Updated Jan 26, 2026 • ~11 min read
I shouldn’t have started with the bedroom.
But it made sense logically—tackle the most damaged room first, the one that needed the most structural work. The bedroom on the second floor had water damage from a roof leak, warped floorboards that needed replacing, walls that needed inspection before I could proceed with anything else.
So Sunday morning, alone in the house because Silas had gone back to LA and Juni wasn’t due until tomorrow, I started pulling up the damaged floorboards in what had clearly been her childhood bedroom.
The walls were still covered in remnants of her life—faded posters of bands I didn’t recognize, a corkboard with photos of her and friends, a bookshelf crammed with worn paperbacks. I’d told her she could take anything with sentimental value, but she’d only retrieved a few photos and her grandmother’s jewelry box. Everything else remained, a museum of adolescence frozen in time.
I felt like an intruder. Which, technically, I was.
The first board came up easily, wood soft with water damage. I set it aside, made a note about how many I’d need to replace. Pulled up the second board.
That’s when I saw it.
A small leather journal, wedged in the floor joists where it had been deliberately hidden. The leather was worn, corners bent from years of being opened and closed. On the cover, in careful teenage handwriting:
PRIVATE – PROPERTY OF JUNIPER ROSS, AGE 12
DO NOT READ UNDER PENALTY OF DEATH
My first thought: I should give this back to her.
My second thought: I should give this back without reading it.
My hand was already opening the cover before my conscience could fully form the objection.
The first entry was dated June 15th, 2009. Juni would have been twelve, almost thirteen. The handwriting was rounder than her adult script, letters carefully formed like she’d been trying to make it perfect.
Dear Diary,
Grammy says writing things down helps make sense of them. I don’t know if that’s true but I’m going to try. Today was the last day of seventh grade. Everyone was excited about summer. Thorne McAllister said he’s going to the Cape with his family. He didn’t ask what I’m doing. He never asks.
I’m staying here. Same as every summer. Grammy says we’ll make it special. But it’s hard to feel special when everyone else has parents who take them places and I just have Grammy and this house.
I wonder if my parents ever think about me. If they remember they have a daughter somewhere. If they see other twelve-year-old girls and think “our daughter is that age now.”
Probably not. If they thought about me, they’d come back.
I need to stop thinking about them. Grammy says it’s not healthy. But how do you stop thinking about the people who stopped wanting you?
I should have closed the diary. Should have put it back, texted Juni that I’d found something of hers, arranged to return it unread.
But the pain in those words—raw, honest, devastating—made my chest ache. I’d written similar entries in my own journals during foster care. The desperate wondering if anyone remembered you existed. The bone-deep certainty that if you were worth loving, someone would have stayed.
I read three more entries. Then five more. Then I couldn’t stop.
Juni at twelve was heartbreaking. She wrote about school in careful detail—who sat with whom at lunch, which teachers praised her work, how she’d won a writing contest but had no parents in the audience to cheer for her. She wrote about Imogene with fierce, protective love. About feeling different from the other kids, like she was pretending to be normal and everyone could tell.
She wrote about loneliness like it was a physical presence in her life. A companion she couldn’t shake.
August 3rd, 2009
Today I asked Grammy if I’m hard to love. She said no, baby, you’re the easiest person to love in the world. But if that’s true, why didn’t my parents stay? Why didn’t they love me enough to fix their problems and come back?
Grammy says some people are too broken to love anyone, even their kids. But what if I’m broken too? What if I’m just like them and I’ll never be able to keep anyone?
I don’t want to be broken. I want to be enough.
I was crying. Sitting on the floor of this stranger’s childhood bedroom, reading her most private thoughts, crying for the little girl who’d believed she was unlovable.
This was wrong. Deeply, inexcusably wrong.
I kept reading.
The diary covered two years—twelve to fourteen. I watched Juni navigate middle school hell, develop her first real crush (on a boy named Thorne who barely knew she existed), struggle with her identity as a mixed-race kid in a predominantly white town, and above all, wrestle with the abandonment that shaped every relationship she attempted.
She was funny. Self-deprecating in ways that made me ache. Observant about human nature in ways that explained why her children’s books resonated. And so, so lonely.
March 12th, 2010
Thorne asked Kayla Miller to the spring dance. I knew he would. He never looked at me the way he looks at her. No one ever looks at me that way.
Mars says I’m too good for him anyway. But I don’t want to be too good. I just want to be wanted. Just once. I want someone to choose me first instead of last.
Is that asking too much?
By the time I reached the final entry, I was in too deep. I’d witnessed two years of Juni’s inner life, watched her try to build armor around her softness, seen every insecurity and fear she’d hidden from the world.
And I was falling for her. Not the hostile woman who’d called me a thief. But the girl in these pages—brave and broken and desperately trying to be enough.
Which made what I was doing even worse.
I put the diary down. Stared at it like it might bite me. Tried to figure out what the hell was wrong with me that I’d just violated someone’s privacy so completely.
I knew why. Because I’d spent my childhood feeling invisible, and Juni had felt the same way. Because her pain was my pain, reflected back through different circumstances. Because reading her words felt like finally being understood.
