Page 264 of ClickBack

He looks at the flowers on the cover. “You decorated it.”

“I had plans.”

“I can see that.”

I laugh and turn the notebook in my hands. I remember buying the pens, lining them up beside the blank book, trying to decide whether I had anything worth putting down. I do not feel embarrassed for that woman. I know what it took for her to admit she wanted more than she had.

“It’s one entry,” I tell him.

“Can I read it?”

I consider him, then open the book and hand it over.

He sits beside me. His eyes travel down the page, and a smile begins.

“Dear Diary.”

“You asked to read. I didn’t realize there would be a performance.”

“You mention Moesha in here.”

“She was influential.”

“I see.”

He keeps reading. When he gets to the shorts, he looks up.

“You were going to take them back?”

“I considered it.”

“That would’ve been fucked up.”

“You hadn’t even met me.”

“And you were already making bad decisions for us.”

I laugh, leaning against his shoulder while he finishes. Near the bottom, he stops smiling. I know which lines he has reached. I let him read them without explaining how I felt when I wrote them.

He turns back to the beginning, checks the date, then closes the notebook gently.

“You wrote this that day.”

“Before the party.”

He looks at me. I think he is putting the woman on the page beside the one he met at the basketball game, seeing some of what I had carried in with the cupcakes.

“You looked like you knew exactly what you were doing,” he says.

“The clothes helped.”

“So did beating my ass.”

“A little.”

He hands me the notebook. I turn to the next page. A marker has bled through from the first, leaving a faint patch of color near the top. I find a pen in the drawer and test it at the edge.

“You starting back up?” he asks.