Page 11 of Just Like the Brontë Sisters

“Skylar,” she belted, and I instantly abandoned my trek to the kitchen. I found her in bed, her knee elevated on a stack of pillows. But when I saw what she held, I tasted something sour. Jo Beth was reading my poetry journal.

I’d started keeping it after reading The Bell Jar. It was an outlet for all my rite-of-passage teenage cynicisms: a place to record my philosophical low points as I wrestled with adolescent angst. Even I knew that my writing was ridiculous, self-indulgent ramblings, but isn’t that the point of poetry journals? Nobody but me was ever supposed to read it.

“How did you get that?” I stuttered.

Jo Beth shrugged. “I’m not an invalid and I have crutches. You were out all day, I was bored, so I snooped in your closet.” She said this without apology, daring me to make a stink.

“Oh. That’s okay. I mean, it’s private, but I’m not mad. Can I have it back now?” I reached out, but she slid the journal underneath the pillows that propped up her injured knee. I didn’t dare upset it.

“Calm down, Sky. You have nothing to worry about. You’re really pretty good at poetry.” She smirked and there was a trace of laughter in her voice, just like there was a trace of arsenic in the poppy seed bagel I’d eaten for breakfast that morning. “But they’re all written for Neal Morgan. What’s that about?”

My cheeks burned. I’d told no one about my crush on Neal. He was a year older than me, a senior with a girlfriend, and completely out of my league.

“They’re just stupid poems. Forget them, okay?”

It was like she hadn’t heard me. She pulled my journal back out, leafed through it, cleared her throat, and began her recitation in a pretentious British accent.

“For Neal. #23.

In the twilight song of wraithlike aching,

Owls hoot their isolation while the beautiful find peace.

Meanwhile fog descends, shrouding me in a brooding mist, a lurking trepidation.

Your inky black hair beckons me. Your sturdy shoulders long to sag into my willing arms.

Our crimson lips will meet, parting faintly but with strength

To the taste of life.

Now on a night of pooled vivacity

I hunger for you.”

She laughed and raised an eyebrow. “Not bad, but maybe stop reading so much Brontë. And your thesaurus is going to break down from overuse.”

I forced a laugh. “Yeah. I’m sure you’re right.”

Jo Beth closed my journal and opened her mouth as if to continue. She noticed my non-existent poker face, which surely betrayed my distress, and something must have clicked inside her locomotive of a brain because her lips relaxed into a gentle smile. “Don’t start crying. I thought you’d think it was funny.”

“Well, I don’t.” I reached out my hand. “Can I have my journal back?”

“I’m not done reading it.”

“Come on, Jo Beth.”

Jo Beth examined her fingernails. The manicure she’d had last week was beginning to chip and she picked at the pale pink polish on her left thumb. “You should tell him how you feel. I don’t think Neal has any idea that you’re so into him. It took me by surprise and I know you like I know the back of my hand.”

“And you know the back of your hand so well?”

She stretched out her fingers and gazed. “Maybe not as well as I thought.”

“Jo Beth, I’m serious. Give me back my journal. Now.”

I’d never used such a firm tone with her, but she just grinned like I’d made a joke she’d heard a million times before.

“Sit down.” Jo Beth patted the side of the bed. “Sit down and talk to me. How long have you been pining for Neal? Tell me why you’re so into him.”