Thom opens the notebook. The first page is blank and he is on the edge of relief, feeling like he is peeping into his girlfriend’s diary. It has taken him two days to even get this far but it’s time, after his complete failure with the other objects he chose from the lock up. Thom reasons he shouldn’t feel bad about looking at this notebook though. After all, Daniel left him the lock up and its contents. So, this notebook is his property and he has the right to read every scribble and word it contains.
The second page is full of writing. The handwriting is an angry scrawl, not like Daniel’s usual composed hand. In this notebook another side of him seems to have taken over or he was too excited to put on a charade, even for himself. He notices the rest of the notebook is full from quickly flicking through the pages. He begins to read:
I am wandering around without belonging, without stable identity or a true family who love me. From the outside, I’m sure I appear just like anyone else. I’m sure I look like a clean pane of glass but the glass is hiding what’s really there: a stormy sea that is swallowing me up. Sometimes, I can’t even breathe and have to really concentrate on normal everyday actions.
I’m afraid of myself. I don’t trust my body or my mind anymore. I have begun to hate people. It’s because I’m different, that’s all. I keep losing people and I wonder whether it’s all my fault.
Perhaps I was born to live alone. Although I have no one I can really ask this question, no one listens to me anymore. My family say they love me but I know they secretly wonder about me, whether there’s something wrong with me.
I have no idea what to do anymore. I spend hours sitting alone and planning ways to escape. Then I change my mind and go back to living like I have been. I wish someone would help me.
The bottom of the page has blotches of ink on it and Thom guesses Daniel’s pen broke. Thom feels weighed down by the words, weighed down by guilt for not helping Daniel more when he had the chance. But would Daniel have accepted his help?
Thom doesn’t understand how Daniel could’ve felt this way. Why did he feel so alienated from his family? Why did he feel like he was losing his mind? If anything, this notebook supports the idea that Daniel had actually thrown himself in front of that train. Perhaps the note Thom found is an indirect admission from Daniel that he committed suicide.
Thom wonders how he will even begin to tell Richard and Aunty Val.
Thom flips through the notebook, catching glimpses of the same angry scrawl continuing throughout and sometimes, just pages filled with scribbles or others completely heavy with biro covering every inch. Then Thom sees something that makes him freeze. He has reached the last page and written in much clearer ink are the words: property of Thomas Downing.
First, Thom throws the notebook at the house and it slams against the ground.
Second, he sobs into his ink stained hands.
Third, he looks at his hands and wonders when his hands and his brain disconnected and wrote these hopeless words…