Every other month, my friend Alicia and I would look for certain books and write an essay about them for extra credit at school, which is why I was at the bookstore.
I stopped my stopped my bike, placing it against a wall, walking towards the store,I pushed the heavy wooden door with a cold air rushing outside; mixing with the hot sticky air. I wiped the sweat off my brow and began to search for Alicia, smiling politely at the lady sitting at the front desk.
As I was entranced in an old National Geographic magazine on space, I looked up and saw brown curly locks with light pink chucks and went ahead to lightly tap her shoulder. When she turned around, it was indeed Alicia. She had a blank expression on her face until she realized It was just me and she engulfed me in a friendly hug. "Hi, Jazzy! How's everything?" I smiled politely, replying "Not much, Alicia. Have you found anything?" She looked off to the side. "I found a few things. You've read Anne Frank, no?" And I nodded my head, remembering myself reading it in middle school. We walked side by side, our feet in sync, as I found myself staring at them for a few minutes until Alicia said she'd found a few journals and diaries we could purchase.
They were mostly copies of Anne Frank and other famous diaries published, but one truly caught my eye. It was a beautiful coffee brown leather book and there were about three copies of them. When I gently pulled the leather strap off as if it were too fragile to touch, I saw it was called "Confessions."
I was only thinking of how wonderfully the book had been made, with the cover looking older and lovely, giving the feel of the actual journal. It wasn't until I had seen the author that I thought something strange after looking at it twice, "Alicia Gabrielle Smith". I turned to look over at Alicia slowly, who was scanning the summary of a book a few feet behind me and spoke up, curiosity getting the best of me. "Alicia, what was your last name again?" her eyebrows furrowed.
"Smith, why?"
"You write books?" I smirked and a hint of recognition was plastered on her face as her eyes caught sight of the leather book but was soon replaced with a cool smile. "No, why?" She walked over to me and took my book from my hands, trying to get my attention off it. She looked at the book, scanning it, as she said she was going to go purchase a few books. It looked as if she'd already put the leather book back, but she probably had forgotten to. She was acting a bit weird and curt the moment she saw the book in my hand but I had quickly dismissed it, running to catch up with her. We always bought our books together and divided up the cost so one of us would end up paying a bit less, telling the cashier to separate our books, which was usually what Alicia told her. As the lady gave us both our bags, we decided to go for coffee.
We spent a majority of the time speaking of things such as bands and what we had in common, mostly it was us talking about the band All Time Low and My Chemical Romance. We were both ranting about how upset we were that they had broken up, and had found out both our favorite songs from them was 'Kill All Your Friends'. We weren't close enough to gossip about others because we hadn't noticed who the other person hung out with, what if one of us talked smack about the other's friend? That would probably end our friendship then and there; although I wasn't sure nor was I willing to take that chance. At one point, somehow my eighth grade ex, the one she'd had been crazy about, had been mentioned, and her eyes showed a bit of sadness when it was mentioned, but the subject had quickly changed as if she had paid no attention to it.
~
As I hastily tied up the shopping bag to my bicycle, I rode home to my tiny apartment. It was near the Artsy Urban Center, so I was never keen on getting a car, I'd had many friends have their cars robbed, stolen, or trashed, so I stuck with a bike ugly enough that nobody would want to steal it, which was fine by me. I chained my bike to a pole in front of building and opened the rustic-looking door leading to a spiral staircase. In my building there was about 10 apartments and studios. Since my parents were working with Peace Corps they had to go to Haiti. It had been almost a year since I last saw them. I had to live with my aunt and uncle, which had been very impossible and uncomfortable. It was a very narrow apartment, and my room was above the kitchen. I had to go up small stairs to a cubby-like 3 foot tall room, which meant I had no door and they had full view of part of my room from their couch that transformed into a bed. It was extremely small, and although I loved how cozy it was, and the little window in my 'cubby' that gave me view of a very attractive neighbor, but one could only handle living in a small shoebox for so long, and I knew they missed their privacy so I got a job at a wholesale club half a mile away that payed me almost twenty five grand a year and rented the studio right in front of theirs. It was almost identical, and I could tell they were happy I was leaving. Not that I was a nuisance, but when you live in a barely 300 square-foot apartment with 2 other people including a teenager, it becomes a bit claustrophobic. I really liked living alone, and knowing I had family not even ten feet away from my studio was comforting.
When I was finally in front of the apartment 4b, I quickly opened the heavy door and smelled a heavenly caramel popcorn smell and my studio was as warm and inviting as ever, I felt glad and plopped on my unmade bed, opening up my bag.
~
I'd taken Alicia's shopping bag by mistake. The bag had the leather book I was looking at. The one she'd dismissed, saying there was someone else with her name that had written her book. I was so curious as to why she'd buy it behind my back, but decided to read it either way, curiosity getting the best of me.
~
As I read page by page, sentence by sentence, chapter by chapter, my utter shock had taken the best of me, I realized Alicia lied. She wrote it. It was her diary.
Her diary.
Every page was written in exquisite detail on how she'd murder someone.
And that someone was me.
Well, you know what they say, curiosity killed the cat. Literally.
