The Ghost Of You

Chapter Four

Atwood, Colorado Sunday, June 30th

I woke up to Mama G knocking on my door.

"Come in" I say loud enough for her to hear.

"Hi sweetie, how are we feeling today?" She asks bringing a tray over with eggs, bacon, and a glass of orange juice.

"A lot better" I repond as she puts the tray on my end table and takes a thermometer out of her apron.

"Open up" She responds. I open my mouth and put the thermometer under my tongue. After a minute she pulls it out and smiles.

"Oh good, no more fever!" She exclaims.

"Thank you for taking care of me yesterday Mama G" I say giving her a soft smile.

"Of course honey! Hey, I have some errands to run today so I'm going to be out for a few hours. Do you need anything before I go?" She asks me starting to walk out.

"Nope, thank you though" I smile at her as she leaves the room. As soon as she shuts the door I jump up running over to my dresser. I need to make sure I was just dreaming when that person came into my room last night.

I open the drawer and look under my hoodies. at first, I didn't see anything but just as I was putting the hoodies back down I noticed something pink under my t-shirts on the other side. I quickly grab it.

"A diary?" I question out loud. I open the front cover.

' Property of: Hannah Jones' 

I run my finger over her name. How did this get here? Who was that last night? Why did they give it to me? All these thoughts come rushing into my head and I have to sit down on my bed to keep my balance. I can't stop looking at her name, looking at her handwriting. I smile at the way she curves the end of her H's, Thinking back to how she did that when we were kids too. I flip open to the last page she wrote in, my smile quickly disappearing as I read the date. ' Saturday, June 1st ' That was 2 weeks before Hannah passed. I decided to read it.

Saturday, June 1st

Dear Diary, 

Mark has been getting worse. Ever since mom died he's been drinking but lately, he's been thinking I'm her. I have noticed the older I get the more I resemble her but I don't like the way he looks at me when he gets that way. Tonight was really bad though. He turned on a sports game, I didn't even pay attention to what it was, I quickly shut my door trying to go through my college acceptance letters. I wanted to pick the one furthest away from here. I'm thinking about going to NYU but I also looked down at Boston College. I applied to that one just for fun thinking maybe it would be nice if Zack happened to go there, I don't really know what I was thinking, I'm sure he doesn't even remember me. But I was hoping maybe if I could see him it would be like no time had passed between us. I still dream about him diary, sometimes just the memory of us as kids is the only thing that gets me through Mark's rough nights. I miss him so much.

But as I was thinking about it Mark came pounding on my door. He was shouting for locking my door. I quickly shoved the acceptance letters into my desk drawer and reached over to unlock the door. As soon as I had unlocked it Mark came crashing through and was frantically looking around the room. He was screaming asking if someone else was in my room. I kept trying to tell him no one was there and I had done it by accident. He grabbed me by my shoulders and slammed me against the wall getting in my face. I begged him to put me down but her just kept staring at me. I accidently called him Mark and that was it for me. He screamed at me that I him dad, not Mark. He threw me onto the ground and started kicking me in the stomach. I shouted my appologize to him but he was too far gone. He picked me back up slamming my head against the wall. He punched me in the face. That was a new one. Mark has been hitting me since mom died but he's never touched my face, It was always in places I could hide with my clothing. I grabbed my face but he grabbed my wrist pulling my hand away, he went to hit me again but he stopped and looked at me. He called me Jenny, which was Mom's name, I told him no it was Hannah but he just pulled me down into his lap rubbing my head. He rocked me back and forth apologizing and telling me how much he missed me and how my death broke him.