"You know, Mom, you didn't have to buy me a house. I'm 21, I could have bought the house myself," I said. My mother was as unpredictable as a comet hitting earth. Since she still felt guilty for my parents' divorce—which happened five years ago—she felt compelled to make it up to me in any way possible. Why couldn't my parents' be normal? Why did they have to care so much about how I felt? My mother should have stopped treating me like her baby ten years ago but here we are. I'm so far gone that some of my past girlfriends have said that I have an emotional maturity of a twelve year old. I can't help it if my mother calls me every second. She has issues.

"Noah, you're my son and I wanted to do this for you. Besides, your father paid for half of it," Mom said. Her voice sounded distant, like she was far away from the phone. Maybe her assistant was holding the phone while she got a facial or a massage or something.

"That's great but I don't think the previous owners have completely moved out yet," I said. I sat down on the couch that was haphazardly placed in the middle of the living room. The house had belonged to a family of seven, according to my mother and I honestly thought that ten bedrooms were a lot for me, even if I grew up in a house twice its size. I was a single guy; I didn't need that much space. Besides' who was going to clean it? And most of the rooms still had things in them and it felt weird to be going through those things, knowing they belonged to someone else.

"You can just throw it out, I asked the previous owners and its okay," Mom said. Perfect. I can start on my spring cleaning right now.

"Okay, well, I better get to it, a house doesn't clean itself. By the way, do send a maid here because I am not cleaning this house after today," I said and hung up. Okay, so I did have an emotional maturity of a twelve year old but I was only twenty one. I had plenty of time to grow up and accept my responsibilities. I threw the phone on the couch and looked up at the ceiling. This. Was. Ridiculous.

Not only I had to move into a house I didn't want to live in but I also had to clean it out. I think I would have been a lot happier with the house if my mother had already sent a maid to clean it out before I moved in.

I decided to start with the third floor and work my way down. There were only two rooms on the third floor and one of the doors was jammed shut. When I finally pushed it open, I stumbled into a room that no doubt belonged to a girl once. This was a little awkward because girls didn't let me into their rooms that easily. There was nothing in the room that personalized and it made me wonder. Why not pack up this room as well? Honestly, I was more worried about the extra work. Everything seemed to be boxed up except for the bed, the dresser and the dark red rug on the floor. Some girl's life was put away in those boxes, I didn't just want to throw it out but I had to move everything in case my mother showed up. I picked up the first box and the contents slid out from the bottom.

"I cannot catch a break," I said out loud and then realized that I was just talking to myself.

I bent down to pick up the stuff when I saw that a journal had also fallen out and opened up to the first page. There was something written there in beautiful but girly script.

If you are reading this, know that I am wishing you to the fiery pits of hell.

I laughed and picked up the journal, dropping the other stuff. I leaned against the bed and turned the page. On the right side there was something else.

*All diaries are under the loose floorboard, under the rug. Open at your own risk.

If she didn't want anyone to read her journals, why write where she hid them? Was she afraid she was going to get Alzheimer's and forget where she put everything? I pushed all the boxes off the rug and ripped the rug off the floor. It was easy to find the loose floorboard and I opened it up. Inside were three stacks of journals and I pulled out each one.

I knew it was morally wrong to read someone's diaries and I was probably being wished to the fiery pits of hell but I didn't care. If this girl cared so much about her privacy, she would have taken her journals with her. Okay, that probably wasn't a very good argument and I knew it made me a creep, reading a girl's journal. But I was a curious guy and the girl wasn't around to watch me read it. So I took out the very first journal and turned it to the first page.

March 3, 2002

Today, my youngest brother was born. His name is, Aaron Smith Bryant. His birth has officially made me the middle child. I have an older brother, an older sister, a younger sister and now a younger brother. And you know what they say about middle children; they are often overlooked. In my family of seven, I was completely overlooked to the point where the family existed without me. It wasn't a problem until my younger brother was born and Mom and Dad completely forgot about me. My older siblings were old enough to take care of themselves. And my younger siblings were too young. As always, I was in the middle. What didn't I do to get my parents attention? What couldn't I do? What wouldn't I do if they would focus on me for once? There never seemed a right time to tell them what I was going through and eventually it was too late to say anything.

-Tempie

That ended the first entry.

Thank god, I was an only child. But how does a parent overlook their child? Suddenly I was glad my mother babied me too much. At least she knew what was happening in my life. And I thought I was wrong for reading someone's journal. I decided to take the whole pile of journal and put it in my room to make it easier for me to clear up the rest of 'Tempie's' stuff.

It would have been a little easier on my conscience if I didn't know whose journal I was reading. And a few pages into the journal, I knew that 'Tempie' was short for Temperance. She didn't have a problem with that name like any normal girl would have, her written words not mine. I guess cleaning up the house would have to wait. First I needed to find out what happened in Tempie's life.

AN: New story; be nice you guys. Tell me how you liked it. Those of you who have read my previous stories, I know it's really unfair to write a new one without completely any of them but I can't help myself. It's a disease. But I promise I am working on the next chapters. Love you guys.

XOXO