Just For You Read Free

pain. Sharp, shooting pain that made her see stars.
    "Ow!"
    She yelped, grasping for her ankle.
    Grunts and the indifferent shuffling of feet were now the background music. A hand grabbed hers and yanked her up before she could even ask for help.
    "Sorry," was the gruff apology she got from a tall man with too much hair on his head. It fell in messy, bouncy curls over his eyes and cheeks.
    Imogen swallowed and nodded her head, pulling away from him. He seemed only too happy to let her go. She turned and tried to walk, but when she put pressure on her left ankle there were stars again.
    "Ow…" she moaned, closing her eyes and grabbing on to the nearest thing she could find- a mailbox- for support.
    From the corner of her eye she could see the stranger still standing there, watching her, and having an obvious internal debate with himself. Imogen took a deep breath and tried to walk again. This proved to be a lost cause. Her last hope was to call a cab and just as soon as she raised her arm she was clutched around the elbow and her arm was being tossed around the back of the stranger's neck.
    "Come with me," he sighed.
    They made their way slowly to Cameron's apartment then, but he was impatient with her. That was when she saw the book.
    The book.
    Imogen's eyes flashed open and she jerked, emitting a yelp when the sudden movement upset her ankle. She pawed at it, placing firm pressure on it and adjusting it again so that she was comfortable.
    She sighed. She couldn't find it in her to be upset that she was injured. It wasn't just a pointless blunder of the universe, but it was Fate. She was supposed to fall so that she could be invited into the apartment which now housed what used to be one of her most prized possessions: the old, worn out, leather bound book, which she received on her thirteenth birthday as a present from her father.
    It started out as a journal. Her instructions were simple: all she had to do was jot down her thoughts, her dreams, her memories, her opinions, a quote she enjoyed, a philosophy she had. Anything. Anytime. Then she could look back on it and read about what had been so important to her, about what would turn her into the person she would become.
    Imogen only wrote in the journal a total of three times before the idea came to her. At that moment it was the best thing she'd ever thought of in her entire life. It was brilliant. It would be beneficial, she thought. It would be interesting and educational, she told herself. If things went right, it might even change lives. It would be an act of faith.
    So she went to the park that day, after she wrote for the third time in the journal that was given to her as a present by her father, with every intention of spreading knowledge, of spreading stories. Of spreading inspiration.
    Sitting there on that lonely bench in the middle of a deserted park, Imogen wrote in the journal for a fourth time. She used her best handwriting and a fresh page. The instructions, like her father's, were simple: Write your story, it said. Write your story, read the others, and then pass it on.
    She signed the date at the bottom: June 7th, 1998. She didn't put her name.
    Yet when she saw the book in Cameron's apartment, on that bookshelf, stuck between a book on German philosophy and Stephen King's It , it took her less than a minute to realize that she laid eyes on a book she hadn't seen for thirteen years. And even though nothing was ever written to prove that it had once belonged to her, that book had her name written all over it.
    Thirteen years and thousands of miles later, somehow it made its way back to her.
    * * * *
    Sleep came easily for Cameron that night. The day managed to both be extra-taxing and mind-numbing at the same time: three times he was reprimanded by Susan and put in his place. Twice that day he was chewed out by a customer because he couldn't keep his head straight long enough to take their information correctly while he opened up bank accounts for them.