Chapter Two

Kinsley

After Tanner left, I showered, got dressed and reheated the coffee he had distracted me from drinking earlier. Getting myself comfortable on my bed, I grab the journal out of my bedside table. Once again, I start at the beginning hoping that this time when I read it, I will find some answers. You’re being ridiculous Kins, you have read this journal in its entirety hundreds of times.

It’s true, my mother gifted me this journal for my twelfth birthday and the amount of times I have read it over the past ten years is more than I would like to admit. But something keeps pulling me back. There has to be something, somewhere in here,, that will give me the answers I am so desperate for, why else would she give it to me? I’m five journal entries deep when there is a knock at the door.

The downstairs door unlocks and then closes again. “Meadow, you home?” This time, it’s someone I actually gave a key to.

The sound of my childhood nickname causes me to choke on my breath momentarily. On any other day, I wouldn’t even blink at the mention but today … today is different. If I close my eyes really tight, I can almost imagine the footsteps moving through my apartment are my brother’s. I rub at my chest. Don’t do this to yourself, Kinsley.

Kyle – my older brother, had always called me Meadow, well as far back as I can remember anyway. He said it was because, from the day I could walk I would toddle out into the front garden and play in the flowers. Then, as the years went by and I got more adventurous, I would sneak through the garden gate and into the meadow with the horses. A smile graces my lips at the memory, the most beautiful wildflowers would grow there; sometimes when the breeze hits me just the right way, I can still smell them on the wind.

“Upstairs,” I call out.

I slip the journal back into my bedside table and sit cross-legged in the middle of my bed. Jesse’s footsteps grow closer as the tall blonde goofball I call my best friend comes into view.

Jesse dives onto the bed, the smell of freshly mowed grass and brown sugar — a weird combination but it fits him perfectly — sweeps over me as he playfully pins me down like an animal.

“Get off me,” I laugh.

A huge smile wraps across his face. “Happy birthday, glad to see you’re already up and dressed. Come on, we have heaps to do today.”

I sit back up, puzzled for a minute. Jesse is already off the bed and walking back towards the stairs. “What do you mean,” I ask. “Where are we going?”