Hidden Behind A Notebook

Prologue

Daniel picked up the notebook looking for a school subject or a name. Nothing. He turned the notebook over in his hands wondering what secrets it could hold. He glanced at the cover and the inside of it searching frantically for a face he could return it to. Nothing. 

Each page was covered in words, but not a single name was written there. The elegant slant indicated right-handedness and years of practiced scripture showed in the beautiful penmanship: this person had been writing for a while. 

Each passage was written in third person without any names, but the stories written seemed to be mostly about a female, so he assumed this was a girl's journal. He didn't want to pry, but he wanted to find out to whom it belonged, and he flipped through the pages looking for the person to return it to. 

Until a word caught his attention. Happiness. A word that single-letteredly was the key to so many people's end goals. His fingers traced the word as his lips moved to say it without producing any sound. He began to trace small shapes on the page feeling indents where the girl had pushed her pencil to create words out of graphite.

His eyesight went hazy from staring at the page for so long. Regaining his focus, he sat down and began to read. He did not know why; the page just softly whispered to him that he needed to, and he did.

Happiness

The girl stood looking in the mirror practicing a smile. She could not seem to get it right for some reason. If she smiled slightly, she looked not happy enough. A little wider and she looked as though she were smirking. If she showed her teeth, it looked forced.

Daniel couldn't even count on his fingers how many times he had done that before. His personal connection had him continuing on.

Sighing, she gave up and let tears flow down her cheeks. With people only speaking to her out of pity, she would never have friends, this she knew. She did not mind; she found great peace in being alone. More tears streamed down her face at that lie. Lying to herself was nothing new.

She had always said it would get better, that her father would come back one day, that her mother would stop, that she could take a day off of work and it won't be a big deal... It was all a lie. Maybe they made her feel better for a short time, an hour, two. They were security blankets that life kept stealing from her. Never there for too long or she might begin to be happy. 

Not being able to read more, he stopped with tears streaming down his own face as he read. He couldn't imagine how much his life was like hers. He needed to find her. She needed him. He could put off disappearing for a little longer as long as she'd be okay.