Dear Diary Read Online Free PDF Page A

known there’d be a Diane out there somewhere. There always is. Even Nick can’t manage to stay faithful. His list of women would fill a hard drive. But at least he knows what he’s doing. I’m just such an idiot. It’s painful to be me. PAINFUL. But I won’t let it happen again. Not in this lifetime.
    Rory tightened her grip on her messenger bag as she locked the door to her beat-up, old blue Mustang, a relic she’d purchased with the money she’d earned last summer working at Nordstrom. Only lately she’d heard this grinding sound coming from somewhere near the left front wheel. She was certain the car’s death was imminent, and she had no funds left to repair it. For the time being, however, it still managed to wheeze and throb from Wazzu all the way to Seattle, so here she was, on the U-Dub campus, in search of Nick.
    It was spring term and the weather was cloudy and cool. Rory glanced around the parking lot and checked her cell phone. This was the lot where Nick had told her to meet him, wasn’t it? She scrolled anxiously through her texts, looking for an address. In the three years since they’d both started school at different colleges‌—‌Nick at the University of Washington; Rory at Washington State near Pullman‌—‌she had only been to visit Nick once, when he was a freshman living in the dorm. It was too expensive for Rory to take off for a whole weekend; she simply didn’t have the money. Besides, she spent most of her free time studying anyway. Well, except for that magical time with Ryan, that had turned out to something less than perfect, but that was over now… .
    “Come on, Nick,” she muttered, climbing onto the hood of her car and sitting with her sneakers propped on the near-rusted left fender. She swept her thick ponytail over her shoulder. She wasn’t going to think about Ryan now, or why Nick’s invitation to visit had seemed like a godsend. She was out of her mind to be here when she had so much to do. There would be hell to pay on Monday, but damn it all, she needed to get away.
    Ding-ding-ding.
    The sound of a bell caught Rory’s attention. She looked around to see Nick astride a metallic-blue ten-speed, grinning at her, his fingers snapping the hammer of a bell attached to the bike’s handlebars.
    His legs were tanned and muscular beneath a pair of khaki shorts. A thin, dark brown sweatshirt was zipped to his neck, its back billowing in the breeze, the sleeves shoved back to his elbows. His dark hair rippled, and his gray eyes seemed to laugh. Rory hadn’t seen him since the summer before at Piper Point, and she was struck by how much older he looked.
    “You made it,” he greeted her happily.
    “Just barely. Seattle traffic’s a killer. I’m lucky to be alive.” Jumping off her car, she asked, “So, are you going to tell me why we met here and not at your place?”
    “Because I live with frat buddies who are all drunks, boors and perverts. You’ve stayed away for too long. I wasn’t going to give you another reason.”
    “Seriously. They’re that bad?”
    “And then some. I’m trying to kick them out while you’re here.” He turned his bike to face back the way he’d come and said, “Ready?”
    Actually Rory wasn’t even close to being ready. Nick’s casual remarks about his roommates made her realize how unprepared she was. Frat boys. That didn’t sound good. Whatever had possessed her into coming? She had nowhere to stay, and now she was reluctant to sack out at Nick’s regardless of the sleeping bag she had stowed in her trunk.
    “You didn’t have to kick them out. I’m not spending the night.”
    He turned around slowly. “What do you mean?”
    “Finals are next week, and I’m crazy to be here.”
    “You’re not driving all the way back to Pullman tonight. To hell with that. You said you were coming for the weekend.”
    “Yeah, well… I was wrong. I can’t stay. I just wanted to… see you, I guess, but I didn’t think it