2 days before: I chat with Carson on the phone. He keeps saying that his art project isn’t going well and that it’s due tomorrow. It’s only right to ask me, even though I am a freshman I had my art featured in art shows that I was too bored of to go to. I tell him to try to take more inspiration from nature. He says he doesn’t have a backyard or anywhere to take nature from, so he asks to see mine. I look out the window at my dead trees and bushes, weeds that people would pay good money for. I sigh and say to look up inspiration instead. I hang up and add to my journal that I need to tend to my garden

1 day before: Carson came to school looking tired. He stayed up all night and still couldn’t finish his project. Poor guy. Everyone presented and when it got to him, the teacher skipped him and gave him an extra day. Guessing he didn’t get full credit for it. Other than that though, he was still himself, yelling loud absurdities during lunch and still being his happy go lucky depressed self. I need to tell Kayla his Roblox username. Her new account needs friends and she’s probably going to forget it. I write a reminder in my journal

Day of: Carson is at school today. He brought snacks for me and Harry. Mini candy eggs. I save them for lunch and Harry and Carson eat them at once. Later on we have biology. That’s when trouble happens. pop pop pop Keeps echoing around the room. The teacher traces the noise back to Carson. He made some paper popper and is distracted from working. “That’s it young lady, go outside. I’ll fetch you when I feel your going to do better” the teacher said with a frown. Yikes. Not only is he going outside, but the teacher still doesn’t know he’s a guy. I sneak him my journal so he could do origami with the pages to pass the time. That was the last time I say him that day. At the end of class he wasn’t outside anymore. We gathered his stuff and left it at his spot on the table and walked away. What else were we supposed to do? After art, we go back to the biology classroom for advisory. His stuff is still there. Even his phone and pencil case. Where could he have gone?

Day after: the police are at school. They aren’t doing much, just calling students to talk to them. Carson isn’t at school. I’m guessing the police are here because of that. Eventually I get called over. They ask me general questions, when did I see him last and such. I play with a paper swan he made me. It wasn’t a crane, but I liked it. The police took my fidgeting as though I were hiding something (because this school totally isn’t for kids who fidget and need help a lot). I get asked question after question until they sigh and I am free to go to class. After school I go in the yard with my dog. It’s looking much better outside my window. No where else, just outside my window. The grass there is green and the tree is sprouting fruit – that was a fruit tree? – and the ground is cold yet warm. I dig my hand into the grass as though J were combing it. I lift my hands off of it and see ret splotches on my hand. It’s not hives or a rash, more like if someone spilled dye on the grass. But who would dye the grass?

2 days after: school was cancelled today. It’s been confirmed. Carson was kidnapped. Security footage showed that when Carson stepped outside someone came up to him – someone he apparently trusted – and put him in their car and drove off. Since school is cancelled and my parents didn’t plan anything, I decide to dig in the grass with the red splotches. I don’t have a shovel, but I have a dog and two hands of my own. It wasn’t long before I saw a hand and coupled on it. There he was, Carson, tied up with maggots already feasting on him, covered in slices and stabs that stained his white shirt brown. Next to him I find my journal of reminders, a crease in the page about my garden, and a tear in my heart as I read a final note in my mother’s handwriting.