runaway [dteam thriller]

days: -0,75

Clay
Tuesday, November 23
[tw: cursing]

Sam is sweet and he always says the right things to cheer me up. I've known him since sixth grade.

We were both very shy at the beginning of middle school, so it was pretty obvious we were gonna be friends.

And we're still together. We're not cool, but we're not an outsider. We are part of the middle class students.

I think half of the class won't even remember us when we graduate. Sam seems fine with that. But sometimes I think about it.

Do I really want to end that way? It feels like I have two options.

I'll stay with Sam forever. Spend breaks together, basically spend our entire lives with just the two of us.

Or I'll start hanging out with Darryl and Zak from the football team. They asked me to hangout the other day. They even say hey to me in the hallway.

"When are you going to your mom?"

"What?" I feel caught and it takes me a few seconds to realize what Sam is talking about. "Oh, Friday afternoon after school. She promised we'd go shopping for a winter jacket."

"You have to ask if you can get one of those.." Sam starts, but he gets interupted becasue Ms. Marleigh walks in.

She puts down her bag and ask if we could open our books to chapter 5. Differentiate, I'm good at that. Last year I had an A+ on math.

After the first three periods, I walk with Sam to the cafeteria. We are sitting at our usual corner, next to the refrigerator. From this spot we can see everything.

Sitting at the middle table are Nick, Luke, Alex and Noah. We like to call them the popular guys. Every girl would die for them.

"Are they ever gonna get tired of themselves?" Sam asks. "Everyday having to look handsome, looking good, sounds exhausting." I don't answer.

Of course Sam is right, but it also has his advantages. Sam doesn't notice that.

"Here," Sam gets two cookies out of his bag. "I brought one for you." Sam is muscular and slim. He doesn't have to worry about his weight.

I'm pretty insecure about my weight, I always have been. I'm always aware of what I eat.

I promised my mom not to eat to much, but that cookie looks so good... "Thanks" I say and I take a big bite out of the cookie.

The feeling of guilt eats me alive as soon as the cookie enters my mouth.

I see Sam grabbing his phone and checking his messages. "Oh my" He says. "Have you looked in the class groupchat. There's more than 200 messages."

"Seriously?" I ask. "Yes, that dude with the black jacket was seen again in the dunes. A girl saw him. Look!" He says and he shows me his phone.

Some boy send a screenshot this morning of a Google Maps. I see a small bike lane, pine trees, and behind that I see sand. It has to be somewhere in the dunes.

Liam
*screenshot*
This is the place where the girl saw the man, she immediately walked away on time

Sam scrolls further down the groupchat. A bunch of messages of people. He stops at a text from some dude called Micheal

Micheal
That dude is scarier than the clown from IT

Then Liam sends:

Liam
Did you look in the mirror?

Under that message half of the class reacts with laughing emoji's. Sam scrolls to a message from Tara.

Tara
Maybe someone has to be dead before the police believes it

Immediately Liam reacts:

Liam
Do you volunteer?
Lol

Tara reacts to that:

Tara
No but seriously, we can wait until something happens
Or we could search that man ourselves
He already got spotted 3 times

I can see that it was silent after that because of the time the message was sent. Then Liam reacts:

Liam
That's a fucking good idea. We're not gonna let that dude scare us

Everyone agrees. After that a lot of messages came in. That they were gonna beat him up. Gonna bring him to the police. Some people wanna kill him.

Sam stops at the end of the chat. The last 2 messages are from Tara:

Tara
Check, okay we're gonna go search for him Sunday
And nobody say shit about this, THIS IS SECRET!

Sam turns his phone off. We look at each other. "Shit" I say. "Are they really gonna do this?"

He thinks about it. "Probably" He says. "They are crazy" I say.

"Yeah, but let them go, nothing can happen. They are with a group, what could that man possibly do?" He says. I can see on Sam's face that he really believes it.

But I wouldn't wanna go with them for a million dollars. Then the bell goes. Sam grabs my arm and pulls me out of the cafeteria. "Come on, we'll be first in class."