Page 26 of My Favorite Lost Cause (The Favorites #2)

I reach down to pick up Echo, who’s whining beside my left leg.

“It wasn’t like I was dreaming. I didn’t think I’d fallen asleep, though I guess I did.

But I had this huge burst of excitement, out of nowhere, and I was thinking about high school and then suddenly I was remembering something else, something about going to a dance and telling someone Papa wouldn’t let me attend until my brothers got home from college.

Except I don’t call anyone Papa . And I don’t have brothers. ”

His jaw locks. “This is why you were weird about the photo album.”

“I wasn’t weird ,” I reply, setting Echo down again. “It was just…I’d had this dream that I was a young girl who had several older brothers, and it turns out that the girl who probably lived in that room…had older brothers.”

“You realize that doesn’t mean anything, right? Lots of people have older brothers. It’s not…rare.”

“I know. That’s why I didn’t say anything. But then this morning I had this dream about that little desk, and I’d hidden a journal under one of the drawers, so?—”

“So you came running out here without a bra at dawn to see if you might acquire the magic journal.”

My nipples stand at attention again. It’s as if they perk up any time they’re being discussed.

His gaze drops quickly, then shoots back to my face.

“For someone who routinely has multiple girls naked in his apartment, you’re making a really big deal out of the bra.

But yes. I just wanted to check, and I know it sounds crazy, but…

wouldn’t you want to look if you were me? ”

His raised brow says quite clearly that no, he would not want to look. “Maren, honey, you’re starting to freak me out a little bit. I’m worried I’m about to find you crawling on the ceiling or speaking in tongues.”

I shake my head. “I know it’s strange, and I know I haven’t always made the most rational decisions, but this is different. It feels like the house is trying to tell me something.”

“You realize that’s the kind of thing a girl would say in a movie right before she started crawling on the ceiling?”

“If I start crawling on the ceiling, you have my permission to remove me from the house.”

“If you start crawling on the ceiling, I’ll be too busy running toward town screaming to get you out of here.”

I laugh. “That seems fair. ”

He nods toward the desk. “I don’t want you climbing. Tell me what drawer.”

If I’d checked on my own and found nothing, I’d have felt a little silly.

If Charlie checks and there’s nothing, I’m going to feel like a fucking idiot, but it’s pretty clear he’s not going to just leave me alone here if I request it.

“The main one,” I tell him. “Like, if you were sitting, it’s right above your knees.

She wasn’t keeping it in the drawer, though. She was hiding it underneath.”

He leans toward it, resting a hand on the credenza as he glances up. “Maren, I can see beneath it right now. There’s nothing there.”

“Oh,” I say. “Okay.”

He turns, looks me over, and gives me a weary smile. “Would you like me to look under the other drawers?”

My whole face must brighten because he laughs.

“You’re going to have me dismantling this desk if it doesn’t turn up, aren’t you?” he asks, reaching toward the desk again. He pulls the bottom drawer out and finds nothing, pulls the middle drawer out and finds nothing, pulls the top drawer and finds?—

“Huh,” he says, almost inaudibly.

He slides his hand beneath it…and withdraws a book.

I take an automatic step backward in my shock. It doesn’t look exactly like the diary I dreamed about, and it wasn’t under the correct drawer, but…

“This is weird, right?” I ask.

He climbs down the bookshelf. “A ghost is possibly trying to overtake your body and is directing you to clues now, so yes, it’s pretty fucking weird.”

“She’s not trying to overtake my body,” I argue. “I’m just remembering these moments of her life.”

He runs a hand over his face and into his hair, bicep flexing. “Great, and now you’re defending the ghost trying to overtake your body, which is pretty much how I’d have predicted this would go.”

I laugh. “Stop. Okay, so assuming the weirdest interpretation here is the correct one, why would a ghost be directing me toward clues?”

“Obviously, to solve the mystery of her untimely death at the hands of a murderer who will somehow become aware that you’re onto him and go on a killing rampage to stop you.”

I shrug, glancing over my shoulder at the house, now framed in gold by the rising sun. “Based on my knowledge of horror movies, all of you guys will die, but I’ll survive and that’s what matters.”

Charlie frowns, glancing at the journal one last time.

“It’s probably just some crap girls do. Like you all read the same Nancy Drew book as kids.

