“Why?!” Missy and I asked at the same time.
Dad turned to me, grabbed my elbow, and towed me to the couch. He sat me down, and let out a torrent of words that were hard to understand.
I don’t mean words like cranioectonomy or tergiversation or colloquialism, I mean words like ‘brother’ and ‘mother’ and ‘trouble’.
“This boy, Lucas. He’s your older brother, Lucy. Rachel, that woman I was talking to on the phone earlier, she’s your mother. The two of them live in London. Or they did, but Lucas is gone. You might not get this yet, but Lucas is… different. And I’ve got to go find him. I’m sorry, Lucy, I really am. I should have told you more a really long time ago, but it never seemed to matter at the time, and I’ve got to leave now, and…” he trailed off.
I didn’t stay after that, I stood up, turned on my heel, and walked away. Well more like ran. Did I mention that I can be really fast when I want to be?
Chapter Two: I Fail a Class in Family History
Dad was gone by the time I went back upstairs. I don’t remember saying anything to Missy during dinner.
Missy had decided that she would stay with me until Dad got back, but when would that be? Neither of us were sure.
With so much going on, I almost forgot to wonder what had happened to Lucas. Not that I really cared. If he had been kidnapped, well, they either got him back or they didn’t.
I wasn’t really in the position to hope they ever found him. One less long lost relative to worry about. I think that was when I started thinking in really short sentences.
I didn’t have the energy or the will to muster the long ones. There was just no reason to put it into mental words. I knew what I was thinking, and that was all that really mattered.
I don’t think I ever really fell asleep that night. Thirteen years of resentment had flooded my mind in less than an hour.
I hadn’t seen my mother since I was a few weeks old. She missed her son for a few hours and she sent police in two different continents looking for him? Didn’t she care about me at all?
And then there was Dad. He let me go out alone all the time. Chicago was like my personal playground. I always had my cell with me of course, and some extra change, but would he have gotten on a plane to come and look for me had I gotten lost in London?
Of course he would. That’s what I told myself. Every cell in my body told me it was true. Except for I knew that it never would have come to that. He wouldn’t have ever let me go to London by myself in the first place.
The next morning I got up earlier than I normally do on Christmas. I lay in bed and stared at the clock, willing the five to turn into a seven. Finally I stood up and went into the bathroom.
Mechanically, I brushed my teeth, and stared at my hair for a good ten minutes, noting the purple streak looked perfectly intact.
Miserable or not, my hair was cool.
I pulled a brush slowly through it, and warmed up my straightening iron. While it charged up, I went into my closet and bulled out a dark pair of jeans and another purple shirt that would match my hair and go well with my black converse.
I wiped on some makeup, being careful not to smear. Finally I was ready. Ready to face whatever the day held for me. I didn’t know why it seemed like today would be different, apart from now I knew the names of my other two family members and my father had gone to find my missing brother, who could apparently be any where in the world.
I mean, here’s my reasoning. Lucas was fifteen. If his mother… our mother had enough money to have police in two different continents looking for her son, they must have had enough dough to do just about anything. And I hadn’t gotten any of it.
So, when I went downstairs and threw myself on the couch, I didn’t expect the chair beside me to move. Well, the chair itself didn’t move, but the person in it did. I don’t know who I was expecting, but I’d sort of forgotten that Missy had spent the night.
I guess I just had a lot on the mind.
I must have jumped several feet in the air, because Missy said ‘Gosh, Lucy, didn’t mean to scare you. Couldn’t sleep?’
I shook my head.
“Me either,” She sighed, and reached for the remote, handing it to me. I switched the tv on, and scrolled through the channels. It was too early for anything good to be on, so I settled for the news. Maybe there would be something about Lucas, I smiled to myself, but not because I thought it was funny.
After about ten minutes of watching reruns of yesterday’s news, I stood up and went back upstairs.
With nothing better to do, I checked over my homework for each subject. It had all been easy, nothing hard at all. I sighed and stuffed it all in my purple backpack. I sharpened my pencils over and over again, trying to give myself something to do.
When I had finally convinced myself that there was nothing else that I could do to get myself ready for school, I looked back at the clock. Only six.
I tramped back downstairs, lugging my heavy backpack with me. It wasn’t even almost time to leave, but I was rarely up this early, and without Dad here, it was like there was just too much space.
That’s what it was that morning, the excess of space. It pounded in my ears, flowed in my blood, and rammed into my brain. I tried not thinking about it, but it didn’t work.
My mind kept traveling slowly back to the empty space.
Finally it was six thirty, and I started on some breakfast. I made two omelets, one for me and one for Missy. We ate in silence again; there really wasn’t anything for me to say.
After breakfast I couldn’t stand it any longer.
“I’m gonna go to school,” I told Missy shortly. No preamble.
“School doesn’t start for a while, though,” Missy said, trying to sound confused. I knew she wasn’t though. She must have hated the empty space as much as I did. Everything seemed tinted with gray.
“I know… I’m going to stop at the library though, I think they’re open this early,” I told her.
Actually, I knew they were open this early, but I didn’t want to seem too eager to get out. But I was eager to get out. Being alone in the house with Missy was just all wrong: it didn’t seem like home without Dad.
When I got to the library I walked straight back to the science fiction section. I spent a lot of time here; I really liked to read.
I went to the Had section, looking for my favorite author, Margaret Peterson Haddix. She wrote all sorts of science fiction books about different things: Time travel, clones, futuristic societies. I liked it. It was different.
I grabbed a book of hers that I hadn’t read yet, Running Out of Time. It seemed like a cool book, and the title seemed fitting somehow.
Time was running out to find Lucas, wasn’t it? Is that why Dad had left so suddenly? I pushed that thought out of my mind and began the book.
I didn’t notice when he came up behind me.
“Lucy Jones.” He said it slowly, like he were testing the words on his tongue.
I put my book down and turned around, searching for the owner of the voice that had called my name. When I found it, my jaw dropped to the floor.
Lucas looked even more like me in person than he had in the paper. He was a little taller, and of course you could tell he was a boy, but his hair took on the same yellow-blonde, like a sun rising in the morning. His eyes were the same shade of electric blue: the blue that shocked you every time you looked into them.
I was sure shocked now.
Awesome!! Post more <33
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