11 Violating Something Private

All of the Logans tended to either jump around a lot while they spoke or get fixated on one thing and go on about it forever. Penelope was a bit less intense than her parents and Percy in that way but she could be absentminded at times when her focus was elsewhere.

Of course Roman would know this about her because he had grown up with her alternate self. It was actually a bit creepy how well he knew her considering that she didn't know him at all.

She hoped the journals would help but at best they were tiny snippets from someone else's perspective. Better than nothing but not the same as making those judgments herself through personal experience.

There wasn't a proper emoji for someone brattily sticking their tongue out so Penelope simply sent over a tongue emoji in response to his teasing. He should know what she meant since he was married to another version of her.

They ended up texting back and forth in the same teasing manner until Roman's break was over. He signed off with 'Gotta go. Love you!'

It was really weird replying with 'love you too' but she had to in order to appear consistent. They always ended their text conversations this way based on her brief scrolling upward in the conversation.

She hadn't done anything suspicious. They teased each other and used a lot of emojis over text so she had acted perfectly normal.

Good. Penelope would need to conduct a thorough investigation of this phone to see how the other her interacted with the people around her but that would have to wait. The journals beckoned.

She rinsed the pancake dish and fork, sticking them in the dishwasher before heading upstairs. She left off partway through the first of the fifteen-year-old diaries and had to flip through a bit to find her place.

There. She had accidently folded part of the page in on itself in her haste to put it away yesterday. That made things easier.

There were a lot of random things in there about school and friends and other high school drama. Roman showed up less frequently than before but he was still there.

He would have been in college at this point in time but he was obviously still living with his parents so the school had to be somewhere in L.A. Between studying, socializing, and commuting he probably didn't have a lot of time to hang out with a high schooler.

But he did make time. Roman always seemed to catch his Penelope when she was having a hard time, being sure to do something to cheer her up. He celebrated her successes with her as well, such as when her varsity volleyball team made it to regionals.

So they both played volleyball too. That was actually how she got her scholarship to USF. She was on the women's team up until she had to drop out of school, losing her scholarship in the process.

She didn't regret the time she got to spend with her dad but leaving her team disappointed had been a crushing blow. She had been really good friends with them too but they all saw her leaving as nothing less than a betrayal.

Penelope sighed. How different would her life have been if she had met someone like Roman?

Her parents were too busy to pay much attention to her volleyball career though they had been proud of her. Percy wasn't interested in any sort of sport. She had her teammates' support but it wasn't quite the same as having someone cheer for her in the stands.

Roman had attended his future wife's really big games. He must have really loved her, even back then. That only made her feel worse.

These diaries were like a small glimpse into the depth of his feelings for the woman he loved. She was violating something private in order to play her part better and not let anybody down.

Penelope already felt like she was letting Roman down by pretending at all. But she couldn't break a promise to Percy, even if it wasn't her Percy.

The distinction was confusing and made her head hurt. She returned to the journals.

'Dear Diary, I overheard something weird today. Roman and his best friend Harry were playing basketball in his front yard and Harry was talking about how it was a waste that someone as good-looking and popular as him refused to date anyone at school.

'Roman brushed him off by saying that nobody at school interested him and he replied something like 'don't tell me you're still hung up on that one girl.' Roman got really angry and told him to watch his mouth before chucking the ball at him and stomping inside.

'I wonder who they were talking about. For some reason it makes me feel anxious. Roman has never said anything about girls or dating before…I've never felt our age gap as much as I have today because he always treated me like an equal. But there's probably a lot I don't know about him and I don't like it.'

Ah, the shift in feelings was happening. Percy did say they started dating after they graduated high school. Penelope was curious how exactly that came about. She supposed she would find out if she kept reading.

Weird as it was reading about an alternate version of herself, it was also somewhat fulfilling. She never had any great love story in her life; the few boyfriends she'd had all ended up being bums.

In a twisted sort of way, this was actually kind of fun. She wanted to see how things ended up the way they were. It was like reading a prequel to something; even though you know what happens in the end, you aren't sure how it happened.

Penelope read a great but tragic book once that was like a backstory for the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. She rooted for the future evil queen escaping with the man she loved and having the life she wanted but obviously it didn't work out.

That book was actually pretty depressing. She owned every other book by that author because she liked rereading the others but couldn't bear to reread that one because it was too sad. The Queen of Hearts' emotions were too raw.

She was so close to achieving her dreams and had everything snatched away. In a strange way, Penelope could relate. She had such a promising future before her dad's terminal diagnosis.

What would her life have been like if she had managed to finish her degree? She wondered a million times in the past six years but it never did her any good.

Whatever life she might have had didn't exist. There was no point speculating about it; all that did was make her feel worse.