Journal Entry #1:
She went missing out of nowhere. It’s been a week and nobody has been able to find her yet. This isn’t like her. She’s not the kind of person to just leave and not tell anyone where she’s going. No one could even find a note. Nothing seemed very wrong with her. For the most part, she was a happy girl with not many problems. At least not big problems that would cause her to leave like this. I’m hoping that is what happened and it wasn’t something like a kidnapping. I don’t even know where she would go. And why didn’t she tell me anything? I thought we were friends. We talked a lot about all the different things in our lives. This makes me think she didn’t leave willingly.
Everyone in the town is counting on me to solve the mystery as I seem to be the closest person to her here. She has no other family in town or in the area that I know of. Tomorrow morning I will go to her house to look for clues. The police have already been there but weren’t able to find anything. Knowing her well, I assume I’ll be able to help them or find something myself.
As I write in my journal I realize no one really seems to care about her disappearance as much as I do. The community in the town only looked for a few hours and then decided to give up. I tried to get them to go back out and help me but they all went back to whatever seemed more important to them. I would have helped them. And I know they would want people to help them if they were in the same situation.
I need to prepare myself for tomorrow. I’m not sure what could happen. It’s very dark outside and I should probably go to sleep soon. Once again I am very thankful for this journal which has helped me so much to remember and reflect on my life. As I flip through the pages I see so many entries about me and her. For a second I forget about what is going on but I quickly snap back to reality. It would be so upsetting if I never get to write about another fond memory with her.
Journal Entry #2:
I just got back from her house. It looks like how it always did. I will try to describe everything I did and saw to the best of my ability. She’s very organized and put together and that can be seen throughout her home. Plus she doesn’t live with anyone which definitely helps it to stay so tidy. I walked in, expecting her to greet me at the entrance. But there was just silence. She never locked her front door. That was normal for the area. Everyone felt safe and we barely had any problems. You could say that the police were often bored. Yet now there was a real problem and they weren’t doing anything. I couldn’t understand it. After entering the house, I went to the kitchen first. Nothing seemed different. Next, I went to her bedroom. All her clothes were still there. Or at least it looked like it. I opened the dresser drawers and containers she had around her room. Nothing seemed weird or suspicious. I went over to the window and pushed the curtains aside. Looking through the window I saw that her car was still there in the driveway. I could tell it hadn’t been used in a while. There were leaves and nature covering it. I looked down the street. It was very quiet outside. No one seemed to be out walking or in their backyard.
The last place I went to check was the basement. It was where her office was and where she kept a lot of things in storage. The office door was closed. I nervously and slowly opened it. I looked into the room. Everything seemed the same. I walked into the middle of the room and looked around trying to decide where I would start my search for clues. There were so many file cabinets and shelves to go through. Almost every part of every surface was covered. There was a cork board on the wall near the desk. It had pictures of a lot of the places she had traveled to. Or at least that’s what I thought. Maybe she was on her way to these places. I took the pushpins out of the photos and put the pictures in my pocket. This was where I was going to start. I shut the office door, left the house, and went home.
Journal Entry #3:
Two weeks later
It’s been a while since I’ve written in here. I have been so busy and have had no time for writing as much as I wanted to. But I feel the need to update this journal. I couldn’t identify the places by myself even after attempting various types of research. I ended up showing them to a friend I knew in another town who travels a lot. He was able to recognize some of the places and told me they weren’t too far away. I got directions off the internet and drove to what would be my first of many stops.
The drive seemed really long but maybe that was because I was so scared of what I was possibly going to find. From the picture, the first place seemed to be a small town. Pulling up in the car, that’s exactly what I saw. It was quiet and maybe even smaller than the town we lived in. I got out of the car and looked around. I remember feeling really cold yet the weather wasn’t much different from where I had come from. I had printed a picture of my friend to show people and ask if they had seen her. The first few people I asked had not seen her and proceeded to walk away quickly. No one offered to help me in my search even though they could tell I was from out of town. I just got strange glances and I felt very unwelcomed. I wondered if these people were hiding anything. Yet the town was so small I’m sure everyone knew everything that was going on. The people who talked basically all had the same story of the past few months. They said no new people had come to town or at least any that they noticed. I thanked the people who were willing to talk and eventually got back into my car to drive home.
