Everything is going according to plan. I’m going to win Dalton over by making him jealous. The only reason I’m even doing this is to piss my sister off. I know how much she hates him. Watching her get furious whenever I’m around him is so much fun. Being in a band with him just makes it even better.
It also helps that he’s the hottest guy at school. Just makes my job that much easier. I can’t wait to make out with him in the hallway again in front of everyone.
Logan’s stirring, so I gotta sign off.
Ttyl,
Mads
My chest is constricted with fear and anger by the time I get done reading the first post. I don’t even bother to read the rest. All it’s going to do is upset me more. Instead, I go to my email and click the link to report the password change, since I was too out of it to do that last night.
It’s obvious who did this. Raven. She heard my threat yesterday, and this is her preemptive strike. I have no idea how she managed to get into my diary, but this is by far the most brilliant and twisted of her plans yet.
I lay the laptop to the side, pull my knees up to my chest, and lean against the back of the bed. God only knows what else she wrote as me. I wish I had taken screenshots of my old diary or something, but I didn’t. I have no proof that I didn’t write any of this, which means I’m royally screwed in the public eye. Why didn’t I screenshot my diary entries?
Oh, right, because that would be crazy. Just like it was crazy to create a blog as a diary in the first place. I can’t believe I was such an idiot. Then again, no one was ever supposed to find out about it, let alone make it public and alter its content.
Who is going to believe me when I tell them it wasn’t me who wrote this?
The thought of Logan seeing the diary slams into me like a freight train. No. He can’t see this. But it’s probably already too late.
Even so, if it’s even slightly possible he hasn’t seen this yet, I’ve got to get to him before the news does. I have to tell him what happened before his heart gets shattered into a million pieces.
I pack an overnight bag and my guitar and wait until I hear utter silence from Dad and Cass’s room. Tiptoeing down the hallway, I check on them and find them both fallen back asleep in bed in each other’s arms. Taking advantage of the opportunity, I race toward the front door. Grounded, my ass. I have a car and a driver’s license. I’m out of here.
I pound on the door of apartment 327 like my life depends on it. When Logan comes to the door, he doesn’t open it all the way. Instead, he leaves the chain lock in place and speaks to me through the crack in the door.
“Oh…it’s you.” He lets out a mixture between a sign and a groan. Just from looking at his crestfallen face, I know no explanation is needed except the part about what really happened. His hair is a wild mess, and from the looks of his red knuckles and bloodshot eyes, he’s been in a whirlwind of anger for the past few minutes.
“Logan, please let me in so I can explain—”
“Plenty has been explained over the past few hours.” His voice breaks at the end of the sentence, betraying him. He clears his throat and goes on to say, “I think you should leave. I don’t want to talk to you right now.”
“Babe, it’s not what it looks like. None of it is. Please, just let me explain.”
“I just…I can’t. Please go.” He closes the door, ending the conversation before it even begins.
I continue to pound on the door. “Logan, please let me in! Please! I can explain everything if you’ll just listen.”
He opens the door, his eyes narrowed with pain and fury. “You know, I thought what Claire did to me was terrible until this. This is just…I have no words. It’s obvious I’ve been played for a fool, so please spare us both and leave. I don’t want to see you anymore. I can’t believe I ever thought you’d actually want someone like me. You got what you wanted. I look like an idiot. There’s nothing you need from me anymore, so…bye.”
He turns away. Sobs rip from my throat when he closes the door again and bolts it. I can’t control my hysterics, but somehow I can scream through them.
“Logan, please! Please…I do want you. I love you. I need you to survive.”
All I’m met with is deafening silence. A black hole grows in my soul, consuming me by the minute.
No one believes me. No one loves me anymore. I lost everything I give a shit about in one measly hour of my life.
I need to get the hell out of here. I need to drive. I don’t care where I end up. Nowhere on this planet is safe for me anymore. Nowhere except the inside of my car.
I stop in a grocery store parking lot outside Beverly Hills, choking on my own sobs. I tried to drive back home, but I couldn’t make it without tears pooling in my eyes and blocking my vision. I’m alone, without Logan, without Dad, Ana’s out of town…I have no one to lean on right now. My foundation was ripped out from under me, and now I’m free falling.
Raven did it—she finally destroyed me. For real. Ripped away everything I had in one terrifying swoop. I was right to be afraid of her. Now that I don’t even have a diary to keep me company, that bottle of pain pills in my purse is looking very inviting. I could wipe myself off the face of the earth in a matter of minutes. All I would have to do is take all those pills at once and my troubles would be over.
A battle of push and pull begins inside me. My hand is drawn of its own accord to the tempting escape from my prison of public humiliation and lies. I pick up the bottle, put it down, and pick it back up again.
No, don’t do this. Nothing is worth killing yourself.
I can’t live on this planet anymore. Nothing is ever going to get better for me. I’m always going to be the joke of humanity. Always the person they get to laugh at and scorn.
No, you’re not. You’ve just got to keep trying to make this climb.
I’m slipping so low I can’t even see the top anymore.
