Curtains Close; Take a bow. I think we fooled all of them now.

Rain's POV

He never warned me. What was he talking about? He knew something was going to happen this year... and the way he finished on that subject made me tremble.

I panicked. Holding the journal in my hands, I didn't know what to do. I couldn't tell Oliver that I had read it. Let alone found it. He was just beginning to forget. I needed to get rid of it. It sparked fear into me. Especially his warning.

I opened the bathroom door and looked around the room. I had been in there a good hour or two, even though it didn't feel like it. Oliver was wrapped up in the sheets, his hand hanging over the edge of the mattress. His pale skin was glimmering under the window, and I was tracing my eyes over his veins. I had to get rid of this journal.

The forest was a lot darker than any other time I went wandering it at night. It felt different. The wind was bitter, and I pushed into it, holding my hood closely underneath my neck. I desperately searched for it. I knew roughly where it was.

I remember the day Oli found the place, and he said it was perfect. The trees left it nicely sheltered. When he found it, there were these beautiful sun beams touching down onto the dark earth soil in the center. He spent days dragging out most of the furniture here. To set it up just as it was before. I never went there again. Which was why I was struggling to find it. The moon was barely half tonight, and i'd only bought some matches and the journal with me.

Behind a tall tree stump and a stack of pebbles, I spotted some rusting metal. A soggy mattress laid on top, knocked slightly out of place. The books were destroyed, a couple had fallen out of the bedside drawer and been ripped apart by the vicious wind. There were pages tumbling around in the wind near my feet.

"Im sorry." I whispered. "What did you have to tell me?"

There was silence.

Letting out a small, heart broken breath, I looked back out into the fog of the forest.

"I need to do this. Oli refuses to forget you..."

I placed the journal down on the ground. Pulling the match box from my pocket and sliding it open, I removed a stick. Admiring it's clean red tip, I quickly slashed it against the box, lighting it.

I held the flame in my hands for a few seconds. Thinking about it. He was a nice person. Just misunderstood. But everyone needed to move forward. This would be between Danny and I. And tomorrow I was going to wake up, my hair smelling like ash and the ghostly memory of reading it there, in the dim light of the bathroom. I shouldn't be keeping secrets from Oli like this. Especially when it was about Danny.

I dropped the match.

"I can't bring you back, Danny."

Silence fell again, and there was a tiny crackle of the flame burning through the cover. I sat down in the leaves beside it. Watching the fire grow and the pages shrink in the heat. My face was glowing in the warm light. I felt comforted by the gentle flickering. The wind had dropped off now. And I didn't want to go back. Back to Oli. Back to Hanley. I just wanted to stay out here, on my own. With the company of the grief and regret.

Notes