she started.
Oh no I thought to myself, this clearly can't be good.
"I was thinking ...of maybe...renting out half the house."  She said cautiously.
I exploded.
"What?!? You're going to let some strangers live in this dump with us?!? What's wrong with you? Why would you choose this situation? Why could you not have just gotten us another apartment like usual. This is so stupid!" I shouted.
"It's really not that big of a deal cupcake; people do it all the time."
"So what? People smoke crack all the time are we going to start doing that too?"
"That's hardly the same thing." She gave me a warning look
"Are you sure? Maybe you've been smoking crap this whole time. Moving us out here into a freaking orphanage, you've got to be on something."
"Austen, you're being ridiculous."
"You're the one being ridiculous," I fired back. "You seriously thought you could take me away from all of my friends and my home to bring me into the middle of a horror movie waiting to happen and I'd be happy? What'd you expect? 'Oh golly gee mom I'd love to live in the world's creepiest place in the middle of nowhere with some strangers, why didn't you ask sooner?' You're ruining my life."
" Austen you're blowing this whole thing insanely out of proportion. I understand you're upset but that is not a reason to shout or disrespect me like that! Just because you don't agree with my decision you do not become the parent!"
"Well somebody has to." I screamed.
"Go to your room!" She yelled shooting up from her chair in an instant.
"How do I know somebody won't already be there?" I snapped.
"Go!" She thrust a finger towards the stairs.
I stomped up the stairs pretending not to hear my mom sobbing downstairs; and fighting to hold back my own tears.

I slammed my door shut and fell back against the door, sliding to the floor.
I felt the first tear fall down my face, warm and fat. They came slowly at first, as I was still trying to hold them in, one at a time and then all at once they started to tumble down my cheeks.
I don't know why I had said those things, half of them hadn't even made sense, but once we started fighting things always seemed to escalate so quickly.
I sat there sobbing regretting what I'd said but also slightly glad I had said it. I shouldn't have taken out my anger on her but she was also part of the cause of  my "blow up". I wanted to flop down onto my bed and sleep away the past twenty four hours. I looked up through my tear blurred vision but it wasn't until then I remembered there was no mattress to flop down onto.

I peered out the door, I thought I remembered seeing something leaning against the wall during my tantrum. As if trying to make me feel even worse my mattress was staring me straight in the face when I looked out. My mom must have brought it up when I was cleaning the mess in the closet. Great now I felt even worse. I tried to drag it back into my room whilst making the least amount of noise possible, which was not all that easy. After my struggle was over I managed to throw it down onto the bed and throw down an old blanket as a makeshift sheet.

I collapsed in a wet, sniffling mess and waited to dream away this nightmare of a day.
I waited for a while.
I took a deep breath and tried as hard as I could to let myself slip away into a slumber. I heard the whistling of the wind in my ear reminding me I left the window open. I lay there letting the night noises calm me down, soothe my tears, for as long as I could. Once the crickets were replaced by sirens I grudgingly got up to slam my no longer peaceful window shut.

I turned around, noticing for the first time since I returned to my room, the green notebook glistening in the moonlight that was shining in beams. I slowly walked over to where it lay on the floor and picked it up. I curled back onto my bed and opened it to the first page...

Dear Diary,