Runaway Children // Isac Elliot

Chapter 4: My best friend Jai

I woke up the next day by my alarm clock. It was 6 am and I wondered why the hell I hadn't turned it off the night before. I mean, it's Saturday.

I tried to go back to sleep for a while, but I thought too much. I got all excited about what had happened the day earlier and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I decided to just get up from the bed and suck it up, 6 am wasn't that early. I looked at my reflection in the mirror as I passed by it on my way to the bathroom out of my bedroom and down the hall. I washed my face and went to see if dad was awake. Looking for him in his bedroom I couldn't find him. Seems like he had gone out again in the middle of the night, whoever does that. I went back to my room to grab my phone. Where I remembered putting it, it was on the bed table. I checked the display and saw three new messages. One from Amanda, another one from Jai and the last one from Isac. Oh my God, Isac sent me a text.

I decided to open Isac's text after the others, just to make myself more excited to open it.

»OMG, did you hear that One Direction is coming to Sweden?« Amanda had texted me last night, a couple of minutes before I'd fell asleep.

I answered her that I didn't know that and that I was very happy for her. She'd finally have the chance to watch her idols live, since she couldn't go last year. I tapped my phone to read Jai's message.

»Hey Joey, remember, we'll hang at mine tomorrow and play some Xbox. Well, it's not really tomorrow, it's today since it's past midnight, haha.« I looked to see when he had sent the text, 01:54 am. I'd been asleep by then. See, I'm not really the person who stays up all night because of excitement or something. Even if I was at a sleepover, I'd be the first one to fall asleep. The people I've slept at think I'm boring, and that's why I'm never invited to sleepovers anymore. That, and the fact that everyone at school hate me.

I remembered that me and Jai had decided to hang out today since he's got a new Xbox. I'm actually looking forward to it since it's the first time I've been at his. I answered that I did remember and that I would come over in a couple of hours.

Now it was time to read Isac's. With I smiled I tapped on him and my conversation.

»I liked today, see ya soon?« he'd texted.

»Of course, duhh« I answered, and after that I got dressed, ate breakfast and threw myself on the couch in the living room to watch some Teen Mom.

A couple of hours later the Teen Mom marathon was over so I switched the channel. As I was scrolling through the channels there was a sound from the front door, as if someone was unlocking - and I was right. A couple of seconds later the door slammed open and in came my drunk dad. I turned the TV off and approached him.

"Dad, where have you been?" I almost yelled at him. It was like I was the mother and he was the child, like I was raising him that it was bad to not tell the parents where you'd been.

He looked at me with a look that I've never seen before. "Where do you think I've been?" His voice was cracking. "Now help me sit down on the couch"

I helped him sit down on the couch without saying a word, and when he was finally sitting down I said, "Dad, I'm going out"

"Where?" he looked at me emotionless. Sometimes it feels like he just didn't want a daughter. Or like, when mom was here he loved me but when she died he just thought I was annoying.

"A friend's, see you" I answered, and with that, I took my Converses and my jacket and opened the front door.

After a fifteen minutes walk in the cloudy weather I was at Jai's house. He'd texted me the address and it was the block where my cousin Paolina used to live, so I knew where it was. I knocked on the door and after a couple of seconds his mom opened it.