Day Thirteen

Day Thirteen

Dear Me—

I would like not to be here.

I'm not sure I have anything positive to say today.

I'm up and down, like a plastic bag in an unpredictable wind. Empty, blowing no particular way.

I'm worried about Holly.

But I don't think it's right to just come out and ask someone, what was done to you?

Because I think I know.

And that's disgusting.

I don't understand the world. At all. How is she supposed to live like that?

If drugs are the only thing that make her feel better, why do people keep trying to take them away?

Why doesn't the world have anything else to offer her but to live with her pain and suffering?

I did laps in the pool today for the first time. It felt comforting to be in the water and just hear the sound of the water and not all the sadness here, including my own.

Maybe I shouldn't have said my parents can't come.

But if they can't make time for me, why should I make time for them?

It seemed like the days were going by really quickly, but now it seems like they've slowed.

Now it seems like I'll never get out.

And what even will happen when I do?

I don't think a goddamn thing will be different for me.

Wait, there are two things.

There was a new kid today. I don't even remember his name because he just appeared and didn't say anything at breakfast, even when Gideon, who is now the kitchen manager since Lara has left, asked him if he wanted to introduce himself. He didn't.

He had bushy black hair and a thin mustache and he didn't eat much.

But he ran.

Right after breakfast.

You'd think he would have done it on the Chuck run, but maybe he didn't because Chuck would have caught him. Probably.

We were in the goat and chicken pen and I was fussing over Binky (I've finally learned one goat's name) and this kid…just shot past us. Running like the wind.

Into nowhere. Into nothing.

And here's the second thing.

When someone runs, this extremely loud alarm goes off and everyone has to dive flat on the ground wherever they are and wait until staff come by to count you and escort you to your room and you have to wait in your room until they decide to let you out.

So today I learned that even if you're in an animal pen, which hasn't been properly cleaned yet because Billy is really a slacker, you have to lie flat in very close proximity to shit for an ungodly and unfair period of time.

Kind of like the real world.

—me