My Stepbrother, My Enemy {BL}-Chapter 70: Fragments Of A Broken Soul

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I brought the journal back to my room, even though I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was crossing an invisible line. My hands were a bit unsteady as I shut the door and sat cross-legged on the bed, the old leather book sitting on my lap like something sacred. The smell of old paper filled the air with a hint of floral, like long-gone lavender. I hesitated for a moment before slowly flipping through the pages again, this time taking my time, letting my eyes trace the delicate handwriting that seemed to overflow with emotion in every sentence.

Joanne Fell.

Adrien’s mother.

She’d written about her first year of marriage to Keith... how there was no love, how it wasn’t a romantic union but rather a decision driven by her father’s wishes. I could almost hear her voice in my mind, tired and resigned, each word a whisper from someone caught in a life she hadn’t chosen. She described Keith as "kind but distant," the sort of man who did what he was supposed to, and not much else. They barely exchanged words unless it was absolutely needed.

"He doesn’t hurt me," one entry read, "but his silence does."

As I continued reading, a tightness grew in my throat. There was something so painfully familiar in her feelings of loneliness, being surrounded by people yet feeling invisible.

A few years down the line, the tone of her writing shifted. Her father’s death had completely shattered her. You could feel the grief seeping through every line with short, frantic sentences and ink smudges that looked like they could’ve been tears. She wrote about losing interest in everything, how the walls of the house felt like they were closing in on her, and how Keith just didn’t get it.

"Everyone tells me to get help," she scribbled in shaky handwriting. "They think I can be fixed if I just talk to someone. But I don’t want to be fixed. I want to feel safe again."

I moved my fingers over the next page the tone turned softer. She mentioned Adrien. A lot, actually. Page after page, he popped up like a light cutting through the darkness.

"Adrien laughed today. It’s the first time I’ve laughed in weeks."

"He looks so much like me, people say. I hope he doesn’t inherit my sadness."

Each mention of him made my heart ache. She loved him so fiercely, it was clear. There was this desperate tenderness in her words, almost like she was holding on to him to remind herself that life still had meaning.

Then came the part that broke me a little an entry from the year Adrien had turned eight.

"I think I scared him today. I cried so hard I couldn’t breathe, and he just stood there, frozen. My sweet boy didn’t know what to do. I need to get help. For him."

I paused, closing the journal for a moment and pressing it against my chest. My heart felt heavy, like I had just read someone’s soul exposed. I could almost picture it, a younger Adrien, watching his mother fall apart, too young to grasp what was happening but old enough to remember the fear.

I let out a slow breath, murmuring into the quiet room, "God... you must’ve loved him so much."

As I reopened the journal and turned to another page, I noticed the same loose note that had slipped out earlier... the one for Adrien. I set it aside for now, my gaze lingering on those last entries. Her handwriting had changed; it was messier and more uneven. The last thing she wrote before the pages ended was simply:

"I just want peace."

That was it. No date, no signature. Just three small words that somehow said everything.

I sat there for a long time, staring at that final page until my vision blurred with unshed tears. The journal felt heavier, more than just a collection of words, it was a piece of a woman’s pain, of Adrien’s past, of something that maybe wasn’t as straightforward as people thought.

And even though I wanted to put it back where I found it, I couldn’t. Not yet. Something deep inside me told me this mattered and that Joanne’s story wasn’t over, and somehow, I was meant to find it.

But I didn’t know why.

As I flipped further through the journal, the entries took on a different tone. The warmth that had once radiated from Joanne’s words, the way she’d written about Adrien with such fierce love... seemed to be fading. The handwriting remained beautiful and elegant, but there was a weariness woven into every word, a slow dimming of light.

"Adrien’s growing so fast," one entry began, dated around his early teens. "He’s hardly home anymore. Always with his friends, always somewhere else. He still kisses my cheek when he leaves, but it’s quick now, distracted. I know this is normal, kids grow up, they drift away — but I can’t shake the feeling that the house gets quieter every time he walks out the door."

I ran my finger along the edge of the page, feeling an ache in my chest that wasn’t entirely mine. I could see it so clearly... a woman standing in the doorway, watching her teenage son leave with his friends, forcing a smile for him while breaking a little more inside every time he didn’t look back.

Her next entries became shorter, more fragmented. Sometimes there were days or even weeks between them.

"Keith has been away for almost a month now. Business, as always. He says he’ll be back by Sunday, but he said that two Sundays ago too."

I frowned, following the faint indentations of her pen. It wasn’t just sadness filling these pages anymore — it was isolation, a quiet kind of desperation.

She’d written about how Adrien still cooked sometimes, but not together with her.

"He made dinner last night. He’s getting so good. I wanted to help, but he said I should rest. My own son telling me to rest... like I’m some fragile thing."

I could almost hear a bitter little laugh behind those words, not resentment aimed at Adrien, but frustration at how life had shifted without her permission.

The next entry was smudged, but I could make out most of it.

"The house feels too big for just me. I walk through it and feel like a ghost. Keith doesn’t call anymore unless it’s about money or something that needs my signature. Adrien’s busy being a kid, and I’m just... here. I used to matter. I used to feel like I had a purpose. Now I don’t know what I am, other than the woman with her father’s money and her husband’s last name."

A lump formed in my throat as I read the last line of that entry.

"I miss my son. I miss being needed."

I closed the journal for a moment, staring at the cover as if it might somehow explain the swirling emotions in my chest. I’d never met Joanne, but I felt her through these pages... her fatigue, her yearning, that nagging emptiness that comes when life keeps moving, leaving you behind.

I imagined Adrien then, probably eleven or twelve, laughing with his friends, unaware of how much his mother longed for him to be around. He wouldn’t have understood then, not the way she felt. No child ever does.

I flipped the journal open again and found one last entry in that section, one that twisted my heart painfully.

"Maybe this is what happens when you love too deeply. You pour yourself into people until there’s nothing left for you. And when they move on, you realize you’ve forgotten how to exist without them."

The ink on that line had bled into the paper, as if she’d held the pen too long, or maybe she’d cried over it.

I took a shaky breath, closing the journal again and setting it beside me. I couldn’t shake the thought of how lonely she must have felt, surrounded by a husband who didn’t love her, haunted by her father’s absence, and losing the boy who once gave her reason to keep pushing forward.

I whispered softly to myself, "No wonder Adrien doesn’t like talking about her."

Because maybe deep down, he knew too. Maybe he’d seen the sadness in her eyes before she was gone and perhaps that guilt never really left him.