But understanding didn’t excuse invasion.
I should burn it. Pretend I’d never found it. Definitely never mention it to Juni.
Instead, I pulled up more floorboards.
Found diary number two in the back corner of the closet, wedged behind the baseboard. Ages fourteen to sixteen. Covered in stickers and doodles, the cover announcing: JUNI’S PRIVATE THOUGHTS – SERIOUSLY, STAY OUT.
I opened it immediately.
Fourteen-year-old Juni was angrier than twelve-year-old Juni. She railed against her parents with newfound fury, against classmates who excluded her, against the universe for dealing such a shit hand. But underneath the anger was the same desperate loneliness, the same certainty she was fundamentally unlovable.
September 23rd, 2011 (Age 14)
Started high school today. New school, new chance to reinvent myself, right? Wrong. I’m still the weird girl with no parents. Still the one who doesn’t quite fit.
I thought maybe high school would be different. That I could be different. But you can’t outrun what’s inside you. The broken parts come with you wherever you go.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever feel like I belong anywhere. Or if I’m just always going to be the outsider looking in.
I read about her first kiss (disappointing, with a boy at summer camp who never called after). Her first real friendship with Mars (who was “the only person who gets it”). Her growing skill as a writer (she’d started her first novel at fifteen, a fantasy about a girl searching for her lost family).
And I read about the persistent, aching fear that she was too damaged for love.
December 15th, 2012 (Age 15)
Grammy asked if I want to try therapy again. I said no. What’s a therapist going to say that I don’t already know? That my parents abandoning me wasn’t my fault? That I’m worthy of love even though no one has ever stayed?
I know those things intellectually. But knowing doesn’t make you feel them.
I think I’m going to die alone. Not because I’m unlovable—maybe Grammy’s right and I’m not—but because I’m too scared to let anyone close enough to find out. If they get close, they’ll see all the broken parts. And then they’ll leave too.
Better to be alone by choice than abandoned again.
Jesus Christ, Juni.
I wanted to reach through time and tell fifteen-year-old Juni that someone would stay. That she wouldn’t die alone. That the broken parts were what made her beautiful.
But I couldn’t tell her that without admitting I’d read her most private pain. And she would never forgive me for that.
I spent six hours reading that second diary. Watched Juni navigate high school, develop her voice as a writer, apply to colleges with Imogene’s fierce support. Watched her build walls so high that no one could hurt her again.
By the end, she’d convinced herself that independence was freedom. That not needing anyone meant no one could leave.
The last entry was dated June 2014, right before she left for college:
This is probably my last entry for a while. College starts in the fall. New place, new people, new Juni.
I’m going to be different there. Confident. Self-contained. The kind of girl who doesn’t need validation from anyone.
I’m going to prove that I don’t need parents or relationships or any of that. I’m enough on my own.
I have to be. Because what happens if I’m not?
I closed the diary carefully. Sat in the dusty bedroom as afternoon light slanted through the windows, processing what I’d just done.
I’d invaded Juni’s privacy. Read her deepest secrets without permission. Learned things she’d never willingly shared. Crossed a line so blatant that there was no justification for it.
And I’d fallen completely in love with the girl in those pages.
Which made me the worst kind of asshole.
My phone buzzed. Text from Juni: Still on for tomorrow at 10? I have some ideas for the kitchen restoration.
I stared at the message. At her name on my screen. Tomorrow I’d see her, work beside her, pretend I didn’t know that she’d waited at the window every Christmas for parents who never came. That she’d believed herself unlovable at fifteen. That she’d built an entire identity around not needing anyone because needing hurt too much.
I should confess. Tell her what I’d found and done. Return the diaries and accept her hatred.
Instead, I texted back: See you at 10. Thanks for helping.
Then I hid both diaries in my bedroom closet, behind my own boxes. Somewhere she wouldn’t accidentally find them while we worked.
I told myself I was protecting her from the pain of confronting her adolescent self. But really, I was protecting myself from her justified rage.
Because I’d already decided to keep reading. There had to be more diaries hidden in this house. And now that I’d tasted Juni’s unfiltered truth, I was addicted.
I wanted to know everything. Wanted to understand every layer of her complicated, beautiful, wounded heart.
Even if learning those things made me a monster.
I pulled up more floorboards, searching. Behind the radiator, I found diary number three. Ages sixteen to eighteen. The cover was plain black, no decorations, no warnings. Just: J.R.
Like she’d stopped believing anyone cared enough to look.
I should stop. Should respect her privacy. Should be better than my worst impulses.
I opened the first page.
October 2014 (Age 16)
I don’t know why I’m still writing in these. Maybe because they’re the only place I can be completely honest. The only place I don’t have to pretend I’m okay.
I’m not okay. I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay.
But at least here, I can admit it.
I read until the sun went down. Until I knew every version of Juni Ross she’d tried to hide from the world.
And I understood with devastating clarity that I was falling in love with someone whose trust I’d already destroyed.
She just didn’t know it yet.
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