Tears flood my cheeks. My inner voices continue to war against each other. I don’t know how long I sit in the car staring at a bottle of pills that could be my savior or my biggest mistake. It’s all too much. I’m so sick of being a news story. Nothing but an article to scroll through on a slow news day. Just clickbait to sell the latest skin care product or a toothbrush. I have no humanity. I have no purpose, no dignity. No one cares about me, they just want to use and abuse me. It could all be over in a matter of minutes if I would just get up the guts to open this pill bottle and swallow them all.
My phone rings, and I half-consider ignoring it, but then it occurs to me that it could be Ana. I know she’ll believe me. She’s the one who knows what goes on in my head, and she saw the diary before, too. Ana will know I didn’t write any of that stuff, and even if she doesn’t, she’ll believe me when I tell her.
I pick up the phone, and surprisingly, it’s Dalton. With great hesitation, I answer the phone, cringing in anticipation of what he’s going to say.
“Hey, Mads.”
“Hey.” My voice is an octave lower from crying.
“So…care to explain any of the most recent scandal?”
Hope burns in my chest. He’s the first person who’s allowed me the chance to explain. I don’t waste any time with a lead-up.
“Raven hacked my diary and made it public. She changed everything. I didn’t write any of that stuff in there—well okay, maybe some of it, but not the incriminating stuff.”
“I knew it. That bullshit about you going out with Logan just to get to me was ridiculous. I saw right through that. Classic Raven move, and so obvious.”
“Oh, thank God!” I almost burst into tears again. “Dalton, you have no idea what I’ve been through today. I’m afraid to go home. Logan broke up with me, and Dad hates me now.”
“Wait. Are you serious?”
“Yes. I’m in a parking lot right now trying to figure out what the hell I’m going to do.”
“Come over to my place. We’ll help you figure things out. Don’t burn any bridges with Logan. He’s
just hurt and humiliated. He’ll come around when he figures out the truth.”
“I hope so.”
I rev up the car’s engine before Dalton even gets off the phone. After he hangs up, I hurry out of the parking lot and head down the highway to Dalton’s place.
Even cranking up my Octane channel to maximum volume isn’t enough to drown out my heartbreak. Trying to see through tears enough to drive is never a good thing. Add that to the brain fog from the pain pills and I’m an accident waiting to happen. I can’t believe everything I had could have been lost this easily. I thought people were loyal to me. That they knew who I was. But it turns out people believe what they read and not what they know.
What surprises me the most is that Dad, of all people, would turn on me. The man who gave up his whole life to protect me from my mother. After eighteen years in the same house together, sharing everything—food, games, horses, music—he doesn’t even know me at all. He doesn’t believe in me. I’m just another Raven to him.
It’s the struggle of a lifetime to avoid crying on the busy highway, but I manage, though my heart becomes more and more stone-like every bit of the way.
I get to Dalton’s place twenty minutes later, and he and Devon come out to help me bring my luggage inside. Devon pulls me into a loving, friendly embrace.
“Thank you for not hating me,” I whisper in her ear.
“Hey, your diary didn’t say anything about me. We’re good,” she teases me.
Groaning, I shake my head and pull back. “Did anyone have the decency not to read it?”
“Nope.” Dalton graces me with his usual smartass grin. “Even Rob read it. He was over there laughing in a corner. Sick bastard.”
Oh, great. Now I get to hang out with Uncle Rob. Could this day get any worse?
Once I’m settled into the apartment, Dalton and Devon sit with me on the couch to talk strategy for getting the truth out there and getting everyone to forgive me.
“You need witnesses.” Dalton smacks loudly on dip while he reasons it out. “I’ll be a witness if you want me to. We’ve been good friends this whole time, and I know you don’t have feelings for me. If you did, you would have acted on them long ago.”
“Right. And Ana can be a witness. She’s seen my diary, so she can testify I didn’t write that crazy shit. Oh, and I have a secret weapon, too.”
“What’s your secret weapon?” Devon leans in, getting caught up in the drama of it all.
“Kiki, the girl who works for Raven and came to my sleepover, has a recording of Raven I can use against her. It can prove Raven’s cold-heartedness and how she works against me.”
“Are you sure Kiki isn’t the one who got your diary information in the first place?”
I meet Dalton’s piercing gaze, reading his thoughts easily. He thinks I’m an idiot for letting Raven’s minions into my house. The truth is, he’s right. Kiki could easily have gone up to my room and gotten my password while she was at the mansion. The blog has a show password option, and all my passwords are saved into my browser.
“God, I’m such a moron.” I pull my knees up to my chest and hang my head.
“Hey, it’s cool.” Dalton drapes his arm around my shoulders, pulling me into a dip and Axe body spray scented side hug. “We’re going to fix this, one thing at a time. Don’t worry. We’re on your side, and Logan’s.”
“Thank you.” I huddle into his embrace, and Devon hugs me from the other side.
A knock sounds at the door. Devon jumps up to look through the peephole and lets the person in, not alerting us to who it is.
The door is opened just in time to let Logan see me wrapped up in Dalton’s arms. The hurt and fury that seized him when he read my diary spins out of control. His eyes darken even deeper than the forest green I’ve seen before. The color is almost unrecognizable beneath the red rims of his eyes.
