Page 76 of Bound By Crimson

Chapter Seventy-Six

Decades Between Loneliness

The paper was soft at the corners.

Worn, but not yellowed.

Handled carefully and often.

Lyric opened the cover and immediately smelled lilac and something fainter—like ashes.

She turned to one of the first pages.

She changed the name again today.

It’s Edwina now. Says it sounds strong. Legacy, she says. I hate it.

I told her I liked the name Lyric. She laughed. Called it whimsical nonsense.

But that’s her name. Lyric. No matter what anyone says.

The handwriting was clean at first. Neat loops. Steady pressure.

But a few pages in, it began to slip—like Eden had started writing faster. Sharper. Angrier.

She watches everything. I pretend not to notice. It’s safer that way .

Malachai clings to me when she’s nearby. He can feel it too. He’s only ten. He shouldn’t have to feel it yet.

I tried to talk to my father. He told me to be patient. That she’s traditional. But he always bends to whatever she says and does.

No. She’s dangerous.

Lyric flipped forward.

The ink grew darker, like the pen had been pressed harder.

I’ve been feeling sick lately. I swear she is poisoning me. Could she be that evil?

A few pages later…

There’s something in the tea. I stopped drinking it. She noticed.

She’s in my room when I’m not here. My closet’s always slightly wrong. My drawers aren’t how I left them.

She talks about purity like it’s kindness. She talks about family like it’s ownership.

Sometimes I smile at her and imagine driving a knife straight through her throat. I know she’d still smile back.

Lyric held the book tighter.

This wasn’t a letter.

This wasn’t a plan.

It was a woman surviving with ink.

She turned to the final page.

The handwriting was rushed. Jagged.

The baby is almost here. I’m too tired to keep writing. But I needed to put this somewhere. Even if no one ever sees it.

If I don’t come back for this journal, maybe it’s because I escaped.

Or maybe I’m dead.

Either way, she won’t win. Not forever .

Lyric closed the book.

Her hands were shaking, but not from weakness.

She placed it gently back in its hiding place.

Not because she was done with it—but because she finally understood.

She planned to read it again from the beginning—in case she’d missed something. Maybe something that revealed who her father was. She still had so many unanswered questions.

One thing she did know—Eden hadn’t written for her.

Eden wrote because she had no one to turn to. Lyric knew that feeling—being isolated, unheard, a prisoner.

It had been over twenty years, and now Lyric was lying in the same room. Same bed. Same fear. Same hunger. Same helplessness.

Nothing had changed.

At least now, someone was listening—decades too late.