Christopher | ✔

Chapter Two

Picture of Zoe Landoe

I pushed the large double doors of the school entrance, flinging my bag over my shoulder as I walked down the halls. It was a fresh morning for me, which was why Monday was my favorite day of the week. Although it only was the start of a 'working' week, it still felt like a refresh button on the left-hand side of your browser. Eventually, I reach my locker, making sure Candace was nowhere to be seen, knowing how she usually showed up at my locker just to cause a scene when she decided to get high on a morning. I swear, if I had to knock some sense into her head, she'd reach a hospital before she got it.

I took out my necessary materials and slammed my locker shut, wincing as the sound echoed through the halls. It came out louder than usual, that being that the hall was eerily quieter than normal. Not many people were conversing with others, instead, all of them were busy tapping at their phones, their faces masked with horror. I was so busy staring at their stances so intensely, I didn't realize that I'd walked into someone that very moment.

I was about to murmur an apology but ceased as soon as I recognized it was Caleb. He didn't realize I'd run into him. He too was attached to his phone screen.

He was one of the only ones I was able to call a 'true friend' apart from the rest. 'Rest' actually sounded like a big word when it was only the three of us, and now there were two. Not much of a reduction.

"Caleb?" I called, waving a hand in front of his face to gain his attention. He snapped his chestnut eyes towards me, in a bit of a daze at first, but soon, a warm smile crept up his lips. I raised a brow at him, waiting for an explanation as I gestured my hand to the crowd of phone-hypnotized students. 

"Oh, you haven't heard, have you?" he asked. I shook my head, dumbfounded, to say the least. He pulled me along as we walked down the halls. "Nina's missing," he murmured so only the two of us could hear. We had already reached the door of our first class. My brows scrunched together in awe.

"She's missing? Like missing from the face of this earth, or she sneaked out with her 'boyfriends'?" I gasped, my eyes wide with surprise. Caleb rolled his eyes.

"Zoe, I'm serious. That's why the whole school's so... weird. Everyone's on their phones since the Principal asked to not talk about it." Nina was the one who left our little friend circle, and ever since she did, she became nothing but a top bitch. That was probably the reason why no one was freaking out. They were more so, engrossed with the news. "Aren't you a bit worried?" Caleb asked when I said nothing.

"I am," I replied, although I wasn't deep down inside. "I'm just trying to piece this together." Caleb raised his brows. "She's disappeared so many times for sex and the party life that, I don't know if to take this seriously," I explained. "You know, like the story about the boy who called wolf." He sighed and put his hand on the handle of the door, and suddenly I realized that we'd been standing outside the classroom for so long.

"We're visiting her family after school," he said before he turned the knob. "Are you coming?"

"I-ah, I can't. My mom's having some guest over that she'd like us to meet. Plus, I have to make sure Candace stays clean, for at least tonight." Caleb chuckled and shrugged nonchalantly.

"I guess later then."

***

"For the fourth time you little twat, I ain't going anywhere," Candace replied, chewing on a wad of gum rather loudly as she leaned against the bonnet of her car. She smirked as her 'friends' laughed when she insulted me. I took a deep breath, running a hand through my hair and exhaling the air.

"Mom said that we nee-"

"Since when do you follow mommy's orders?" she asked, cocking her head to one side. It was starting to feel like a rerun of last night. "I thought you were some kind of bad-ass bitch," she laughed. I gritted my teeth in frustration. Talking to her was like talking to a rock. It never listens. It can't hear anyway.