It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover

Maybe that’s why I feel more protective of Corrigan’s than I do over
Bib’s, because I created it from nothing. That might also be the reason I put
more effort into protecting it. Corrigan’s has a working security system and is
a hell of a lot harder to break into than Bib’s.
Which is why I chose to spend tonight at Bib’s, even though Corrigan’s is
due to be broken into if we’re going by the rotating schedule this kid has
developed. The first night was Bib’s, the second night was Corrigan’s, he
took a few days off, and then the third and fourth incidents were at Bib’s. I
may be wrong, but I have a feeling he’ll show up here again before going
back to Corrigan’s, simply because he’s had more success getting into the
less secure of the two places. I just hope tonight isn’t one of the nights he
decides not to show up.
He’ll definitely show up here if he’s hungry. Bib’s is his better bet for
food, which is why I’m hiding on the far side of the dumpster, waiting. I
pulled over one of the tattered chairs the smokers use on their breaks, and
I’ve been passing time by reading. Lily’s words have kept me company. A
little too well, because there have been several times I’ve been so engrossed
in this journal, I forget that I’m supposed to be on alert.
I don’t know for certain if the kid who has been vandalizing my
restaurants is the same kid who shares a mother with me, but the timing
makes sense. And the targeted insults that he’s been spray painting make
sense if they’re coming from a kid who despises me. I can’t think of anyone
else who would have a good reason to be angry with me more than a little
boy who feels abandoned by his older brother.
It’s almost two in the morning. I check the security app on my phone for
Corrigan’s, but there’s nothing new happening over there, either.
I go back to reading the journal, even though the last couple of entries
have been painful to read. I didn’t realize how much my leaving for Boston
impacted Lily when she was younger. In my mind at that age, I felt like an
inconvenience in her life. I had no idea how much she felt I brought to her
life. Reading the letters she wrote back then has been a lot more difficult than
I expected it to be. I thought it would be fun to read her thoughts, but when I
started reading them, I remembered how cruel our childhoods were to us. I
don’t think about it much anymore because I’m so far removed from the life I
lived back then, but I’m being thrown back into those moments from every
angle this week, it seems. The information in the journal entries, my mother,