CHAPTER 1:
The bus doors swing open, blowing a hot sticky breeze into my face. I climb the steps and pay my fare. Three dollars every day of the week just to ride the city bus with people that could care less who I am. I choose the only empty seat on the bus. I throw my purse to the side and see something in the seat as it collides with the window. It’s a book. I think nothing of it as the bus is always full of abandoned belongings. The bus quickly pulls away from the stop and I settle into my seat.
As the bus continuously stops on its route my curiosity is peaked about the book in the seat next to me. I lift my bags to reveal the cover. No title. I turn the book over to look for more clues as to what the book is. As I think about opening the book to look for something to tell me what this book is the bus slows to another stop. My stop. I slide the blue bound book into my purse and gather my things. I walk of the bus and into work with my head full of curiosity.

CHAPTER 2:
I organize my desk and grab a stack of folders to take home. When I put them into my bag I see the book once again. Throughout the day’s busy work I had forgotten that it was there. I pull the book out and sling my purse over my shoulder. The bus is just pulling up to the stop as I leave the building. I get on and take the third seat back. There is still daylight so I decide to investigate the book a little more.
The book has no title or author. I flip through blank pages until I reach a page with words. The words read “10”. The whole way home I read this chapter. It tells of a small girl whose mother has just died. Left in the custody of her drunken father she becomes beaten and abused. As I read, my hands begin to shake and my throat closes as the tears well up in my eyes. Many would cry at the thought of a child being treated this way but for me it struck closer feelings. Almost exact memories begin to resurface in my brain. I decide to give the book a break as the lights have now faded and reading is difficult.

CHAPTER 3:
Climbing into bed the book again comes to mind. I pull the book from my bag and open to the next chapter. “14” This chapter tells of christmas morning. The girl- now a teenager- expects to receive nothing but her father’s usual hatred and abuse under the tree, instead she finds him on the couch, drink in hand, dead. She doesn’t think to call the police. She instead climbs the stairs, packs up her things and walks past her father's body and out the door. I slowly drop the book. This isn’t just a book. This isn’t just a character. This child is me.
Things the girl has done and chosen are things that only myself knew I had done. I pick the book back up and feather through the pages. Chapter after chapter, year after year, this book is every chilling event of my life. Setting the book down i decide to sleep.
Sleep was broken and short lived that night. The book was all that filled my mind. What else was in it? What else did it tell? 23 years of secrets and truth all compiled into a book found of the seat of a city bus.

CHAPTER 4:
As I wake up groggy from lack of sleep I shuffle to the kitchen to make coffee. Skipping the newspaper I choose the book to read this morning instead. The more I read the more I remember. Things even I didn’t know about are exposed within the pages. My mother’s affair before her death and that my father’s own death wasn’t as accidental as I had thought. I was glued to this novel like it was just another story. Yet it wasn’t, this was me, this was my story.
I read most of the book throughout the morning. Sitting still for hours not realizing how much time had truly passed. As I near the last few chapters I see a date under the chapter titled “23”. The date reads 9/24/16. Today. I realize what this means. Events that over the course of days that haven’t even happened yet are held within this book. The biggest question has entered my mind. How does it end? Does it tell me how it all ends?

CHAPTER 5:
Weeks pass and I have been able to keep my distance from the book. Busying myself with extra paperwork from my job has seemed to do the trick but just because my hands aren’t on the pages doesn’t mean my mind isn’t. I constantly think about the book and what it holds. Where it came from, who wrote it, why and how they know me and my story. How things that haven’t yet happened can be written.
Standing in the kitchen, making myself dinner, my mind once again fades back to the story. I’ve finally made my decision. I’m going to finish the book. I walk to my bedroom and open the bottom drawer of my nightstand where I had buried the book. I open to the marked page of chapter “23”. I sit down and begin to read...