It was a surprisingly beautiful day for the month of January, the sun was beaming radiantly, the birds were chirping correspondingly, and of course, Linda and Scott were on their way to get their daily coffee from their favorite coffee parlor: Brewed Awakenings. Both Linda and Scott lived in Bristol Apartments, worked for the same company Expansao Realtors, and had the same daily routines. Although they practically lived the same life, they have never had an actual conversation, or spoken more than the average “Hello.” “Hello.” “How are you?” “Good.” “Good.” “I'll see you around.” “Yeah.” Every single morning at around eight o'clock, Linda and Scott would stressfully make their way through the busy town of Alderbrooke to go get coffee, and then off to work where they would scramble after their boss, responding quickly to his every need. Their lives were the definition of average, work, eat, sleep, repeat. Nothing different nothing new, same routine for almost every day. Or so it was, until Linda dropped her journal on her way to Brewed Awakenings.
As usual Linda was a few steps ahead of Scott. Scott had a creepy crush on Linda and preferred lurking behind her so he can examine her every move. Linda was speed walking, carrying a stack of work documents that reached the tip of her nose. Unfortunately Linda was in such a rush to go to Brewed Awakenings she didn't notice that her little black leather journal with pink gem stones outlining the corners slid off the documents and landed on the ground behind her. Scott gently picked up the journal and slowly brushed off the almost invisible specks of dirt, his fingers felt the contrast between the roughness of the gemstones and the softness of the leather. “Linda!” he quietly shouted after her, he know she wouldn't hear him, since she had already turned right on Peak Street and was probably entering Brewed Awakenings that very moment but hey, at least he tried to do the right thing. As Scott stood in the middle of the sidewalk debating what he would do with the journal after he finishes reading it, a young man around the age of twenty five who had an open coffee cup filled with coffee in one hand and a chocolate donut in the other tripped on his untied shoelaces and fell into Scotts arms. Scott jumped unaware of what was happening and threw the young man onto the floor and Linda´s journal into his coffee cup. The young man pulled the journal out of his coffee cup, and handed it to Scott.
“Sorry about your journal man” he said and walked off before Scott could reply. “Its not my journal” Scott muttered under his breath as he made his way to Brewed Awakenings where he decided he would rinse the coffee off the journal to make it readable again. But for some reason as he entered Brewed Awakenings Linda was sitting at a table sipping her coffee casually as if she did so every morning. He looked down hoping she won't see his face and quickly shuffled into the bathroom hoping she hadn't seen him and began to rinse the journal gently, hoping not to smudge any words. He carefully opened the journal and saw his name. Its probably just smudge from all the coffee, he thought, but as he got a closer look at the page he realized that his name was mentioned two or three times on the page. He stared at the page with disbelief, stopped rinsing and started to read what she wrote about him.
Dec 12, It feels so weird but i feel like scott watches me, like he stalks me and knows everything i do. I know its silly of me to thinks so because we have so much in common but its like he has a creepy crush on me. Scott reminds me of the crazy neighbor in horror movies, that go insane and kill everyone. You know what thats just silly! I'm over thinking this, maybe I'm the one whos gone insane. But is it really a coincidence that after i turned him down for prom he disappeared and a couple years later he moved in to my apartment building, lives two doors down from me, works for the same company as me and loves the same coffee shop as me. Isn't that a bit shady? Maybe he wants to get revenge for turning him down? ah this is too much. I have work that needs to be done and no time for my crazy thoughts to influence me like this. Scott was shocked, his mouth gaped open as he shuddered at the thought of her thinking that she thought he was a creepy stalker planning on getting revenge for a silly prom turn down. How immature. He dried the journal, walked out of the bathroom and headed toward the table where Linda was sitting, its time to set things straight, he thought, I dont even wanna read this stupid journal if its filled with absurd thoughts about me being a stalker.
She glanced up at him smiling, until her eyes settled on his face. Her brows furrowed together and her eyes grew deep with anger. “I know you have my journal, and I want it back, and you better not have read it because it is none of your business” she told him angrily. “First off it actually is my business and second off I’m not some creepy stalker waiting to get revenge for rejecting you in highschool!” he yelled back. At this point everyone was watching. “How in the world is reading a stranger’s diary your business?!” she yelled back while pushing her chair back to stand up. “Because I’m your step brother! That’s why I disappeared after high school. My da- I mean our dad broke the news to me and took me to Italy where we went over the details, he wanted me to break the news to you gently because he knows he hasn’t seen you in 17 years and he wanted you to understand why he left you, and I wanted to watch over you, like how normal older brothers do and I really didn't mean for you to find out like this so i apologize in advance for throwing all this on you by surprise because this is exactly what I didn't want to do”. “I think its time for you two to take this someplace else” the Brewed Awakening worker told them as he pointed to the door. Linda and scott burst out laughing as they made their way to the door.