The Written Truth

The journal of a former classmate rests in his lap. A decision stands to be made: to read into the life of a girl he never really knew or to let her stay a mystery.

The cold wind slammed against me as I raced toward the bus, book bag in tow. Everything about the winter in New York was frightening: the snow, the people, the stores, and especially the wind; that being true, I knew I couldn’t afford to stop. I had to keep racing through the crowd if I wanted a fraction of a chance to get on the south bound bus that would be my only ride back to the dorms for another hour. And, no matter how much I loved it, I couldn’t spend another hour in this weather.

A sigh of relief forced its way past my lips as I saw the bus pull up only one block in front of me. I pushed myself through the few clusters that stood in between my one ride home and me, reaching the bus at just the right time. The temperature immediately soared once I stepped on. On any other day, I would’ve gone straight to the assumption that the heat was caused by the hoards of people that were huddled in the vehicle, but I shoved that thought out of my head as I scoured the rows for an empty seat. The trek down that thin center isle seemed much too long for this bus to actually provide, another thing that I would ponder on a normal day, but I finally found a vacancy near the back of the bus. Sure, the spot was right in front of the heater and was going to make my layered clothes stick to me within minutes, but it was a hell of a lot better than being near the freezing, ice-ridden door. 

 I slid into the seat next to the window, waiting for the dreaded moment that some wacko would enter the bus and decide that I looked like a perfect person to test their feigned insanity out on, but"thankfully"that didn’t happen. At least, not that day anyway. My eyes surveyed the bus out of sheer habit before my brain seemed to grasp why I really needed the extra seat beside me; not only did I hate the nearness that this type of public transportation gave you, I needed the extra space for the book bag that only then began to put apply its actual weight on my back.

While heaving the worn, denim bag off of my quickly thawing shoulders and onto the seat next to me, my fingers began to search through the immense crap load of theses I managed to check out of the public library. Each and every one of them bore the same customary binding and a range of overly generic titles, all converging on the one topic that I was partially interested in: communication through literature. Every document, every paper, and every piece that I could possibly stuff into my backpack would"could"help me understand how literature, specifically fiction, could portray such relative themes, even when it’s presented in a world very different than our own. My mind flickered back to that library, wondering if I could even call it less than a home anymore. I lost myself in the beauty of the silence that thrived there; I strolled through the maze of adventures and papers that called those shelves their home; I gaped at logical analyses of things I could never even dream of; most importantly, I was able to pull myself away knowing that I would visit that magical place again.

As I snapped back to then and there on that bus, I noticed the weird glances I was getting from the other passengers, and I quickly wiped my reminiscent smile off of my face. My eyes and hands found the stack of books once more but only then did I notice that something was different. I counted eight books that were piled on the chair in front of me, but I recalled only checking out seven.

On the very bottom of the stack laid a book that I hadn’t noticed in my meticulous stuffing of my backpack or stacking of the books before me. It was unlike the rest"tattered, worn, and bound by thick brown leather that seemed at least twenty years old. I studied the binding of the book; my fingers grazed the intricate letters that were carved carefully into the spine; my mind spun when I thought of what could’ve possessed me to pick this ripped up piece of literature"if it could even have been called that"up as a mistake. Nevertheless, I was curious.

I gingerly raised the stack of books that rested on top of the leather-bound curiosity, pulling it out from the bottom before I placed the stack right back down. My hands carried this book as if it would fall apart any moment, whether it be my fault or it be caused by an acceleration of forward momentum of the bus. I sat there staring at this incredible book and tried to remember the exact moment I must’ve mistakenly picked it up but I drew a blank. As long as it was in my possession, though, I figured I might as well take advantage of it. If the age was any clue to the knowledge or history that was in store, then this book could be a valuable piece to my current collection.

I glanced out the window, scanning for the street name before acknowledging the fact that my ride would be exceptionally long"especially in this hideous weather"just as it always was. I guess I just checked out of habit since that was something I picked up on my very first visit to the public library. Slowly, my eyes were pulled back to the book and I could feel my fingertips gently raise the front cover curious to what could’ve been hidden away inside of this for so long. But what I found definitely wasn’t what I expected.

Inside the front cover was a name I hadn’t heard or seen for years, but I was entirely sure it was the same person that I had once known. The handwriting was just as I remembered it: an elegant script that only took form when she wrote her name. A chuckle rose from my dry throat as I saw the contrast between the calligraphy that was present in her signature and the scrawl that took form on the very next page. With the memory of her delicate hand moving smoothly across a page came the memory of her face the last time I saw her. There was something in her hazel eyes that I just couldn’t place; granted, I’ve never been as good at reading people as I was at reading books or chords. But that memory was glued into my mind for longer than it should’ve been. After years of never thinking about her, I knew that I was missing something in that moment, even as she was staring me right in the face.

