• ~Please go to my gallery to read the prior chapters first~

    The car stopped, and we were home. I rushed out of the car, and ran to my room, disregarding my mother who was shouting,

    "Tom! I'm not through talking with you! You come back here..."

    I crashed open the door, and darted upstairs, flopping onto my bed.

    My hands were quivering as I set the diary down on my bed. I rested my head onto my pillow, and let out a deep breath. Why was Mary fascinated by the gun? Why would she shoot herself?

    Of course, I could probably read on and figure out the answers, but I was afraid--afraid of what those answers might be.

    I felt like I was in the movie Deja Vu, except that in that movie, they actually went back in time and prevented the woman from dying. It's so torturous, reading through the story of someone's life is, yet you know the tragic end. It's like when you shout to the T.V. screen, "Don't follow him, he's going to kill you! Can't you see he's a fake?" but in my circumstance, this was real.

    I shook my head. It was better to learn the truth than to live a lie. I sighed and got back up, opening the diary and continuing to read.

    March 22


    My life is a tangled mess. Things are happening so fast, and they're certainly not good things.

    I'm not sure how I feel about Tom. I felt as though asking God for help might...help, but on Tuesday, even though I made a rough draft for him, things didn't seem to be any better. In fact, things could most definitely be perceived as worse, however hard that is to imagine.

    I came into school, confident that there was no way Tom would be able to reject my courtesy of the rough draft.

    Once again, I was about to be proven wrong.

    As I sat next to Tom, he looked about as dark as ever. His face had a certain condescending look to it, and when I showed him the draft, he didn't hesitate to spazz out. Unexpectedly, he took the rough draft, and started tearing it...into pieces I couldn't even count.

    I was devastated, and when I came home from school, another devastating and unsuspected thing happened. Can you see the pattern here?

    As I walked in, I saw my...dad, talking with my mom in the kitchen.

    "I got the message you left about the gun," my dad started, the palm of his hand pressed against the wall. My mom groaned, still cleaning dishes and attempting to ignore my dad.

    "Why are you here, anyway?" she muttered. My dad walked over to her, and clamped his hand on her shoulders. My mom rejected this, and instantly tugged her shoulder away from his grasp, still not looking at him.

    "I'm here to check on you guys, honey," he said with a smile. "And about the gun--" Suddenly, my mom turned around and stared my dad down,

    "Don't you DARE call me honey again! And go away, you left a gun in our house! I don't even know why I had married you in the first place. That was the--"

    "Honey, honey...don't yell at me. Divorce wasn't of my choice." My mom turned away, and continued to try to act careless towards my dad,

    "Well, it was your fault we did. You got fired from your job--" My father quickly snapped,

    "Is that what I was your husband for? Some sort of money scheme?" My mom dropped the plate, slammed her hand down on the counter, and said testily,

    "You...!" I couldn't bear hiding anymore as the argument raged on, and suddenly intervened,

    "Mom, hi." My mom sternly looked at me, a look that I had interpreted as meaning "don't you dare talk to my ex husband or you are grounded for a month."

    "Hello, Mary," she then said. My dad looked at me, gleaming, and said,

    "Well, I gotta scoot. Make sure you keep track of that gun." He walked over to me, stopped, and contined while kneeling down and ruffling my hair,

    "See ya, ol' Mary. You're getting so big." He got back up, and walked out the door. I looked at my mom after straightening back up my hair. Her hands were cupped over her face, and she was pouting like I've never seen her before. I walked over to her, and asked vigorously,

    "Why did you divorce dad?" She looked at me, her eyes flaring with anger, and replied,

    "Oh, Mary! You know full well why I divorced dad..." With my arms to my hips, I proclaimed,

    "Because he lost his job?" She looked out the kitchen window, and said in a more pitfully voice,

    "It's not as simple as that, Mary. He was coming home drunk every day..."

    "Oh, not that you drink!" I snapped sarcastically.

    "Mary! Stop this...or..." But she was too late, as I was already storming up to my room, weeping over this horrible predicament. I hated it when parents took advantage of their authority by dodging questions and threatening.

    And suddenly, that old German gun came into my mind again. Why'd I keep thinking of it?