Chapter 2
I took a deep breath, trying to suppress that inexplicable annoyance, and kept scrolling through the app.
[September 18th. I coughed again today. She ran in angrily, told me to shut up, and said I would wake Delilah. But I could clearly hear Delilah laughing outside.]
Coughing sounds?
My brain suddenly buzzed. A long-forgotten childhood memory resurfaced.
When I was about seven or eight, I'd always hear these nagging, sporadic coughs echoing through the house at night.
Nervous, I told Holly about it, but she brushed it off, saying it was the creaky old heating pipes making weird noises.
Holly said, "Are you scaredy-cat, Delilah?"
She smiled warmly and ruffled my hair to comfort me.
"Stop overthinking it—our home's perfectly safe," Holly said, still smiling.
I believed her.
Every time those sounds echoed again, I would keep telling myself, "It's just the heating pipes; don't let it freak you out."
My fingers went cold, but I kept scrolling, unable to stop myself.
[October 3rd. I'm so hungry. They must've forgotten to bring me food. I scratched the bedframe, hoping someone would hear me. Then she showed up, calling me an annoying little rat.]
Rat and scratching sounds.
When I was in grade school, I kept insisting there were rats living under my bed because I could hear these faint, never-ending scratching sounds every night after everyone else had gone to sleep.
My dad, Ralph, put out countless glue traps and mousetraps in my room, but never caught a single one.
"Delilah, are you stressed out from school? Maybe you're just seeing things," Ralph said.
He gave me a helpless look, clearly at a loss for what else to say.
"Sweetheart, you've always had such a wild imagination," he said with a little sigh.
Holly said I was a scaredy cat, and Ralph thought I had way too much imagination.
Gradually, I started to believe it was my problem, wondering if maybe I had made it all up.
I quit mentioning those weird sounds and tried my best to fit in, pretending I was as normal as everyone else.
But now, this dairy on this phone were like a magic key—cracking open the sealed vault where I had locked away all those memories.
Every memory I had buried deep down, every weird noise or shadow they insisted was just my imagination—suddenly, they all crashed back into my mind, one after another.
Why did they always have to lock my bedroom door from the outside every night? They said it was for my safety.
Why did they never let my friends stay overnight at our place? They said it was so my schoolwork wouldn't get disturbed.
Why did Holly go over every inch of my room with disinfectant every week—especially under the bed? They said it was for my health.
All those explanations that used to seem so full of love suddenly felt twisted and creepy after seeing what was written in the diary.
I always thought my childhood was wrapped up in Ralph and Holly's love.
They kept me away from anything bad so I could focus on school and growing up, totally carefree.
But now, to my horror, I realized that perhaps what they kept me away from wasn't danger.
That weekend, I went back home.
For two whole days, I kept diving into that app, reading every single entry again and again.
I even tried to charge the phone, but I couldn't find a single cord that fit the ancient charging port.
The battery was down to 15%.
When I pushed open the front door, Holly was bustling around the kitchen in her apron, while Ralph was sitting in the living room, reading the newspaper.
Everything looked just like I remembered—warm, cozy, and perfectly in order.
But now, beneath that picture-perfect surface, I could feel a bone-deep chill creeping in.
At dinner, Holly was her usual self, serving me food, and casually brought up the idea of dinner with Vernon again.
Instead of shutting her down like I always did, I pretended not to care and asked, "Hey Mom, did I used to freak out about rats when I was a kid?"
Holly's hand paused in mid-air for just a split second, then she carried on like nothing happened, popping some roast beef onto my plate and giving me a casual smile.
"Of course. You've always been my little scaredy-cat. Still jumpy about rats now?" Holly teased.
"I just thought it was kind of strange," I said casually.
I stared right into her eyes, determined to make her hear me loud and clear.
"I remember Dad set up all those sticky traps in my room, but we never caught a single rat. Did we really ever have rats in the house?" I asked.
Clack. Ralph set his fork down, the sound seeming especially harsh in the quiet dining room.
He looked at me with a frown, his voice carrying a hint of displeasure.
"You're old enough to quit dredging up those childish stories. Eat your dinner," Ralph said with a curt edge.
Holly immediately chimed in to smooth things over.