CHAPTER NINETEEN: HER SECRETS
D10.
DANIEL
The past 24 hours have felt like a fever dream. After I fled from Isabel’s house, I drove to a neighboring town just to have some place to drive to. I sat in my car and I read Anna’s diary. Then I reread it a few more times. I think I must have the entire thing memorized by now.
As I poured over the pages over and over, I felt an array of emotions. Anger, sadness, disbelief. Anna led a more troubled life than I ever knew. There was actually so much about her that I didn’t know.
For instance, the father that she doted on and admired so hard was barely in her life. Anna never actually lived with him, ever. He left Anna’s mother when she was still pregnant with Anna. Packed up and started a new life with a different woman. It’s something Anna always blamed her mother for, which caused a major strain in their relationship. From what I can tell by the diary’s entries, Anna’s father would only appear in her life once or twice a year, but in those rare appearances, he would treat Anna like a queen. He won Anna’s love and affection, something her mother could never manage to do, although it seems to me as if she really tried.
The old bat tried to bond with me today -insert major eyeroll here- she actually suggested she come with me to the mall to find a dress for the Valentine’s Day dance. As if I’d ever be caught dead with her in public. She is so embarrassing. She looks so plain and disheveled. Maybe if she had made an effort with her looks, dad wouldn’t have gone off and found someone else. Maybe he would still be here. I told her that to her face and she said that I don’t know what I’m talking about. She said that my dad isn’t the perfect guy that he seems and if I just opened my eyes, I would see that, but I know that she’s lying. She’s just a bitter B who can’t handle getting dumped! I am so ashamed to call that freak my mother. She can keep dreaming forever that I’ll go anywhere with her. I don’t want anyone to know she exists. Not even Daniel. I’d rather everyone just think she’s dead. Sometimes I really wish that she was.
I loved Anna more than it is humanly possible to love another person, but reading her diary just made me feel sad for her mother. Maybe it’s wrong for me to weigh in on any opinion since I don’t know either of her parents personally, but it seems to me that in a situation where one parent walks out on their family to start a new one, they should be the one to blame, not the one who was left behind. I wish Anna were here so bad. I wish I could hug her and tell her that her father’s departure was not her fault or her mother’s. I wish I could help them form the mother/daughter relationship that they never had.
The more I read, the more I discovered about Anna’s family; like the fact that she had a half-sister who goes to our school. It turns out that those diary entries that I read at the wake were about her, not her mother. I don’t know who she is, as Anna only ever referred to her by insulting names, but it seems like Anna’s hatred of her was also misdirected.
Anna spoke of her sister with such hatred but could never actually name anything that she did that was worth the hatred, except existing and “taking her father away from her.” If only Anna had let me in on her family problems. I would have done everything that I could to help her, to make her see that she shouldn’t blame the rest of her family for what her father did.
Anna wasn’t the perfect girl that I thought she was, but that just makes me love her more. I would have done everything in my power to make things right for her. It’s too late for me to help her make amends with her mother and her sister, but it’s not too late for me to find justice for what happened to her.
After I finished reading her diary, I drove back to town and straight to the police station where I turned it in along with the locket and the folder full of photographs Isabel had of me and Anna. I filed a statement and told them everything I could about Isabel and the nature of our relationship since Anna’s passing. I made sure they knew that the highlighted parts of Anna’s diary were Isabel’s doing and that I had seen for myself how she has tried to mimic all of those things she knew about her. They thanked me for coming by and then I went home, took a sleeping pill and passed out. God knows I needed to sleep, needed to forget for a while.
I don’t know if Isabel is a murderer or just an obsessed stalker who used Anna’s death as an opportunity to get close to me, but I know she is guilty of something. She hasn’t tried to contact me even once since I left her house, which means she knows I took her stuff and is scared of what that may mean for her. It crossed my mind if Isabel is Anna’s half-sister, but that doesn’t make sense to me. It’s a well-known fact in town that Isabel’s parents were childhood sweethearts. Mr. Martin hasn’t ever been with anyone else to my knowledge. Besides, Isabel and Anna look nothing alike. If they did, Isabel wouldn’t have to have tried so hard to be like her.
I am so angry at myself for not seeing through her pathetic act sooner. Isabel has always been kind of weird. I always thought she had a crush on me since we were kids, but she was definitely not my type. Not to sound mean, or shallow, but she wasn’t much of a looker until about a year ago. She had always been kind of dorky looking, with big frizzy hair, crooked teeth, glasses and not a curve on her thin, boyish body. But all of that was nothing a makeover, some braces and some regular trips to the gym couldn’t fix. Isabel grew into her looks right around the time I began dating Anna…
Is that why she hated her? Because I fell in love with Anna and not her, even after she changed everything about herself? Did she kill Anna so she could take her place as my perfect girl? The thought sends a chill down my spine.
My thoughts are weighing heavy as I get up and get ready for school. I’m absolutely dreading doing anything but sleep and forget the world, but I have to go. We are getting the results of the eligibility test today. It’s time for me to meet my fate.