Chapter Twenty-Three: I Told You to Smile:

The more I write this, the more I panic. The only way I have fought to keep control was to smile. I have been smiling so much that my cheeks and jaw hurts. I am tired of smiling. But what can I do? Miranda is always behind me. Wishing her away won’t work. I am taking a risk by writing this. I have to keep looking over my shoulder each time.

Smiling makes my face hurt. I can’t do this anymore. But I have to write this. I have to say something. This won’t go away until I do. I have to stop this madness. Miranda’s hurt and killed too many people. I don’t know how to put an end to this, but this is the only way that I know to try.

I am tired of smiling. It’s what I have been doing. I smiled at home. I smiled at school. I smiled around. Nobody ever asked me why. I guess that I had become so good at faking it. Or so I thought I was.

Only a small number of people knew about the terror I was hiding. Grandma tried to show me that I was okay.

“You don’t have to smile all the time,” she told me one evening. I looked up at her with a confused look on my face.

“What do you mean?” I asked. Grandma pulled me to her chest. I could feel her heart beating against my cheek.

“You can be scared if you want,” she whispered. “Don’t force yourself all of time.” I found myself unable to speak. In that moment, I could feel Miranda’s eyes on my back. Even back then, she wouldn’t let me out of her sight. I didn’t want to think about what she was capable. In that moment, I felt that grandma could protect me from her.

“I don’t know why she’s mean to me sometimes,” I said in Grandma’s chest.

“What did you say?” she asked. I shook my head. She knew about Miranda. I hadn’t told her how she had changed. I had to pretend that everything was still fine. It was my only way to survive.

I say all of this now because the next few years are going to be difficult. Two of them were the worst in my life. It started when I was about twelve or thirteen years old. Back then, I didn’t see the signs. If I had, I wouldn’t have gotten attached to Miranda. I am only hoping that it is not too late. Even as I write this, I am still looking over my shoulder. I don’t know when Miranda will come back. Which is why I have to act now.

Here I go again.