They’re in dark red and sloppily written, like the work of a hateful vandal with no artistic talent. A demonic four-year-old who did an art project in someone else’s house. An art project in blood. It came from a deep valve in the body that never should have been touched in the first place. It’s sticky. Wiggly. Done, most likely, in the blood of some unassuming person.

I’m not breathing. My head is dizzy.

“What . . . the . . . fuck?” Benji is confused too.

“You see it too?”

This is not some dead object bleeding into my reality—this writing is really here. Someone wrote their initials in blood in my house. And they meant for us to find it.

Sawyer

October 14

DIARY,

My sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssister drives me nuts!!!!!!!!!

Ican’tfuckingbreathe. I just broke our coffee table. Turned it over in the living room, threw it right into the TV stand, made a giant cracking noise. The glass cracked right down the middle. I peeled Momma’s books off that brown bookshelf and let them loose behind me.

She screamed my name and ran desperately from the kitchen.

I snatched a candleholder off the mantel and threw it at the wall, so it stuck there, in a dent of crumbling plaster.

Momma blocked my path as I went for the other one, screeching at me to stop.

Annie came running in the house, screaming too. “What the hell is wrong with you, Sawyer?”

I was making no noise, but I was the crazy one? Tell me how that is possible. They always say, “Come inside, Sawyer!” Like there’s a point to being indoors. Now they will see why I don’t like to be inside.

Momma hugged the vase close to her chest and turned on Annie, rightfully angry at her. “What did you DO to him?” Her voice was full of tears.

“Sawyer had dead bugs in the shed, Momma!” Annie was hysterical too, real riled up. “He tortured them to death and was just keeping them prisoner out there in old jelly jars.”

My bug collection had grown exponentially. Cicadas, crickets, moths, dragonflies, butterflies, and beetles stuffed in empty jelly jars lining the walls, like potpourri, living and dead.

I escaped down the hallway to my room, letting my sister’s nasal voice fade behind me. I want that voice to fade forever.

“What’s that got to do with you, Annie?” Momma cried, pleading. “What’s that got to do with you?”

I slammed my door, locked it, and screamed into the carpet. My room has one window, and a bed and a closet. A place to sleep, a place to hide, a place to escape.

Annie took my jars to the creek and tossed them all in. She threw out my experiments, just to destroy the one thing that brought me joy.

And they wonder why I don’t want to be here. Why I don’t want to live anymore.