If there ever was a time to get the gun out of Adam’s closet, it would’ve been back when we were sleeping together. Now that we’re not, I have no excuse to be in his room, digging around. The opportunity has passed.
Not that I have any intention of digging around in his room for that gun. No matter how many times Victoria tells me I should.
I have trouble sleeping after reading Victoria’s diary entry. It’s so hard to read about what happened to her. Before I started reading, I believed she was happy until the moment she fell down the stairs. Now I know she wasn’t. And with every entry, it just seems to get worse.
I’m scared to see what else he did to her.
Maybe she didn’t really fall down the stairs. Maybe he pushed her.
I get out of bed early. It’s too early for Victoria to be awake, so instead, I head downstairs and put on my coat. It’s so early that I run into Eva on her way inside. She gives me a look like she thinks I’m scum. And maybe I am.
“Where you go?” Eva narrows her eyes at me. “Are you leaving?” “No, I…” I just have to get out of here for a few minutes. “I’ll be
back.”
When I get outside of the house, the cold air hits me like a slap in the face. If it were to rain, the rain would come down as snow. Maggie has warned me that we’re due for our first blizzard soon. I’m dreading it.
I bury my hands deeper into my coat pockets and start walking all around the path that circles the house. All the leaves have been cleared away, at least. Adam never hired a gardener and instead did the work himself. I saw him going out with a rake not that long ago. There are still branches threatening to trip me, but it’s not as bad as it was. I pause when I get to the tree Victoria showed me the other day. I walk closer to it, staring at the splintering of the wood where the bullet pierced.
This is what Victoria described in her diary. Adam shot the tree.
Then I look at the shed next to the tree. I step closer, but before I get within a couple of feet of it, I see that familiar pattern of splintered wood on the shed as well. A bullet went into the shed too. That’s the bullet Victoria fired when she was trying to hit the tree and missed.
It happened. Just like she described.
Just like I found that dent in the wall of the kitchen.
I’m scared of what else I’m going to read in her diary. I don’t want to read anymore.
But I must.
