The Step Brother

Sunnyvale

FINALLY IT'S AN UPDATE AND ITS SUPER CRAPPY I'M SORRY I LACK INSPIRTATION I KNOW UGH

buuutttt, were throwing our flirty friend court back in lets see how that goes. ;) 

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For the next few seconds I was frozen momentarily to the spot in Brenda’s room. I was in complete shock.

How could Liam have taken her?

How didn’t I notice?

How stupid and selfish was I?

How was I going to explain this to my mom and Jeff?

What was I supposed to do? What was I going to do?

At first, I decided to call the police. But, just before I actually pressed called I realized there was little that they would be able to do. First of all, it wasn’t really abduction. At the same time, they weren’t missing people either since it had only been around three hours.

My next option was to call Liam. I knew he wasn’t going to answer, but it still was worth a shot. However, my call went straight to voicemail which meant that his phone was off and maybe even dead.

I started pacing the empty room. Back and forth. Back and forth. Oh my god. Oh. My. God.

It was hard for me to think of anything rational. The stress and pressure was becoming so unbearable and I was quickly loosing it. Several times I reached for the phone and was about to call either Caleb or my mom or even MacKenzie, but I stopped myself each time. After all, if I could fix this myself then it would all be okay.

With a deep inhale, I thought of the familiar question: If I were Liam, where would I go? Where would I run away to?

I knew it had to be some place safe and decent. Even though he wasn’t the most sensitive guy, Liam would never put his sister into any dangerous or questionable situation. I also highly doubted that he would make her sleep in the back of his car too.

My legs were shaking like gelatin and I sat down on the bed as I tried to picture more scenarios. Obviously, they were planning to go somewhere, otherwise they wouldn’t have taken everything.

Quickly, I pictured myself running away. I knew that if anything, I would probably go to Sabrina’s or McKenzie’s house. But, at the same time, if I were to ‘run away’ I obviously would come home eventually. Liam wasn’t thinking the same way. This was a permanent move. And I knew that if I were to leave for good, I would go to my family first until I could get some money to rent an apartment or something.

But at the same time I would have to go to family that wasn’t exactly on good terms with my mother. So Liam must’ve gone to someone who didn’t exactly like Jeff.

Even thought I despised Jeff, I knew that he was a generally well-liked man. And after the whole scandal of his wife cheating on him, people were especially caring to him.

“HIS WIFE!” I screamed out loud. Suddenly, everything made sense. It was like an a-ha moment. As I sprinted across the hallway and into his room, I chastised myself for not realizing this write away. While Liam barely ever mentioned his mother, I knew that they wrote to each other because there were constantly letters in the mailbox and messages on his e-mail. At first I was confused when I saw that they were conversing, as I had always been given the impression that Liam hated his mom, but I was pretty sure that there were some missing pieces to the story that only a few people knew about – my mother and I excluded.

Liam’s room was very messy and his desk was even more unorganized than his closet. I, however, knew exactly what I was looking for.

Pushing my blonde hair out of my face, I started to find any letters or envelopes from Liam’s mom. There were piles of school papers, books, and other random notes but no sign of what I needed. After going through what seemed to be every paper on his desk I sighed in defeat. Maybe he got rid of all the letters?

Or maybe he hid them….

“I so wish I paid attention to this kid more,” I muttered as I clenched my hands into fists. All the drawers in his desk were filled with CD’s and tests, among other related things. And after searching through all of them, I realized that they had to be somewhere else in his room.

I walked over to his closet and opened up some shoeboxes but to my non-surprise, they only contained shoes. Disheartened, I moved to his drawer but all I could find there were boxers, shoes, and an empty container that I presumed had money.

Crossing my arms, I stood in the middle of the room and thought. Liam had me stumped. There was probably some other way that I could figure out where his mom lived but I didn’t want to bring other people into this.

So, I thought of where I would hide some personal things. Not that I had much experience in hiding anything or keeping things away from my mom…

When I was younger I had this stash of notes I would keep. They were all really dumb and stupid. After all, they were notes me and my friends liked to pass around in class. Some of them got pretty dirty too, but I still kept them. I did however, hide them under my bed so my mom didn’t have to read about what went down during math class.

Crouching down, I peered under Liam’s bed.

Jackpot.

There was a small metal toolbox, but I was positive there were no tools in it. I grabbed it and flipped it open.

“Yes!” I yelled as my eyes greeted the neatly aligned letters. I pulled one out at random and inspected the return address.

Jeanette Dullahan.

198 Tunnel Ave,

Sunnyvale, California.

That was at least an eight hour drive and I knew that an eight hour drive with Brenda, or any other girl her age would be impossible. But at the same time, finding them on the road would be near impossible.

I was scared, lonely, hurt, and confused. I felt so helpless too, because there was no way I would be able to find them before Jeff and my mom came home. Sighing, I reached for my phone and called the only person that would ever do something as crazy as trek out to California with me:

Court.