I was so frustrated at everything. Every minute I was getting more and more worried. I couldn’t be the only person who cared yet it felt like I was. I didn’t want to stop looking so I ended up spending the next few days driving across the state feeling very determined. I had the list of all the addresses my friend could identify with me so I went from place to place. Each town had a similar answer. No one had seen her. I decided it would be best if I went back home and maybe she’d be there. I was losing all my hope and felt like I may just need to give up. I didn’t want to give up. Even with all the places I had been to, my investigation was going nowhere.
So I returned home, not realizing how far I had actually gone. I had been sleeping in the back row of my car and I was exhausted. I ended up sleeping for almost a whole day. I would’ve kept sleeping but there was a loud knock on my front door. I went downstairs and looked through the peephole. No one was there. I stepped outside and looked around. I didn’t see anyone. It was really strange. And then I wondered if it was her. It seemed very unlikely. Maybe I was going crazy from all the driving.
For the next few days, I went back to my normal routine, hoping she would appear without me having to do anything else. Nothing happened.
Journal Entry #4:
One month later
I stopped journaling. It was becoming too hard to write about anything and I didn’t feel like I had anything good or exciting to write about. But here I am starting it up again. I wanted to make sure I was keeping track of the story of my missing friend as painful as it is to write about.
After about two weeks I started to fear for the worst. I was eventually able to get in contact with her family from out of town and they came to help me. They agreed with me that this was very unlike her and told me they had no contact with her either. In a way, I was kind of happy because I finally had people who wanted to help me and also cared about her. I told them everything I had done so far and they thanked me many times. We all stayed in her house and I felt guilty about messing up how perfect it looked.
The first night staying at the house together was strange for many reasons. We all just sat there in silence, not knowing what to talk about and not wanting to talk about the current situation. Then it happened again. A knock on the door but no one was there. I told the family how I thought that had happened to me a few weeks ago. We ignored it and went to sleep. But maybe that wasn’t the best idea.
The next morning we made a plan. We would go through the house again in case we missed anything. I went through her personal belongings and felt bad about it even though I thought I was trying to help her. The whole day was spent basically tearing the house apart and making a mess. Later, I made sure I went to the office to put the pictures back up hopefully close to where they originally were. The day ended with us sharing the things we had found and wondering if it could have any connection to the disappearance. We had several ideas of what to do next but we weren’t sure if they really made sense. Some seemed hard to accomplish especially with such a little team and so few resources.
Journal Entry #5:
Last night ended with us making plans for our next move but now we don’t them. Although I’m less relieved than I thought I would be. She didn’t come back but we heard from her which is a great start. We can figure out how to find her location on the phone. She called her home phone and we all scrambled for it. No one had called the house in a while. She asked to talk to only me. I was so surprised. Before I could even say anything she told me not to tell anyone about our conversation. I tried to argue with her but she wouldn’t listen. So I think I’m being a good friend and listening to her request. I thought maybe it would make her come back. I didn’t ask questions even though I wanted to. I just listened to her speak and enjoyed hearing her voice again. Finally, she told me to tell her family that she was fine and there was no need to worry about her. I told them what she said and as much as it hurt it keep the truth from them I did it. I don’t truly know why I did. They became angry with me and ended up leaving. I was the only person who knew the truth.
Journal Entry #6:
Several years later
She never came back and I never told anyone no matter how much they pressured me. I knew what I was doing was wrong and it started to hurt keeping this secret. I thought about how I was probably doing more damage than good. She was my friend and I knew where she was but didn’t do anything about it. I can still remember how she sounded in the last conversation we had several years ago. She sounded normal to me. I was also mad at myself for being so quiet and not asking her any questions. I still keep going back and forth trying to figure out if that was the right thing to do. Maybe one day I will send her this journal. So she sees that someone did try to look for her and thought almost constantly about her. Although I think she told me the full story, her mystery is always in the back of my mind. She hasn’t called since.