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As much as he claimed to care, Carter Harmont had not noticed the lack of a daughter in his home one fateful night. He sat at the dinner table, finishing up the leftovers he'd reheated and watching the TV in the living room simultaneously.
"KIDS MISSING IN LOCAL AREA," the News claimed.
He just scoffed at the headline. All of them had been teenagers, branded by those who knew them as misfits and hoodlums. He figured they had just run away and were seeking the attention that came with it. It was typical of kids these days, always wanting something.
Carter shoved the last bit of food into his mouth and then dropped the fork into the bowl with a clatter. He went about his business putting the dishes away and turning in for the night. As he settled into bed, the upcoming taxes he'd have to fill out soon were on his mind. Then finally his mind drifted to his daughter, and how he could claim her as a dependent.
Doing the math in his head, he finally drifted off to sleep, unaware his negligence would change Darcy's life forever.
...
The park was almost completely empty that night- the little kids weren't there, the high schoolers hung out in the woods instead, and all the kids in between were being held at home because of school tomorrow. What made it almost completely empty was two teenagers making their way across its grounds without a care in the world.
The sun was setting, painting half the sky pink and orange, while the other half was blanketed in dark clouds. Most of the playground was shrouded in shadows, hiding dust, handprints, scratches from misuse, and its faded color from long years of direct sun. The birds, bugs, and critters in the trees surrounding the east side of the park had quieted to a gentle background noise.
Darcy Harmont and Theo Raeken didn't notice any of this.
They'd started this walk after school ended when Theo was supposed to walk her home, but they'd been so caught up in each other that they'd taken a detour of almost four hours. Darcy didn't care- she knew her dad would either not notice her delay in getting home, or act like he'd been worried sick and close to calling the cops. She hoped it was the former today, she didn't have the energy to deal with the latter.
Since it was getting close to the end of her eighth grade, she'd been under a lot more stress lately. Pressure to get good grades and appease her dad who only pretended to care, pressure from her peers to conform to their latest trends when the Harmonts barely had enough money to pay their bills, pressure from everything on every side of her life- the only break from these came in the form of one person.
Theo.
Darcy smiled at him now. They were talking about geography, and how grateful they were for it to be over. It was one of her weakest classes, but she was going to scrape by with a B due to Theo.
