Runaways > > Mikey Clifford

\\Chapter 5\\

We arrived at my house soon enough. My parents' car wasn't in the driveway. I figured they're probably out getting more Jack Daniel's or something.

I unlocked the door and nearly fell to the floor with what I had seen.

Everything, every piece of furniture in the whole living room, every table, every single knick knack and every shelf, every single crooked school picture hanging on the wall, was gone.

The whole room was empty.
The wooden floors were shiny clean and the stains on the wall were gone.
I didn't recognize the place I had walked into. I had lived in this house since I was born. This was the house I was raised in. This was the house my father carried my mother through the threshold of after their wedding.
And I don't even recognize it.
I walked in slowly, my eyes moving from the floors, to the wall, to the kitchen, and I noticed a note written on thin blue paper, taped with the same piece of pizza tape I used for my father's note, on one of the cabinets.
I walked into the kitchen to see that the refrigerator and the oven were also gone.
I recognized my father's handwriting, neat scribbles written in black pen with the ys and the gs curled back up like cursive. He's where I had gotten that handwriting trait from.
The note read,

Mars Elizabeth Dexter, Our Daughter,
The time has come where we realize you can make it by yourself.
We have left.
Don't bother looking for us, you won't find us.
Open the cabinet.
Your Father and Mother,
Franklin James & Annette Marie Dexter