“What the hell, man? I came over here to talk to you, and you’re…” He makes a flailing gesture in our general direction.
Dalton and I spring up from the couch and jump away from each other, putting an easy five feet between us.
I make a move toward Logan. “Logan, it’s not what you think.”
He stares Dalton down, challenging him with his eyes. “You motherf—”
“Dude, relax.” Dalton rakes his hand through his hair. “We were comforting her because her life went to hell in the space of one morning.”
“It’s true.” Devon steps up in front of Logan, blocking his path to Dalton since he looks ready to charge him like a bull. “I was hugging her too, and you know I have no romantic intentions.”
My lip twitches. The thought of Devon and me having a romantic encounter is pretty comical.
Logan glances at me, and the heartbreak evident in his eyes almost makes me come undone. “So you’re taking her side over mine. That’s just great.”
“We’re on both of your sides.” Devon takes him by his upper arms, commanding his gaze. “The diary was hacked. Raven changed the content. Madison didn’t write any of those horrible things about you.”
He studies his cousin dubiously. “You’re sure about that?”
“Definitely. She loves you, Logan. You know she would never use you like that.”
His gaze swings between Dalton and me. “So…you two never kissed?”
A guilt-ridden glance passes between Dalton and me. I let my gaze fall to the floor, ashamed to even be seen.
“I kissed her once,” Dalton confesses. “It was before you two got together. Raven was kissing Gio in the hallway, and it was breaking Madison’s heart, so I decided to help her get revenge. It wasn’t her fault.”
“It happened again, though…my fault. Same reason,” I admit.
Logan keeps his attention on Dalton. “So you kissed her before I even got a chance to?”
“Yeah, but man, I’m so sorry. There’s nothing between us.”
“You knew how I felt about her, though. I can’t believe this.”
“I don’t have any feelings for Dalton,” I pipe up. “Never have, never will.”
“But you hid this kiss from me for two months. You…you let me fall for you…” Logan’s voice breaks. He has to swallow to keep his composure. “And now the whole world sees me as the dipshit who got used by Madison Daley.”
“We’re going to fix that,” Dalton tells him. “We’re coming up with a plan—”
“Just shut the fuck up, asshole!” At all of our shocked expressions, Logan grits his teeth and takes a step back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. I just…I can’t do this right now.” Turning on his heels, Logan trudges out of the apartment and slams the door shut behind him.
I’m taken back to the day I found out Jacie Redinger was my mother. Before today, I thought no pain could compare to that. I thought I might be done with heartrending information that tore my life apart.
But I guess the Basket Baby is doomed, no matter what.
Pulling an ancient afghan over my body, I shiver against the lowered temperature of Dalton and Devon’s apartment and snuggle into the sheet they stretched over the couch for me as far as I can. I decided to stay here instead of going back home to face Dad’s wrath. Being cold-natured is a curse, especially when you’re not in your own bed with your own comforter to warm you. My feet are exposed, which of course never helps with body heat. A tear slips down my cheek and soaks into the sheet, immediately going cold. I can’t call Dad. I can’t call Logan. I don’t want to bother Ana or Aunt Melissa. Devon’s asleep. Chandler probably is too.
I have no one to talk to, no one to call on. Never have I known what it’s like to be truly alone until this moment. To not have my usual foundation to stand on—Love. Family. Security. Acceptance.
What I thought was trustworthiness.
Being lost in a storm without all my usual anchors has me flailing, growing weaker with every moment I’m out here on my own. I never thought I’d have to know what this felt like. Dad was supposed to be there for ever
ything. To believe in me no matter what it looked like I did. Something snapped in him. He became an entirely different person after reading those journal entries.
In spite of myself, I drag my body up off the couch and do a search on my phone for my journal. I’m relieved to see it’s still private after I reported and changed the password earlier. There are still plenty of websites that have copied the content and kept it public, but I’ll have to deal with them later. Scrolling through the entries, I come across one I wrote about Jess.
December 11
The Inheritance
I just got home from an intense conversation with Jess. The doctors have determined she’s not going to live much longer. She told me she wants to split her inheritance between Raven and me. I am overwhelmingly furious. After all these years away, being stuck with my loser of a father, all I get is a lousy half of the inheritance? Ridiculous. I earned the whole thing. Being stuck-y in Kentucky for seventeen years is more than enough to earn me the entire Redinger estate.
If only I had been in Los Angeles my entire life, I would have gotten what I deserved. Living in Kentucky with Dad was the worst punishment the universe could have doled out on me. He was a disgrace of a father. Hiding me from the world for my entire life was such an injustice. I wish he had given me back to my mother all those years ago so I would never have had to know him at all. Jessica Redinger is the parent I always should have had—brilliant, beautiful, successful…she’s an idol worth having. Michael Daley should never have let himself be in the position to have a child. He clearly didn’t know how to handle the responsibility.
The rant against Dad goes on and on. I choke back a sob with the palm of my hand. No wonder Dad was upset. After all he’s done and sacrificed for me, he thought I wrote this? He’s the best dad in the world. There’s no universe in which I would ever have written that load of crap about him.
There’s one part of the post Raven only mildly edited.
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