leather journal / h.s

01

M A R Y

if you ask me, liars and thieves are truly what makes our world go round.

i mean, if there was no one to steal people's prized possessions, would families and children not know to keep what's most important to them locked away so that no one, not even the best of thieves, can breach it? no.

sometimes I fail to see why they're so disliked because what they do is ultimately important to teach us things we should have already known.

let me just say that im glad to do my part.

my parents have always taught me that stealing is a good thing to pick up on, and since i was 4 it had become a hobby of mine. the very first thing i stole was a toy duck, and i have that rubber thing hidden away somewhere as a sort of trophy. my first steal.

then it escalated to stealing things just when i wanted them, for fun. I would steal pens and markers in kindergarten. in middle school i started to steal money. in my freshman year of high school, i stole my very first phone.

my parents drove me to the apple store where we convinced the owner to unlock it for us. it's mine now, and i still use it.

id stolen plenty of things before, and it had gotten to the point where i did it without thinking. half my wardrobe? i shoplifted it, and my parents were my trusty partners in crime. i was sure by now, i had without a doubt committed a felony.

it was the middle of the summer, and me and my best friend penny were walking down the blazing hot streets of los angeles. we were only doing this because the last time we walked here, we ran into adam sandler. it was like celebrities lived in our neighborhood.

"let's go to starbucks." she had suggested, and i was not going to turn penny down on that one. i could have definitely used a java chip frappe on the spot.

so we walked a bit farther, and we were just outside the shop when i saw something brown on the concrete.

"hey penny..." i asked, my hands tingling from the rush i usually got when i was about to steal something. "what's that?"

she shrugged. whatever it was, i was going to have it. because i wanted it. "looks like a journal." she said.

i squealed with excitement. "i wonder who's it is. maybe we can spill some secrets at our school."

i glanced at penny and she was rolling her eyes. "it's junior year, so if you did that everyone would hate your ass."

they already did, was what i wanted to tell her. but i didn't, I kept quiet about it and bent down to pick up the object.

penny was in fact right; it was a journal.

"well?" she probed, looking over my shoulder. god, sometimes she could be well over annoying. "who's is it?"

i grunted and carefully turned the book to the first page. when i saw the name, i could've sworn i almost dropped the leather journal to the floor.

by now penny was impatient. "who does it belong to, mary?!" she screamed.

"why don't you read it for yourself?" i snapped, but my hands were quaking with fear and excitement.

so penny leaned over and when she read the words aloud for herself, she almost passed out as well.

"property of harry styles."