Forest City Book 5 Chapter 8 -"She's waiting for you"-

    "How was school?" The usual question came from Hazel. We sat at the small table in the yellow kitchen.

    I replied with a question, "Did Clove ever do any art clubs or was she a part of one?"

    "Oh yeah, I think it was Mrs. Golden or Mrs. Finch, was it?" Hazel answered, "Now tell me, how was school?"

    "Good," I replied. Good, I guess, it was pretty mediocre. 

    "Why do you want to know about Clove's art club?" Hazel asked.

    "Just heard that she was in an art club at some point," I trailed off.

    "Where did you hear about that? Who's talking about Clove?" Hazel interrogated.

    I silently admitted, "Her diary."

    "So you've had the diary this whole time?" Hazel whispered to herself.

    "I didn't mean to take it, I just found a sticky note on it that was directed towards me, from Clove herself," I explained, "I've been reading it on my own time."

    "I understand," Hazel replied, "I was looking for it myself and I suspected that she either took it with her to college or left it here for you. That was before she moved into her own place."

    "No one has told me where she went," I spoke, "Until now..."

    "Well," Hazel began, "Before you came to Forest City, my apartment, she may or may not have been at my apartment the night before you arrived."

    "Why didn't you tell her to stay!" I blurted out in frustration.

    "She was busy," Hazel tried to reassure me.

    "I haven't seen my sister in over three years!" I yelled, this time out of anger.

    "MACADAMIA!" Hazel shouted, she then rested her hand on her face.

    We both sat in silence for a short while, until I finally spoke, "Did mom and dad make it home okay?"

    "They did," Hazel said solemnly and quietly.

    I rested my head on the table and tried to explain myself, "Everyone I know seems to be going away all of a sudden. Mom, dad, Cobalt, now Clove...who...who's next?"

     "Darling, they aren't leaving you on purpose, people will come and people will go, sometimes they come back and sometimes they don't, it isn't up to you to decide other's fates," Hazel said while brushing some hair away from my light brown eyes. She smirked, "You have the same color eyes as Clove."

    "Do you want this back?" I asked while pointing at the diary.

    "Oh heavens no! If Clove wanted the diary for you, then keep it. I shouldn't have to dictate where that ol' thing ends up or who is reading it." Hazel replied.

    I flipped through the diary and glanced at the more recent pages, pages that were more recent than some of the old ones. I know that throughout college, Clove had stopped writing in the diary, but the entries seem to date back to the summer of 2019.

    In bold text, at the bottom of the page, the date read the night before I arrived, "She's waiting for you."