My eyes lingered on her name, which she managed to fit perfectly on the inside corner of the cover without a single error. She never seemed like the perfectionist type to me but, for a second, I thought that maybe there were a lot of things that I didn’t know about Logan Mayr. For instance, I had no clue that she kept this journal. But the longer I stared at it, the more I remembered her carrying around a notebook that no one ever saw her open. It was like she simply brought it everywhere with her to ensure its safekeeping. If that was really the case, it only increased my thirst for knowing what could be hidden inside this journal.

My eyes flicked to the first page, dated January 1, 2011, burning to read whatever she could’ve been keeping from us all. She was never the quietest person but that wasn’t because of her aptitude for talking; she didn’t speak often at all, it was her loud voice that made up for all the times that she kept her mouth sewed shut. If this was any other person’s journal, I may have been able to tear myself away and return it to the library. Then again, if this was someone else’s journal, I wouldn’t be so ravenous to know what was kept away within its leather binding. There was always something about her that caught me off guard and, for once, I could possibly find out what that was. But was reading this journal the right thing to do?

A deep breath left my lips as a glanced out the window once more to find that we had only moved three blocks since my fascination with this book begun. That question throbbed in my brain like a Shakespearean monologue: to read or not to read, that was the question. Whether it was nobler in the bus to give in to outrageous curiosity or to protest my researcher’s instinct, I had to figure out what I was going to do. Not that I was in a rush to think it over considering my position at that point in time, but still. My fingers were itching with anticipation as I sat alone, silently hoping that one of the other passengers would tell me what I should’ve done. But no one did and I had to admit, I was a bit disappointed that my life didn’t work out the way fiction normally would.

So I was left to make the decision alone. I barely even mulled it over before I threw my inhibitions to the wind and began to read, convincing myself that I would only read one in order to quench my thirst.

January 1, 2011

Today marks the beginning of a new year and, hopefully, a new me. I’m going to try my hardest to keep this from being one of those cheesy journals but I don’t know how that’ll work out. I’m going to try speaking my mind, being social, and maybe even being kind. That’ll be a good change. I’m going to leave everything from my past in my past. No more sulking; no more silence; no more excuses for not hanging out. After all, being social is one step toward recovery. Maybe"just maybe"I can actually be noticed by people who really matter to me.

 “The people who really matter,” I repeated under my breath. I wondered who those people were. Who wouldn’t notice her?

 I stopped myself there because I knew the answer to that question already: the vast majority of people, including me. Half the people on our team didn’t notice her, much less even talked to her. If she honestly felt like her life was being torn apart, very few people would’ve even seen that side of her. Looking back at the vague memories that I had of Logan, I knew in an instant that I was one of the people who never gave a second glance. I wouldn’t have guessed that she would be anything other than pleasantly present if not downright cheerful.

I had to pull my eyes away from the page to keep myself from reading on. If this journal was going to show me a person that I would’ve never expected, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to keep going. Of course, that was probably the morally sound thing to do since I was invading someone’s privacy, but I was still curious. This curiosity, though, wasn’t just. It was a hunger to read an interesting and surprising story; it was a beast that couldn’t be easily tamed; it was me, wishing that I knew her back then, while, at the same time, it was me wishing to block the reality out and entertain the possibility that she was merely a character in a story. If she really did go through a pain that I consistently looked over, I didn’t know if I wanted her to be real to me. I didn’t know if I wanted her image in my mind to be tainted by the information that in laid my hands. I didn’t know if I wanted to know what I could’ve seen and prevented back then. And I couldn’t shake that feeling.

I wanted to throw the stupid thing out of the window to keep it out of my greedy paws. Even while I thought about why I didn’t want to read it, my fingers were playing with the fragile corners of the ink stained pages. Well"they were until the bus jerked forward enough to knock the journal out of my hands and onto the floor with all of my other books.

“This is just perfect,” I mumbled sarcastically as I reached down to fish for the novels. Debates continued throughout my mind about the dilemma while I attempted to heave the books back onto their empty seat. Of course, leaving the seat empty for a mere moment on this crowded bus caused someone to assume that the seat was especially reserved for them and them alone. Normally, I would’ve asked them what they thought they were doing but my mind wasn’t in the place to correct their ludicrous behavior.

 I felt my eyes lock on the old woman standing in front of me, taking in every labored breath, the shaking hands, and bundled appearance with just one look. With another, I could see the protruding veins that plague critical arthritis patients and the dryness of her skin because of the cold. A tinge of guilt erupted in my heart as I thought of turning her away from what could’ve been the last empty seat on the bus. After what seemed like minutes, my book clad arms finally pulled away from the seat beside me, offering it to the old woman and setting the books back down upon my lap.

“Go ahead,” I insisted, smiling. “I don’t need the space.”

She sat down, grateful that someone showed her some kindness, with one of the most genuine smiles I had ever seen. It faintly reminded me of the last smile I saw from Logan just after our graduation and just before it fell, leaving that empty look that I remembered in its place.

Shaking the idea off, I weakly returned the smile before shoving my backpack full of the books that were applying pressure onto my lap, leaving one book out with at least thirty more minutes till I could escape into my dorm. My fingers gingerly reopened the cover, flipped the first page, and began to read at the top of the next.

January 2, 2011

       After all, it was just a story, right?