No. It's just… something. I'm not sure. I don't think there's enough blood in my brain yet. "Have you ever read someone's journal?"
"Have you?"
Kind of. "Not really."
"I stole my sister's when I was younger," he says. "I didn't get any of it. It was too grown-up."
"What did she say?"
"She was pissed, but she didn't tell our parents."
"I'd never tattle on my kid sister," I say.
"That's what I thought at the time, that she'd never narc. And that's probably true. But I think it was more, too. She didn't want our parents to know she kept a journal. She didn't want to give them the opening. Now that I look back, there was stuff in there, normal teen girl stuff—"
"You're an expert?"
"From what I hear," he says. "Crushes, kisses, hating her body or wondering if she wasn't good enough."
That is normal teen girl stuff. Why do we accept our own self-loathing so easily? It's terrible.
"I thought she didn't want Mom and Dad to know about the kissing, but now… I'm not sure."
She didn't want them to know about everything stirring inside her. "You rebelled by becoming a tattoo artist? At least your sister worried about that."
"Molly, yeah."
"It wasn't Molly's journal?"
"No. Deidre's. She was closer to my age. Molly is the oldest. And she's the high achiever, but she's rebellious in her own way."
"As a lawyer?"
"She studied philosophy."
That is a common plan for philosophy majors. "Deidre?"
"She was the good girl, for sure. Straight As, college scholarship, volunteer sessions at my parents' church."
"They're religious?"
"Catholic, yeah."
"Oh."
"Oh?" he asks.
"I don't know. It sounds right."
"The Catholic guilt?" he asks.
"Not exactly." Not guilt as much as rebellion. "Strict parents with rules. Mine were the same. My sister had issues, but she always fell in line. Whereas I… I guess I fall in line, in the end." Sorta. "But I fight it more."
"You don't seem like someone who falls in line."
"Maybe not anymore." Sorta. "I had this moment where I realized it was my life and I could only live it for myself."
"Good realization."