Will ran his thumb over one of the stickers.

It was such a girly thing for a young woman as beautiful and as experienced at handling men as Miriama appeared to be; some part of her, Will realized, was still a girl. Dreaming of hearts and flowers.

Jaw hard, he checked the first page, then the last one in which she’d written something. A glance at the dates confirmed this was Miriama’s most recent journal. It appeared to span a year, beginning about six months after Miriama would’ve turned eighteen. From the amount of pages filled, it was clear she hadn’t journaled every day.

He went back to the first entry. It was a short one:

Hello, new journal. We’re going to have some wonderful adventures together. I feel it in my bones. Love, Miriama.

She hadn’t made another entry for a week. That entry was a chatty one that talked about working in Josie’s café and her application for the internship.

… I know I probably won’t get it. Kyle’s also applying, and everyone loves him. Sometimes I wonder why they can’t see through him. Is it just that beautiful face? Are people really so taken in by looks? Why can’t they see that he manipulates everyone around him? Anyway, I’m going to try. I hope it doesn’t mess everything up.

The next three entries were all about the internship and how difficult it was to get through to the interview stage. After that began a week of entries one after the other.

He gave me a watch today. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned in my entire life. I couldn’t believe it when he opened the box and showed it to ­me—­it sparkled in the sunlight, rainbows coming off it. When I stared at him and said, “Are those diamonds?” he just smiled and slipped it onto my wrist.

“Only diamonds for a diamond,” he said in that sweet way he has of talking. “Do you think you’ll be able to wear it?”

Of course I’m going to wear it, but I knew what he was asking. “No one will think it’s real,” I told him. “I’ll tell them I picked it up at a flea market while I was in Christchurch.”

I keep on admiring that watch. It’s so pretty. He makes me feel so pretty, so loved and wanted. I asked him if I could get an engraving on the back of the watch with our initials, but he told me I shouldn’t, that there was too much risk the wrong person would see it. I know he’s right, that I shouldn’t ask for things I can’t have, but I love him so much.

Will made a note of the date of that entry on the notepad. It would make it easier to ask the watchmakers and jewelers to search their sales records if he at least knew the date by which the watch had already been sold.

That done, he read through until he found the next entry of interest.

We had the most amazing day yesterday, spent it all with each other. The only bad thing was that we couldn’t go out because he might’ve been recognized. It’s a big city, but it’s still not such a big city when you compare it to all the other cities in the world.

Even I might’ve seen someone I knew.

He says one day, he’ll take me to faraway places like London and New York and Paris. He says no one will know who we are there, that we can laugh and hold hands on the street and dance under the stars.

I have this knot in my belly when I imagine that, all hot and needing and wanting. I know this is wrong. I know Auntie would be so disappointed in me for coveting another woman’s husband, but how can I help it when he’s so wonderful? Surely, God wouldn’t have put him in my path if I was meant to stay away from him?

Each time we’re together, I’m torn. I love him like he’s another part of me, but I also go to church with Auntie and I promise not to commit a sin. And yet I sin with him with every kiss, every touch.

The next time she’d written about her lover, it was in a fast flowing hand, as if she’d been jotting things down quickly:

I told him today that I wouldn’t see him anymore. Last night, I had a dream and I dreamed that God was so angry with me. Surely, it’s a sign. God himself is talking to me.

There was a smudge on the last line, a droplet of liquid having fallen onto the page and melted the ink.

The next relevant entry was only a week later and longer, more detailed:

I have no willpower around him.

He came to see me as soon as he could, and he held me and he said, “You know I can’t breathe without you. You’re my air.”

I tried to tell him about sin and about following God’s commandments, but he said, “How can this be a sin? We love each other. Our love is honest. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

Then he pressed his forehead to my own and he cupped my face and he said, “I’m the one who’s the sinner, Miriama, not you. I fully accept that. I’m the liar. But I’ve never lied to you.”

I believe him.

I love him.

And this sin is what we have.

The next two months of sporadic entries were mundane, technical jottings about her photography, funny comments that made Will want to smile, and only the occasional note that she was seeing “him” that weekend, or that “he’d” messaged her “the sweetest thing.”

But the next entry that focused specifically on her ­relationship—­dated six months ­ago—­had a bleaker tone:

I love him too much to walk away, but I’m starting to think about where this will lead. He tells me I’m young, that I have the time to wait, and for him, I won’t be selfish. I can wait. But today Auntie was talking about a girl she knew who’d been taken in by an older man. He never married her, not like he promised.

And I wonder if that’s going to happen to me.

But then I look at the watch that he gave me, a watch that’s worth thousands and thousands of dollars, and how can I not believe him? He picked this out personally, risked everyone finding out about us.

Surely that means something, surely that means he’s committed to me.

But I still worry. And I’m sad. Especially when I see Josie and her husband walking down the street, their hands linked and their little boy walking between them. I can never walk like that with him. Not for a long, long time.

Will turned the page to read the final entry for that week.

He’s asked me to meet him again. I will, of course I will. When I’m with him, nothing else matters. I think I need to trust him a while longer and see where this goes. After all, we’ve made it this long.

If anyone had known, they’d have said we wouldn’t even make it a month. But we’ve made it for ten now, and we’ll make it another month and another and another and another. We’ll make it until he’s free, until he can be mine.

32

Will put down the journal and thought about what he’d just read, making a few more notes on his notepad. Miriama’s married lover had been wealthy and, for some reason, couldn’t divorce his wife to be with Miriama. Maybe he’d been stringing Miriama along, as she’d feared, or maybe it had been because he had ambitions that wouldn’t allow for a scandal, especially one that called his image as a family man into question.

Again, he told himself not to focus on Vincent. The other man’s crush had probably been exactly ­that—­because Vincent would have to be one hell of a liar to have pulled off an illicit affair under the town’s nose.