Diary One

one

Now, each day seems to melt into the next so that when I look back into my past there is only one, incomprehensible knot, one lifeless plane in which my existence solely lies.

It is not too bad I suppose. Nana is here. Camilla is here. Each day I get a little better and when I start remembering Hampden, and all of that, and the rooms of Nana's house become increasingly small and I feel like I am about to suffocate I go outside to the garden with a book and a cup of tea. Camilla is always making me cups of tea, thinking if I constantly keep the warm cup by my side I will not be tempted to go to the liquor store.

And I have not been tempted lately. Which is all good and well. But, I've been tempted with other things. And I have to tell myself I cannot kiss her because I have broken her trust. I have broken everything that had bound us together. It will take time, for me and for her to break our silent separateness, our quizzical glances at one another, our calculating sighs and tally marks in our notebooks of the days gone by when we haven't.

I like to remember back when we were children, when our Nana first brought us under her care. We were thrown into a world where it seemed as if no one was there to protect us and that was when we learned that we must protect one another. I remember the first day at our new school in Virginia. The hot sun bore on the backs of our white cotton shirts and left a trickle of sweat down both of our backs.

I remember our first high school English class. When asked what her favorite book was, Camilla said Jane Eyre.I suppose, in a world where everything seemed so temporary, books were the only thing that glued us to the ground, that kept us from floating away. Except, looking back at that first English class, when asked what my favorite book was I couldn't think of a reply.

I still can't.