“Look, I’m going to call that guy of yours and get him to come pick you up. Take the rest of the day off, and tomorrow morning go to the police station. Just come in after that.”
I nod but I’m not sure what I’m nodding for. “Okay,” I say in an automatic response.
Like a jumbled blur; I hear Peter talking, and Dale talking, but I’m completely zoned out and not sure what’s happening. I just sit in Peter’s office, staring, at nothing.
My mind goes around and around. I’m numb, but I’m also confused. I’m not sure how long I sit here, because everything is quiet. I can’t hear anyone. Maybe they’re talking, or maybe they’re not. I’m stuck in limbo, somewhere between hell and earth. Every emotion, every feeling, everything is bubbling just beneath the surface. Like an active volcano waiting to erupt.
“Lily,” Max’s serene deep voice calls me.
Blankly I look into his dark brown, green-speckled eyes. Did he say something? Is he actually here?
“Lily,” he says again, as he lifts me from my seat and hugs me.
“He did it again,” I flatly say. “He hurt someone else.”
“I know, Snowflake. Peter told me. I came the moment he called me.”
“They want my diary. I need to give them my journal. We have to go.” Suddenly I feel an extreme amount of urgency as I leap out of Max’s arms and go for my desk to get my bag.
Max is right beside me and walking me down to my car. But I’m in no shape to drive. “Here,” I say as I give him my keys.”
“I’ve got my car. We can come back later and get yours, okay?” I nod my head, tuck my keys back into my bag and walk in the direction of Max’s car.
“Is Shayne home yet?” Max asks. “So she can let us in.”
“I still have keys. They told me when I left I could keep them, because it’ll always be my home.” I get into the car and stare at nothing, everything is a blur. Before we reach Shayne and Liam’s house, Max calls them to let them know what’s happened.
In a daze, I stare out the window, really not comprehending what’s been happening. I feel like I’m so unsure of everything. I’m a mess. I feel a tidal wave of strength, then it dissipates to uncertainty and anguish.
“I have to do this,” I end up saying to myself. “If I don’t, he’ll always be able to hurt someone else. He shouldn’t think he has that right.”
We pull up outside Shayne and Liam’s house, and we go inside to the room I was staying in. I look everywhere and can’t find the journal. “It’s useless, he’s going to get away with it because I can’t find the journal.”
Max hugs me and lightly rubs his hands up and down my back. “Lily, when was the last time you wrote in it?” he ask in his beautifully hypnotic, deep soothing voice.
Instantly his lull completely relaxes me. “It was when the divorce went through,” I automatically respond as my eyes close.
“And where were you sitting when you wrote it?”
I think for a moment, and an image flashes in my mind. “On my bed. I put the journal down and went to sleep. Oh my God,” I yell. “It’s under my bed.” I get down on all fours and look under the bed. There it is, with a dust bunny over it, right down the back of the bed. “Thank you.”
Max pushes the bed, and I grab my journal, wiping off the clump of dust. “There you go,” he says smiling broadly at me. “You just needed to relax.”
“Can we go home now? I just need to switch off and not think about anything.”
He takes the journal, and links our fingers together, leading me out to the car. “I think you need a bath, some dinner and a really stupid comedy to make you laugh.”
“Let’s not worry about my car tonight. A bath sounds perfect.”
He opens my door and tosses the journal on the back seat. As we drive home I keep looking back at it. “Don’t worry about it,” he says, obviously sensing the weight my diary is imposing on me.
“I can’t help it. What I have in there may send him to jail.”
“No, you can’t look at it that way. If he goes to jail, it’s because of what he did not because of what you wrote.”
He’s right. I didn’t beat Audrey. I didn’t do all those terrible things to her. He did them. And for that, he needs to face the consequences.
“Are you ready?” Max asks as we stand on the sidewalk outside the police department. I nod my head. “I have the journal. I kept copies of every page. You can do this, Lily. I’m right next to you, the whole way.”