After I read the last part, I opened the cabinet to find my old lunchbox from when I was in kindergarten. It was hard plastic and orange and had Scooby-Doo on the front, and my name written on the side with a sharpie in my mother's handwriting, which was much neater than mine and my father's.
I already knew what was in it.
I clutched the sides and slid it off the shelf, sitting it on the counter, and opening it to find money in it.
Stacks and stacks of bills, tens, twenties, hundreds.
My parents made millions of dollars, see.
From their jobs.
They made many discoveries as astrologists, and patented them. They're still making money from them. That's why they were able to retire so early. Yet they didn't bother using their multimillion dollars to maybe buy a better house in a better neighborhood, a better looking car, or maybe even a present or two every Christmas. No, they'd rather blow it all on alcohol and cigarettes.
It took a few minutes, but counted all of it and found they had left me $100,000.
I couldn't believe what was happening. They're gone... I'm never going to see them again.
They were abusive and neglecting and all that.
But they were still my family.
They were good people before they were what they are now.
My mother was the type of person that would bake a pie for a new neighbor, my father the type that would grill out and invite the neighborhood to come. They weren't always like this.
Michael had been standing behind me watching this all unfold.
Then I realized I hadn't went into my room, and I ran there on impulse once the thought came to my mind.
I entered to find it exactly as I had left it, except for the television that was in my parents' room was sitting on the floor. It was small, but still a TV. I also found the cable modem on the floor. They payed it all off and bought it so we don't have to pay cable bills a while ago.
It almost seems as though my parents have planned this since my birth.
I can look up how to hook that up later.
I walked out and went to look in my parents' room.
It was also empty, nothing in it except a single wire coat hanger laying on the floor.
I walked out and went into my brother Jupiter's room.
It was empty, but on the walls there were the vinyl stickers we had put on his wall one late Autumn day, the ones with all the stars and planets and swirling galaxies. His room was really small, barely big enough to fit his twin size bed. I always thought it was maybe made for storage or something, it was so tiny.
This was the room I had spent the stormy nights in that Jupiter couldn't sleep through alone because the thunder had startled him.
The room we had built forts in out of the kitchen chairs and blankets in what little room we had on cold, winter evenings.
The room that I had checked on my baby brother in when I was really young, six or seven, making sure he was okay and breathing as he slept in his crib.
Then, quite spontaneously, my emotions took over and I pressed my back against the wall, sinking to the floor, and burying my face in my hands, crying silently.
Michael quickly sat down beside me and put his arm around my shoulder.
"Hey, hey, come on, now, it's okay... Shhh... Everything is going to be okay..."
His voice did something.
I've never been calmed before.
Maybe once or twice before my parents' retirement when I was in sixth grade, but that was from things like my crush not liking me back, or my hamster dying, or something like that.
This was real.
Something worth crying about, and someone was here patting me on the back, holding me close, telling me everything's okay.
I lifted my face from my hands, and looked into his eyes.
At that moment, time froze.
I wasn't looking at Michael.
I was looking at someone I've never seen before, yet someone I've known my whole life.
I stared into his green eyes for what seemed to last until the end of the world, and he kissed me.
He crashed his lips onto mine, forcing my head back a little.
I had wondered what his lips would feel like, dreamed, even, in these past few days.
Now they're pressed against mine, and it's better than I could've ever imagined.
I wanted to laugh, as they tasted like the pizza we had just eaten not even an hour before. Mine probably taste the same way.
His lips were soft. I've never kissed anyone before, so I didn't know what to expect. But I guess not knowing made it just that much better.
We pulled away, but not fully. My forehead was across the bridge of his nose, our eyes still closed, heads bowed. He was so warm. His hands were on my wrists, pinning them non-forcefully to my knees, that were up to my chest from when I had sank to the floor. I could feel his breath on my neck. He moved his hands to my back and held me tight.
I moved my head and buried it in his shoulder, putting my arms under his and around his waist, squeezing him tightly.
I didn't ever want to move.
I wanted to sit there forever, Michael holding me tight, my face resting on his steady, warm shoulder.
He kissed the top of my head where my beanie was, and rubbed my back with his hands, squeezing hard once before he pulled away.
"C'mon," he said quietly, holding my left hand in both of his. "Let's go get everything set up."
We stood up, my legs trembling, dried tears making sticky paths down my cheeks, and walked to my room. The TV was still in the middle of my room, and then I realized no, I couldn't look up how to hook up the modem, because the modem is what provides the damn wifi.
I decided I'd just guess, and scooted the TV over to one of the outlets and plugged it in, but not turning it on yet, because I'd rather not hear the cringe-worthy static.
I started messing with the modem, looking at it, examining it, until eventually I was able to figure out how to hook it up, and the little red light turned green.
I turned on the TV and it worked.
That's taken care of.
Then I shoved all the clothes on my floor into my closet and made up my pull-out bed that was actually a couch.
I scooted it up against the wall, as it was in the middle of the room before, and made a place for Michael to put his bag. My room was pretty small, but then again I didn't have much belongings, so there was plenty, or at least enough, room.
"I guess this is where we're living," I said. "I mean, if you want, of course."
"Of course I do," he answered. "We can get the rest of my stuff tomorrow night, while my parents are asleep. Or at least passed out, for that matter. Although I don't think I'll be able to drag my bed all the way here."
"No, probably not," I replied. "I think we'll have to share for the time being." I gave him a jokingly cheeky smile, and he blushed as he chuckled and winked.
My bed is basically the same size as his, if not slightly bigger, so we'll definitely fit.
I wish it was smaller, so we had no choice but to snuggle up to each other, hug each other, hold each other tight.
It was now about 8:00, and we sat on my bed and turned on the TV, but it was basically just for background noise and light.
"Do you think I should dye my hair?" Michael asked me.
"Depends," I answered. "What color?"
"I was thinking like a chocolate brown," he replied, combing his fingers through his bangs.
"Hmmm," I said, trying to picture it. "I think it'd look rad."
"Rad's good," Michael said.
"Mmm," I hummed. "Totally psychadelic."
"Totally," Michael said.
It was getting a bit chilly, so I stood up and pulled two puffy comforters from my closet and tossed one on Michael, and plopped back down beside him, covering up. I didn't feel like changing into pjs, so I just kept what I had on, including the flannel Michael had let me borrow. Besides, I liked the way it smelled.
I set my alarm clock for six in the morning, since there was school tomorrow.
I flipped through the channels on the TV and there wasn't anything on, so I just turned it off.
I would normally never do this without being on my phone, as I have a horrible fear of the dark. But the fact that Michael was there, laying beside me, me feeling his breath on the top of my head and his heartbeat in my ear as I rested my head on his chest, told me everything was okay. There's nothing to be scared of.
I was nearly asleep, drifting into darkness deeper than the room I was in, when Michael spoke.
"Goodnight."
He put his arm around my back and kissed the top of my head again.
"Goodnight," I said quietly, but he was already fast asleep.