” I never read a single Nancy Drew book and I’m pretty sure they didn’t exist when Margaret was a child, but I get the sense Charlie’s trying to normalize all this for himself. I wish I could do the same.

“Maybe,” I conclude. “Go get your run in. I’m going to feed these guys.”

With one final, uncertain glance at me, Charlie gives in and heads to his cottage while I take the puppies into the kitchen.

I fill their bowls and take a seat at the table, opening the diary with more anticipation than I should feel over a century-old book.

“It would serve me right if it just turns out to be grocery shopping lists,” I tell the dogs.

Even they seem embarrassed for me. Even they seem to be saying Maren, you’ve really gone too far , as they focus on their food.

I open the book. And there, in that neat, precise cursive, is Margaret’s journal.

May 10, 1916

There’s a party this weekend at Grayville Manor, and George Graves asked if I’d save him a dance, and he didn’t ask anyone else to save him a dance, and I’m dying inside because Papa is never going to allow me to attend, not until the boys are home from school.

There will be other dances, and Walter will be back from USC in a week, but I’m so heartbroken that I won’t be there.

I wince. Should I be reading this? Because I doubt I’d want anyone to find my highs and lows as a young adult, particularly as so many of them involved my sister’s fiancé. But no, this girl—Margaret, I assume—wanted me to read it.

I think.

May 12, 1916

I’m going to the dance! Sam is coming down with his friend William Howard, who’s doing work for Papa this summer.

Ruby Wilson says William is a thousand times more handsome than George, but I remember William from when I was small before he moved away—and I don’t think he was all that handsome.

She’s just bitter that George said I was the prettiest girl in school.

I’m wearing the yellow chiffon dress Mama ordered for me from Atlanta if it arrives in time.

Otherwise, I suppose I’ll just have to wear the blue lawn.

May 16, 1916

Sam arrived with William today. He is handsome, unfortunately.

More handsome than George. More handsome than anyone, really.

Ruby will gloat if I admit it, so I intend to lie when she asks.

Mama is making him stay in that shack down by the water, though she calls it a “cottage” to William’s face, as if that makes it better.

I think it’s cruel, but Mama says it would be inappropriate to have him sleeping on the same floor as me.

I found that rather thrilling, the idea that I could be so endangered by William Howard.

Mama is letting me wear her ruby broach to the dance! I’ve been asking to wear it my entire life!

May 18, 1916

What an incredible disappointment. The ball did not go at all as I had hoped.

George and I danced, but someone stepped on my foot and I was in such agony.

And I have no idea why anyone calls William charming.

He is far too aware of his looks. The girls fell all over themselves to get his attention, which is, no doubt, what’s made him so arrogant.

He also made a rude joke about my dress.

I was sorry for him because his father died when he was small and he and his mother had to go live with an aunt, but I no longer am.

May 20, 1916

William is doing exercise drills in the yard right now.

He does them every morning because he believes the US will enter the war soon, now that Canada has.

He looks ridiculous doing his sprints and his push-ups.

Well, I’ll admit he appears exceedingly strong, but it’s still ridiculous.

So ridiculous I can scarcely stop watching.

May 22, 1916

Why does William have to be so handsome? If he was simply amusing, I could overlook it. I’m shallow enough. But no, he has to be handsome as well. His face is a glorious thing. I’d stare at it through all of dinner if the boys wouldn’t ridicule me for it later.

May 24, 1916

Today George asked me for a token of my affection.

I thought he was perhaps asking for a kiss, but he actually wanted a memento—something to remind him of me when he was taking his exams in Columbia.

I said I had nothing and he asked for Mama’s brooch, which I was wearing to impress him when I should have given it back to her.

Oh, why didn’t I just return it after the dance? I didn’t want to admit it wasn’t mine…so I let him take it, and now I’m sick with fear Mama will ask for it while he’s gone.

May 25, 1916

A group of us took a picnic onto the Bluff.

Sam came, which was lovely, but William showed up for the latter half and just laid there in the grass, smirking, as if he was smarter than all of us.

It’s possible he is smarter than all of us—Sam said he had the highest marks of anyone in their class—but he doesn’t have to be so smug about it.

George said he hoped to marry soon, looking at me, and William said he was too young to have decent judgment. I hate him.