Family first

1. The start

"Angel, let's go!" Kani called out for me. She's a friend from school

Every day, my friends and I would meet up at a park and chill there most of the day. It was still sad for me to go though, I had a friend named kayla. She was one of my closest friends –my bestfriend to be precised– but unfortunately she went missing about a year ago and no one knows what happened to her. I miss her so much, and we are still looking for her to this day. Well, at least I'm still looking for her

"Coming!" I shouted back at Kani

We made our way to this one park with my two other friends: Zandi and Temi. The four of us would usually start our trips with small catch up conversations then leading on to joking around about random stuff until we got to the park and start to play spin the bottle, we've been doing this from the time we were 14 and we still do it. It's been about 5 years, and they will start looking for jobs soon. We won't get these chances anymore. We started playing, and the top of the bottle pointed at me. I was so ready for this dare

"Act like you're drunk on the road until a car drives pass and sees you." Zandi said

I got up and walked to the road. I know this was going to take a while because there were hardly any cars that came onto this road. I got to the road and started walking side to side and let my body loose like jelly. No car came, but I continued anyway. I checked to see if my friend were calling me, which they were, so I headed back to them, and they were packing up

"What's going on?" I asked them

"I just got a message saying I have to come home." Temi said, looking down at her phone

"Oh, okay, I think we should all go as well. We will go to another park tomorrow." I suggested, but no one said anything

Everyone got up, and we walked back. My friends live in the same area, so they walk home together the rest of the way. I walked home alone, and there was no one there as usual. My family hasn't returned home yet even though it's been a year now, they said they were going on a family vacation but since I was writing exams at the time I couldn't go with them and they still didn't come back for me.

Kayla used to come over and stay with me back when things were still great. Sometimes she would just come stay with me and she would only tell me why after that. Sometimes, I feel like it was my fault that she got kidnapped. Well, it is kinda my fault she went missing. If only I didn't-... if only she didn't see...

THE NEXT MORNING

I woke up earlier the usual today. It was 4 in the morning. I got out of bed and went to the bathroom and had a shower. When I was down, I got dressed and left the house. I started walking to look for another park. The road was not as busy as usual, but that's not surprising. It was still dark when I left. I enjoyed the morning walks. It helped me clear my mind from the thoughts that haunt me all the time. The thoughts that keep locked up as if I'm a prisoner in my own mind. I snapped out of my thoughts the moment I found a park, then decided to go fetch my friends
I walked to Kani's house and knocked on the door. Her mum opened it

"Good morning, ma'am." I said, smiling with a sweet voice

"Good morning, angel. Kani will be here in down in a second?" She stated, earning a simple nod from me

"Kani! Angel's here!" She called for kani."It's so early, and you walked here?"

"I woke up early and decided to get ahead start to find a park for today, so I came to see kani first." I explained

"Oh." she said, not sounding interested anymore

A few minutes later, kani came into the room I was in. I smiled at her, and she smiled back, but there was something odd about her smile today. It's like she didn't want to smile back at me or even look at me