Dear Journal,

I’m really sorry that it’s not tomorrow. It’s actually been close to a week, but I was trying to figure out how I wanted to write this. Part of me didn’t want to write this, but you know, it’s like, you’ve heard everything else about my life, and doesn’t it seem to be ridiculous for me to start lying to you now? I finally found a spot that I know my mom won’t read you, and I worked hard to make sure I had not one, but two pens that I took from various places in the power plant, and if I’m going to start lying to you now, what’s the fucking point?

But I also don’t really want to say it, because that makes everything too real, you know?

So, that morning, we got up from the dirt and packed everything up, excited to actually be home. Well, maybe not excited - frankly, my mom was still super pissed with me, and I knew that as soon as we got back to the coffee shop, she was probably going to yell at me until her voice gave out, so I wasn’t particularly excited about that part. But I was going to be happy to be back at the coffee shop and off the road. The ash from the air always left a distinct taste in the air, and I couldn’t help but think about how that was just the remnant of my past life, mixed with a bunch of people I’d probably never let. It really pretty depressing, not gonna lie.

But when we got close enough to the coffee shop that we could see the door, my mom stopped and held up a hand so we would all stop, too. The door to the coffee shop was open, and not in the wide open way that we sometimes propped it open so that we could actually get some fresh air into the coffee shop so that it didn’t smell like someone mixed an espresso with pure sweat. The door was open just a little bit, like someone had gone out and forgotten to close the door behind them.

I was immediately confused, because I didn’t think either Mr. Williams or Hattie would leave the coffee shop, although it was possible - if the rest of us were gone and they needed something, maybe they’d gone out. But even if they needed something, they’d never gone out to scavenge, so they wouldn’t know where to find anything. But I thought maybe they’d just cracked the door open to get a little air, but were sitting right by it in case they had to close it or something.

My mom told Jared, Bryce, and I to wait there while she and Ben went to go check it out, which I thought was pretty ridiculous because if there was something happening, there was no way we’d be able to help with it. But my mom’s face honestly looked kind of desperate, so I didn’t argue with her, and instead we all just watched her as she and Ben went to the coffee shop.

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What I was kind of expecting was for her to wave us over and explain what had happened. What I wasn’t expecting was for her to fall to her knees on the ground. I just about ran to her then, because there was nothing in the world that would make my mom react like that, but Jared grabbed onto my shirt just as I took my first step, and something about his face made me stop.

Anyway, after what felt like forever, Ben came back to us and told us that Mr. Williams and Hattie were both dead. I didn’t believe it at first, but his face was so serious that I knew he was telling the truth. Jared asked what had happened, and Ben said that he didn’t know, but it looked like they’d been in a fight, and that was all he’d tell us. But, he said, we weren’t going to be staying in the coffee shop for the time being at least, which was great, because while I’d gotten used to the bodies on the street, I didn’t think I could be around people who had just died. Especially if they were people that I knew.

To be honest, journal, I still don’t get it. I don’t get how they died, or why they died, and I think about it every day. They were so sweet and old and they would have never done anything to hurt anyone, and yet someone had hurt them! It was so god damned horrible and pointless.

Jared, Bryce, and I sat on the ground right by where my mom had originally asked us to stop and waited for Ben and my mom as they went back into the coffee shop again and again. I wasn’t entirely sure what they were doing - maybe packing up, or maybe hiding the bodies, or maybe both. At one point, my mom came back and asked us all to look the other way for a while, and if I had to guess, I’d say that she and Ben were removing Mr. Williams and Hattie from the coffee shop so they wouldn’t have to look at them anymore. That felt kind of unfair to me, too - that their bodies would just be buried in a random spot just because they’d been killed, but I guess you could say the same about almost everyone else in the world.

Eventually, my mom and Ben came back to the group, each hauling several coffee bags full of stuff. Two of the bags were just coffee, and I knew we had way more than that, but we were probably going to have had trouble carrying everything as it was. Plus, I’m sure my mom wanted to eventually go back to the coffee shop, even if I really didn’t want to ever go back now. It was one thing to not have running water, but it was an entirely different thing to be the place where two of my friends were killed.

We headed back to the power plant, and when we got there the next day, Hansen came down, and mom explained the whole thing to him. He looked super sad at the news that Mr. Williams and Hattie were gone even though he’d only gotten to meet them very briefly, and he said that of course we could have a place to stay at the power plant. There were still two bedrooms left, so my mom and Ben took those, and the rest of us claimed couches in the living area. I don’t think any of us slept that night, though, and we definitely hadn’t slept at all when we were on our way back there. There’s something about finding two people dead that just changes a person, I guess.

In all honesty, that was pretty much exactly what I wanted to happen, but I didn’t want it to happen this way, and I feel guilty for ever having thought about it before. While it’s been nice to stay here, it definitely wasn’t worth it.

Love,

Kayla