Before You Go | A Prequel

2.5 | The Visit

"YESTERDAY, MY BIG BROTHER, NICO took us to the park, and me and Gus got to play explorers and then we found this really cool fairytale place in the woods, with butterflies, and a waterfall, and the waterfall had stepping stones, and me and Gus, we tried to go across, but then one of the stones, it got loose, and then Gus, he got stuck and it was really-really scary!"

"Oh really?" remarked Charlie. He kept his hands on the wheel but glanced at his rearview mirror. The chatty six year old sat with her sister in the backseat and nodded assuredly, "Yeah, that does sound really scary. How did he get un-stuck?"

"Oh yeah! So that was when, my big brother, Nico, he came and he pulled Gus out of the water, before he could um, before he could fall in! But then, Nico, he got really-really like, mad, because he couldn't find us, and so he made us all go home, and he, he had got really-really mad again, at my big sister Claudia, and he made her leave her skateboard at the park, and then he left Leena, and then he made us eat eggs for dinner, and—,"

"Wait, wait, what?" Charlie looked over his shoulder when they came to a red light. "What'd you say?"

"Yeah! Eggs for dinner!" Ellie nodded again at this staggering news. Meanwhile, in the seat beside her, Leena remained staring out the window, seeming unbothered.

"You mean, Nico, he left your sister, Leena?"

"Mhm!" Ellie nodded again, rocking from side to side as she twisted the seatbelt in a coil. "He left her at the park! And then, then the police brought her home, and so now, they're coming back again tonight with their friends."

Charlie blinked several times. He looked to Leena for any sign that what was said was true, or untrue, but there was nothing to read. When the girl finally did speak, she didn't look away from the window.

"Hey Ellie, when the people come tonight you can't tell them all that stuff."

"Why not?"

"Because," she said, "You just have to tell them I ran away."

"But you didn't run away! You got lefted!"

"I know. But you have to say it anyway."

"But that's lying!"

The light turned green, and the cars started moving again, so Charlie turned his focus back to the road, but it wasn't lost on him the way Leena didn't say much else. A furrow grew between his brow as he drove. It was all making sense now. The comment about the social worker, the jumpy, sleep deprived state which has friend had been in. It all made sense.

"Mommy's gonna get you for lying!" He heard the younger of the two point out.

"No, she's not."

"Is too!"

"Is not," the older girl murmured with a twinge of annoyance.

"Is too..."

The two continued like that for a while, each of them mumbling their respective 'Is too's and 'Is not's at barely audible volumes. Or perhaps Charlie begun to tune it out, as the worry for his dear friend began to fill up all the empty spaces in his mind.

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"You fucking idiot."

Nico's head rocked with the smack to the back of his skull. His palms braced the table before his nose could smash into the glass surface.

"How do you forget a whole child?"

He bit into his lip, and he tried to avoid looking at his mother, "It was an accident—," she hit him again.