Dear Journal,

My mom didn’t show up any time during the night, which was frankly a miracle. Even more of a miracle is that she still hasn’t showed up, which is honestly kind of surprising considering it’s the midafternoon. Maybe something happened that made it so her journey would take a long time or something.

God, I hope she wasn’t trying to catch up in the night and fell and tripped and broke a bone. I’d feel awful. But there’s no way that my mom’s stupid enough to do that. Maybe, then, she decided to just let me go?

I can’t imagine my mom doing that either. Whatever, worrying about it won’t solve anything, I guess.

I woke up to the 8 AM power plant alarm, which still felt super early, but was honestly not that bad compared to the 4 AM alarm. I’d heard that one and rolled right back over, and Jared must have done the same thing, because as soon as I’d grabbed some fresh clothes that Hansen had given me to put on, I walked out into the hall and met a ruffled Jared who still looked like he was mostly asleep. Not that I could blame him after everything that’s been going on recently - I feel like I could sleep for a few days in a row and still be tired.

So we went down to the kitchen to try to find anything for breakfast that wasn’t the same muffins that we’d been eating for forever now, and when we got there, both Hansen and his dad were seated at one of the tables, and they had even made breakfast for the two of us! Granted, they must have made it a while ago because the eggs were pretty cold by the time we ate them, but even cold eggs were better than the same thing I’d been eating forever, you know?

So I sat by Hansen and Jared sat by Rex, which he didn’t look too happy about, but I wasn’t going to give up my chance to sit by Hansen, so Jared would have to deal. But it’s not like it really would have mattered or anything anyway, because I didn’t really get much of a chance to talk to Hansen at all because his dad wanted to talk to us. He wanted to know why we were there, and I told him pretty much the same thing that I told Hansen last night, so he just asked what my mom was doing that made her a psycho bitch. I told him that she wasn’t really letting us out of the coffee shop anymore and didn’t even want us to come here for showers, and I swear his eyebrows just about hit his hairline, which was surprising to me because in the past, I’ve only ever had adults stick together and try to tell me that they were just trying to help me. Which is kind of funny, because this time, I was the one who was pretty sure my mom was trying to help me in some weird way, and the other adult in question wasn’t buying it.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

But Rex said we could stay there as long as we wanted, and he would deal with my mom when she eventually came to get us. I asked him how he planned to deal with her, and he said that he just wanted to have a little chat, which really made sense. Maybe adult to adult, he could get her to see reason.

But then Rex said that he hoped that, even if my mom started to see reason, that we would be willing to stay at the power plant anyway. He said he really didn’t mind if we were elsewhere, but if everyone was at the power plant, it would make it a lot easier to work together.

And then he started talking about how he had this long term plan of trying to get together everyone who had survived the bombings so that we could try to rebuild society, but I wasn’t really paying any attention to him anymore. Not that I didn’t want him to be able to rebuild society, of course - I don’t know if there is anything I want more. But even if he gathered everyone and built a bunch of buildings or whatever, it wouldn’t be the same. We wouldn’t have enough kids to have a high school, and there wouldn’t be enough stuff to probably have even a single store, much less huge shopping districts like there used to be. Plus, he didn’t seem like the type who would be super invested in something like making sure I could get access to important things like hair dye or makeup again. If anything, we would rebuild and we’d go back to like the Little House on the Prairie days, which was fine, but it’s not like it was actually something that I was aspiring to or something.

So instead of listening to him, I just nodded along and focused on how good the eggs tasted. I know I just had some the other day, but it was like eating something from a fancy French bakery that you can only go to a couple of time a year or something.Hansen’s eyes kept flicking between his dad and I, which I thought was super cute - like he couldn’t believe I would actually agree with his dad on anything. I guess we all think our parents are the lamest people around. But I’ll have to explain to him what was actually happening the next time I see him. He probably hasn’t had any breakfast other than eggs for a while, so I’m sure he’d understand why I was so distracted by them.

But anyway, after breakfast, Rex and Hansen said they had to go do something, and Jared seemed kind of pissed at me, probably because I didn’t want to just run back to the coffee shop immediately like he’d suggested last night, so he went off somewhere else, and I just took a moment to chill on one of the couches. I’m sure there was more I could be doing, and if I was going to be staying here, I was sure I would have to learn their sorts of chores and help out just like I have to do at home. But for now, while I wait to see if Rex manages to win over my mom and keep her from dragging me back. Which, frankly, I kind of doubt. He may be a really strong guy, but he’s never dealt with my mom when she’s in a bad mood. She doesn’t lose.

I might go walk around the power plant and see if I can find a new pen for you, journal. I can tell the one I have is starting to run out because the ink is getting a little splotchy, and if I end up having to go back to the coffee shop, I’m pretty sure my mom isn’t going to let me out of her sight for years to come. It might be my last chance for that sort of supply, which I’m sure they’ll understand.

Love,

Kayla