Novel & Cerita I Hate Journaling

Keep saying it until you believe it, right? I can’t pretend that avoiding him isn’t a chore, but I’ve tried to distract myself by reading and journaling. My mother kept a journal, and I always thought the whole “Dear Diary” thing was a waste of time, but now that I had the opportunity for a fresh start, I decided to indulge my mother, who always tried to make me write as well, and it turns out it isn’t so bad. Especially since I spend my evenings writing under a tree near the stream. I tell my journal about everyone in town who has yet to warm up to me. “It is difficult for these people to accept someone new. Especially with your involvement with everyone’s sweetheart.”

Regular people weren’t falling in love with professors who might be mafia. As soon as Maddie had left for class, I grabbed my journal. The one I stashed beneath my mattress, where I wrote things I couldn’t say aloud. I turned to a fresh page and wrote: "I set out to find a villain I could seduce. I found a monster to fear. So why do I still want him?" I looked at the words for a long time. Then I slammed the journal shut and stuffed it under the mattress again.

Through every scream, every cry, every tear, every compliant, every one of my words, every fight with myself, I kept quiet. November 30th · I hate myself. December 25th · I hate Christmas. It's the time of the year that is a reminder, I'm lonely. December 31st · Lonely, but not alone. I flipped a bunch of other empty pages- remembering I wrote my entries on random pages. January 1st, the new year. · I thought I'd be okay by now. Even though I've proven time and time again, I'd be the same ol' same.

I’m afraid, journal. I don’t want to die alone.

Chen: "Reminder: Your individual session is tomorrow at 2 PM. Please complete the journal exercises we discussed." The journal. Right. She'd asked me to write about my feelings, about my triggers, about the moments when I felt the guilt becoming overwhelming. I'd managed maybe three sentences in the past week. Each time I tried to write more, I'd just stare at the blank page, overwhelmed by the enormity of what I'd done. How do you journal about destroying the best thing in your life? How do you put into words the self-loathing that consumed you every time you saw the hurt in Emma's eyes?

LESLIE’S JOURNAL ENTRIES 001 ******* Dear Diary, Scratch that. Dear Journal? Well, you’re sort of pink, handmade and gotten from the roadside stall of a little girl working on some class project so maybe you're really a diary. However, I am going to pretend this is a journal and this is the beginning of me journaling my new life in a new city. I read somewhere online that it’s a therapeutic practice. For me, it’s an escape. The only way I can express myself in a world where I feel more alone than I have ever been.

It was my journal. I hadn't written in it, since my attack, and an eagerness to record all that had recently happened suddenly washed over me. I searched for the quill, then rushed to the edge of the bed, plopping down and flipping to a blank page. However, when I reached an unmarked section, my quill just hovered over the journal, refusing to grace the page with its ink. I couldn't write. For some reason, my near death and rape were too horrible to document; the executions were also out of the question. I'd just have to put the journal away, until I experienced something that was more pleasant to write about.

"Bye! Love you!” The door clicks shut, taking her vanilla perfume with it. I carry the journal out to my fire escape, rusted metal, view of the brick wall across the alley, the one outdoor inch I own and defend fiercely against pigeons. Afternoon sun warms my shoulders. Traffic rises from the street below. I open the journal to the first page. Stare at all that blank space. Maybe I didn't only fake it last night. Maybe some part of me belonged there. I hold that thought until it feels solid enough to write.

City noise outside felt far and mean as I sat hunched, letter from Cara’s dad shaking in my hands. I didn’t sleep. Lana’s scream still rang, her ring cold in my pocket. Victor’s text—Lawyers tomorrow. Done—burned worse than Cara’s last kiss, her jasmine stuck on my skin like a bad spell. Studio junk mocked me: half-done paintings, chipped mug, futon sagging under my screw-ups. I stumbled to the hot plate, made coffee that tasted like dirt, burn doing nothing for the hurt in my chest.

I told myself I was going to ignore it. Ignore the pictures. Ignore the gossip. Ignore him. But have you ever tried ignoring the internet? Yeah. Exactly. It’s impossible. It’s like telling the sun not to rise.....it just doesn’t work. Two days after that night, my entire life had basically turned into free entertainment for millions of strangers. I couldn’t scroll through I*******m, T*****r, TikTok, or even check my email without seeing my own face plastered across some dramatic headline.