Dear Journal,

Sorry that it’s been a while again! But really, nothing too exciting has been happening for the last week or so. My mom and Ben have been sleeping in the room with me, and then bringing me to breakfast before dropping me off with Garrett. Rex has been down for breakfast every morning, but he hasn’t even been talking to me anymore, which I think is kind of both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it seems like he was getting to super creeper levels, and now he’s back down to just being there. On the other hand, if he’s not talking to me, I don’t really know where he’s at on the creeper scale, you know?

But today was probably the most significant because when my mom dropped me off with Garrett, he grabbed her arm before she could leave, and he told her that there was a plan to run. My mom nodded at him and told him that they would have to talk privately later, and asked if they could go for a stroll toward the end of the night, and Garrett agreed.

But as soon as my mom was gone, I asked Garrett what he meant by a plan to run, and he was like “if we wanted you to know, wouldn’t I have fucking invited you” and I was like “you’re not going to leave me here while you guys run, are you?” And he told me to stop being stupid.

Because of that, I didn’t talk to him that much that day, even though I had promised my mom that I would stay with Garrett, so we just had a super awkward day of like not talking at all while standing out in the cold. I had started to wonder if winter wasn’t going to be a thing anymore because it’d been so warm for so long, but when winter actually hit, it hit hard. Still no snow, though, and it’d hardly rained at all since the bombs dropped. I don’t know if all of the fire messed up the water cycle or what. But anyway, it’s not like any of us had winter coats with us at the start of the apocalypse or anything, so we were kind of out of luck on that front. Rex said he had gone out to try to scavenge some at one point (which I only knew because after he dropped the whole partnering idea in full, I’d been trying to pay more attention to what he’d actually say, which was hard because so much of it was boring adult garbage), but it’s not like the stores had been carrying it yet, and while there was the occasional house that was still more or less standing, he either hadn’t looked there or they’d been too hidden away to find. So, I was stuck outside with like three throw blankets, which wasn’t the best option, but they kind of worked I guess.

I just wish I had known about this whole thing early enough to have been able to grab more of my clothes. Granted, if we had known about this early enough, I’m sure my mom would have taken the time to bring enough stuff into the coffee shop that we would have had an even better setup than the power plant, so having the jackets would have been a bit pointless. But if we ever get back to a normal society, I’m going to bring a backpack of clothes with me everywhere I go. It’s feeling more and more like that’s a really big if, though.

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Anyway, Garrett not wanting to tell me what was going on was pointless anyway, because as soon as my mom started to get ready to go meet him, I was like “you’re just going to leave me here to deal with Rex if he comes by?” And my mom was like “I’m not just leaving you here, Ben is here and he can deal with him,” and I was like “no offense Ben, but we all know my mom is the one that he’s really afraid of,” and luckily Ben just laughed and agreed.

So, my mom was like “fine, you can come with then, but you just have to be really careful to not tell Rex about anything that you hear,” and I was like “no problem, I’ve been trying not to talk to Rex at all in general anyway,” which he really fucking hates, which just makes me want to do it more. It’s crazy to me how fast he changed from being just a kind of weird old man to an absolute creep in like a few days. But my mom was like “okay, great,” and we went outside to meet Garrett, who was still at his post by the door.

He saw me and immediately was like “what the fuck is she doing here?” and my mom was like “she said she wouldn’t say anything,” and Garrett was like “yeah, but she said to Hansen that she wouldn’t say anything about Daniel either, and she went all of one day without doing that,” and my mom was like “yeah, but this time we’ll also be there to cut her off if she starts to talk about it.” I rolled my eyes, because that was like super dismissive of her - it’s not like I need a babysitter to make sure I don’t say anything! But whatever, it wasn’t the time to argue that fact because Garrett begrudgingly accepted it.

Anyway, mostly my mom and Garrett, with the occasional help of myself and Ben, made this whole plan about how we were all going to leave the power plant because they all thought that they weren’t safe living around Rex anymore. I agreed, but asked why it wasn’t possible to just like vote him out of power, and Garrett was like “what, are you stupid? I told you before that’s not how it works - this isn’t a democracy, it’s a power system. To get him to step down, you’d have to fight him, and none of us are strong enough for that.” I, personally, think some of the power plant workers might have been strong enough to beat him, but considering he’d beat up a power plant worker already, maybe not, but whatever.

So they discussed where we were going to go, and my mom said the coffee shop at first, but then they both dismissed it because they agreed that would be the first place Rex would check when we went missing. I also added that I didn’t want to go back, because if I had to spend my time there, I didn’t think I’d be able to ever sleep again. Garrett then mentioned a few of the houses that were still standing around here, and suggested that they’d at least be a good starting spot. After we got there, he or Hansen (who was apparently going to be coming with!) could make a run to go find the next place we could find shelter, and on and on until we were far enough away that we felt safe.

My mom agreed with that plan, but said if we were going to be traveling that much, it might mean that we’d have to pack more food and water and stuff because we’d be moving around a lot more, which would mean we’d be slower when we were actually moving. Plus, it meant that it might take a little longer to collect the things we needed, because if a ton of food all disappeared at once, then Rex might get suspicious. Garrett agreed, and said that we should all start smuggling things into our rooms as much as we could, and he’d see if he could go on additional scavenging missions so he could grab some extra supplies, too - if nothing else, we’d need some extra bags and such.

I feel like everyone left the meeting with something to do except for me. Maybe that’s why they didn’t want me to come to it in the first place. But I’m going to do my best to help, because I don’t want to look back at this and say that I didn’t do anything but run with them, you know?

I’ll figure out something to do tomorrow.

Love,

Kayla