HANNAH

Entry for January 15th, 1965

Diaries are stupid. I hate them. But I need you. I need your blank pages, and this ink I hold in my trembling hands. God forbid someone should find this and discover what I have hidden beneath the floorboards in my bedroom.

VIC

Entry for January 16th, 1965

I am frantic. I cannot breathe. Terrified to pen the confession hiding in my veins. What have I done...

Chance is such a fickle thing. Irony a mere cruel tease of the heartless. Most would say I was just a guy down on his luck, but they weren’t privy to the secrets hiding in my soul. A grown man shouldn’t be hanging out alone at a playground. I could hear the tongue-waggers in my ear as though one had voiced his thoughts aloud to me. Was that a cop in the distance? I shuddered. Pulled my coat tighte...

Dre stared at the girl he loved, his mouth turning to cotton. Illuminated in the light of her bedroom window, he watched as Skye wrapped the bathrobe tighter around her, and lowered herself to the windowsill. Though her window was raised and she stared into the night, she didn’t see him. He’d made sure of that. He had to wait for the right moment to make his presence known. Through gritted teeth, ...

The water was rising. I could feel it creeping up the hem of my jeans. I knew it would only be a matter of minutes before the Buffalo Bayou overtook our second-story apartment, and, essentially, my younger siblings and me. Their screams melded in my brain with the screams of our neighbors and panic tightened my chest until I couldn’t breathe. Dad should be here. Our safety was his responsibility. ...