The Diary That Held The Votes Against Me Chapter 05

By the time Julian made it back, he was out of breath.

Nora’s front gate stood wide open.

The pharmacy bag he’d left on the handle the night before had been tossed aside.

Two unfamiliar men were standing in the living room. One wore an ill-fitting suit and was describing the

house while the other walked around taking pictures on his phone.

Hearing footsteps behind him, the man in the suit turned in surprise.

“Hi. Are you here for the showing too?”

Julian stopped dead.

Was this a showing?

Had Nora put the house up for sale?

How was that possible? If she was selling the house, where was she going to live?

The Bennetts would never take her in.

Was she really trying to cut him out of her life completely?

It took him several seconds to find his voice.

“A showing? Are you sure you have the right address?”

The man pulled out his phone, looking puzzled.

“The listing says 306 Briarwood Drive. Seller’s name is Nora Hart. This is the place, isn’t it? The gate code

she provided worked.”

The address was right.

The code was right.

Even the name was right.

Had Nora really made up her mind to leave him?

Julian looked around the house and realized she hadn’t taken any of her things with her.

At the center of a display shelf sat two little ceramic figurines.

They had painted them together at a small craft booth near school when they were thirteen.

Julian had once had an identical one, until he accidentally broke it.

At the time, he hadn’t cared much. To him, it had been nothing more than an ordinary little figurine.

But when Nora found out, she’d cried her heart out.

He hadn’t understood why she was so upset.

He’d only known that somehow, he’d hurt her.

So the next day after school, he’d gone back to the little outdoor craft booth in hundred-degree heat and

painted another one exactly like the first.

Drenched in sweat, he’d brought it to Nora and apologized.

Only after she carefully placed the two figurines side by side had she finally forgiven him.

Later, she’d told him that whenever she felt lonely at night, she would sleep in the living room and look at

those two figurines.

Somehow, they made her feel less alone.

Now she’d left even those behind.

His phone suddenly rang.

It was the scar specialist Julian had spent two weeks tracking down before the merit exam, someone with

an exceptional track record in scar revision.

“Your appointment is tomorrow at two.”

Julian tightened his grip on the phone.

“It won’t be necessary anymore…”

Nora was gone.

None of it mattered now.

By the third day after Nora left, Sloane had noticed Julian pulling away from her.

She couldn’t understand why.

She was prettier than Nora.

Her family was richer than Nora’s.

So why was Julian still hung up on that ugly freak?

Fuming, she went straight to him and demanded an explanation.

“Julian, I’ve sent you so many messages. Why are you ignoring me?”

“You’re the top scorer in the state this year. Where are you headed this fall?”

“My grades were awful. I’ll probably end up at one of my backup schools…”

“Dad says he’s going to send me overseas so my résumé looks better. Do you want to come with me?”

Question after question spilled out of her mouth, and she didn’t even notice the cold look in Julian’s eyes.

He walked inside, came back with a box, and turned it upside down over the floor.

Seventy or eighty notes spilled out.

The second Sloane saw them, panic flashed across her face.

“You wrote all of these to Nora?”

“So that’s how you got your grades? You copied off her?”

“No wonder I could never figure out how you slept through class, played on your phone, and still managed to rank in the top ten in our grade.”

“You even pressured Nora into changing half of her correct answers just so she wouldn’t outscore you?”

“And those times she was written up for cheating and everyone at school heard about it-that was you and

your friends too?”

“The things you wrote in these notes-the vicious insults, the threats, the offers you used to manipulate her-

I could never say things like that to anyone. Sloane, you disgust me.”

Sloane was too stunned to answer.

“Why did you file that complaint about Nora getting need-based assistance? Why? Tell me why, Sloane!”

“You already had everything. Parents who adored you. Money. Looks. Why did you still have to bully her?”

“And then you took the money she’d saved and bought yourself a necklace with it?”

At that, Sloane suddenly sounded much more confident.

“I didn’t even know the gate code. If you want to blame someone, blame her for never changing it all these

years. Dad just tried a few numbers and the gate opened.”

“And we were only trying to be nice! We went over there to pick her up so we could all go out to eat.”

“How were we supposed to know she wouldn’t be home? Dad was the one who found that piggy bank and

handed it to me to break open. I thought there’d be a lot more money in it, but it was only $2,500. I spend

more than that in a week!”

“And with a face like hers, I’m disgusted just standing next to her-”

Julian couldn’t listen to another word.

Sloane was beautiful, but right now her face was twisted with hatred.

“Shut up!”

His voice cut her off.

“Get out. Get out of here!”

He no longer cared about being polite or acting like a gentleman.

All he wanted was to get rid of the person he blamed for making him lose Nora.

The world was enormous.

Would he ever see Nora again?

A hot summer breeze stirred the sweat at his temples.

No one would ever reach over with a tissue and gently wipe it away for him again.