A/n : Hey buddies, upcoming chapters can be somewhat sensitive and can make you cry. If you are soft hearted, then you should read it on your own risk. ❤️
The pages turned with a heavy, brittle sound.
The bright stickers and colorful drawings vanished, replaced by a gap of several empty years.
When the ink finally returned, the handwriting was different—no longer loopy and round, but sharp, slanted, and rushed.
The girl who loved pink dresses had been replaced by a teenager trying to hold the world together.
November 14th
Dear Diary,
I'm sorry I haven't written in so long. Life... life hasn't been a storybook lately. Everything has been going up and down, and mostly down. But today was the day the world actually stopped.
This morning, Papa came into my room before he left for the office. He looked tired—older than I've ever seen him. He sat on the edge of my bed and held my hand so tight it almost hurt. He made me look him in the eye and asked me for a promise. He said, 'Jay, no matter what happens, promise me you'll never cry. Promise me you'll always keep smiling, for your mother and for me.'
I laughed and told him he was being silly, but I promised. I smiled at him, and he kissed my forehead one last time.
Two hours later, the police called. An accident. A truck. He's gone, Diary. My Papa is just... gone.
Keifer felt the air leave his lungs. He looked at the page and saw a faint, circular stain—a single tear that had blurred the word "gone."
It's like a domino effect. Everything is falling. Mom hasn't stopped crying; she's a ghost in her own room. And today, I went to find Sophia at school, needing her more than I've ever needed anyone, only to find her locker empty. Her family got transferred. Other school, other city. She's gone too. I didn't even get to say goodbye to my sunshine.
The lawyers keep coming to the house. They say the company is falling. They say we're losing everything. I want to scream. I want to sob until my lungs give out. But I remember his face this morning. I remember the promise. I have to keep smiling. If I stop smiling, I think I'll shatter into a million pieces.
Sophia let out a choked sob, her hand trembling as she touched the page where her name was written.
"I didn't know," she whispered.
"I was just a kid, my parents moved me overnight... I didn't know her father died that same week. She was all alone."
Keifer stared at the handwriting. Promise me you'll never cry. He finally understood why Jay's smiles always felt like a mask—because they were. They were a deathbed request from a father she adored.
"She's been keeping a promise to a dead man for years," Keifer said, his voice a jagged whisper. "While her whole world was burning down around her."
Keifer turned the page, his heart aching at how thin and fragile the paper felt—much like Jay herself must have been back then.
This entry was written in a cramped, tight script, as if she were trying to fit months of pain into a space too small to hold it.
March 20th
Dear Diary,
I haven't written because there is too much to say and no breath to say it. It's been months since Papa left, and sometimes I still wait for his car to pull into the driveway. But the driveway isn't ours anymore. We moved. I'm not at the fancy school with the beautiful gardens anymore. I'm at a small school with gray walls and low fees. I don't talk to anyone. People try to be nice, but they aren't Sophia. I don't think I can ever make another friend. My heart is full of Sophia and Papa, and there's no room for anyone else.
Mom is... different. She cries almost every single day. She looks at me and her eyes are so red, but I just stand there. I want to hold her and sob with her, but I can't. I made that promise. I stay quiet and I keep a smile on my face even when my chest feels like it's being crushed by a mountain. I think she hates me for it. She asks me why I'm not sad. She doesn't understand that I'm dying inside, I'm just doing what Papa asked.
Everything changed again last week. Mom got remarried. She says we need a man to take care of us because the money is all gone. I don't like him. His name is Ben, and he smiles too much, but his eyes are cold. I accepted it because Mom looked happy for the first time in a year, and I would do anything to stop her crying. But when he looks at me, I don't feel safe. I don't know why. I just want to lock my door and never come out.
Mom has started being angry at me lately. She snaps at me for the way I sit, the way I eat, the way I breathe. I think she sees Papa when she looks at me, and it hurts her. Or maybe she just hates that I'm the only one who isn't crying. I'm so tired, Diary. I'm so, so tired of smiling.
Sophia's hand was over her mouth, her eyes streaming with tears.
"She was trapped," she whispered. "Her mother was taking her grief out on her, and that man... she knew even then that he wasn't right."
Keifer's grip on the diary tightened until the edges of the pages crinkled. He remembered how Jay's mother had been described as "fragile," but reading this, he saw the truth: Jay had been the pillar holding up a woman who was breaking her in return.
"She was a child," Keifer said, his voice trembling with a terrifying coldness. "She was a child and she had no one to protect her. Not even her own mother."
He looked at the next page, dreading what the "unsafe" feeling she mentioned would turn into.
A/n :
Hey buddies, I hope you like this chapter, I am stopping asking question of the chapter bcoz I feel like it's getting boring bcoz of it, if you want I can add.
Bye 👋🫂
*Spoiler for next chapter:
What happened to her mom.
How his stepfather treats her.