Only His Journal Knows // h.s.

Chapter Five

Chapter Five: Katy's Point of View

*flashback of Katy's to after the apartment fire*

My apartment complex was before me, wildly ablaze on one side. Firefighters sprayed hoses to vanquish the flames. I sat on a bench wrapped in a blanket, clutching in my hand my phone and the leatherbound journal. 

The ring of my phone shook me out of my thoughts and I scrambled to answer it, keeping my eyes locked on the dying flames of the building.

"KATY?! ARE YOU OKAY?! ARE YOU ALIVE?! I SAW YOUR APARTMENT BUILDING ON THE NEWS!!" Ronnie's voice shouted into my ear. I winced from the volume and let out a sigh.

"Yes, Ronnie, I'm fine. It was Nate's room that was lit on fire. He's got third degree burns on his lower arms and one of his shoulders, but he's okay. The doctors are saying he'll heal. The firefighters are putting out the last flames right now. One of the men told me that some of my apartment is damaged, but it's only my front door and the first few feet of my wooden floor--there is more water damage than there is from the flames... Right now they are putting out the last of the fire that's in Nate's apartment."

There was an audible sigh of relief from Ronnie and she calmly replied, "Oh, thank God. I'm so glad you're okay...."

"Yeah, talk to you later. I gotta call my insurance agent," I replied softly as a cold gust of wind came and blew my hair into my face. "Bye, Ronnie."

"Bye, Katy. Glad you're safe!"

With that, I hung up the phone and looked at the scorched part of the building. The last firefighter was climbing down from his spot on the firetruck. 

I took a deep breath and looked down at the journal sitting in my arms. Why didn't I get one of these, to document my own thoughts and events? Time to get one...

~~~~~~~~~

Two weeks later, I was finally buying a small black and white journal at a random vintage shop a few blocks over. Since the fire, I'd been pretty busy. I'd stayed the night of the 23rd at a hotel for free (paid for my insurance) because the firefighters didn't want anyone to reenter the building until the next morning.

I'd woken up on the 24th, on my birthday, and gotten the lovely gift of seeing the scorched front door and floor of my apartment. It was sort of a gift, though, because it could've been worse. None of my personal belongings were damaged, and that's what mattered. I'd had a birthday dinner with Ronnie at Olive Garden. Five days after the fire, on Thanksgiving morning, some men came and replaced my front door and floorboards. Everything was finally back to normal...

"That's 8.45, ma'am," said the teenage girl behind the counter. I handed her a ten dollar bill and told her to keep the change. With that, I took the journal and the receipt and left to go back home. 

My thoughts lingered on the journal. Why was I always thinking about that journal? What bothered me most was who it belonged to. I still hadn't figured it out yet. The writer was definitely in a band...but what band? 

I'd read quite a few entries. Most about his bandmates, and even some about his lovelife. There were too many song lyrics to keep track of, they were scribbled all along the margins of the pages, hovering over the entries like little storm clouds, raining musical notes like snow upon the pages. 

A lot of the lyrics were inspired by his love life.... lyrics like "I don't care what people say when we're together, you know I wanna be the one who holds you in your sleep, I just want it to be you and I forever, I know you wanna leave so c'mon baby, be with me so happily"

I had no clue what song they were to, but I'd searched everywhere on the internet. I sang them in my head, creating my own notes for the words and my own 4/4 beat. I had to admit, whoever wrote those lyrics had a genius writing mind. I could picture the songs playing out, and I usually had the lyrics stuck in my head all day.