Patsy's Room; after dinner
Patsy grabbed a quick dinner, all alone, and walked back to her room. She spied her journal lying on the ground, and thought about how infrequently she wrote in it, as compared to when she was younger. She flipped through the pages, looking at the little girl's handwriting that never seemed to age. Patsy supposed that not having attended school after the age of 10 had an affect on that. Patsy pulled it off the drawer and laid back on her bed, and wrote.
Dear Journal,
People keep coming back to the Mall. Ryan a few days ago, and today Alice and Luke. I haven't seen Alice yet, but I'm so happy she's back. And can you believe it? Luke! I can't believe he'd show his face here. But Amber and Cloe say he's a Mall Rat now. I have a really hard time imagining that. But Cloe wouldn't lie to me. And Amber's one of our new leaders, she wouldn't lie.
But I guess I'm glad people keep coming back. Especially Ryan. He's like a dad to me. And it looks like him and Salene are happy, and that makes me happy. And if all these people keep coming home, people we thought were lost and gone forever, I think that maybe Paul might come home.
Am I silly for still thinking that? I hope not. Paul's the only thing I had that still tied me to the old world, the old world with my mom and dad and school. But that world seems so distant now, so faint. Almost like it never existed. I'm ashamed of myself that at this point Cloe feels more like family than Paul. Is that bad? Should I just forget about him? I'm sure he's dead. He must be. It was so hard for him to talk, and how many kids speak sign? Just me. It was just me, at the end, when he lived with me at the mall.
Patsy sighed and almost stopped writing, but added one more part.
I guess hope is all we have in this world. That maybe someday lost loved ones will come walking in that door. Even bad people get to be alive and come back. It seems that everyone else's lost family is coming home. Why isn't mine?
Patsy put her journal down and lay back on the bed, watching the shadows on the ceiling.