One By One (editing)

Chapter Eight

I spent Monday hibernating in my room, finishing the never ending load of incomplete homework. I spent most of the day trying to tune out the rest of the world and just focus on school. No matter how hard I tried not to, my mind always ended up wandering back to Sam and Jack. Sam was fifteen, she knew well enough not to get in the car with strangers and how to handle herself. It was less than one year ago that my mom, her, and me took self defense classes. Then Jack. His situation puzzled me even more because the kidnapper would have had to have been physically inside our house in order to know exactly where he slept, where to park their car, how to get in and out without using the stairs or the front door. Towards the evening I decided to take out that little note that said 'It wasn't your fault.' Folding it and unfolding it, I thought about all of the possibilities of who might've put it there and why they would put it there. My mom was the one who told me to clean my closet, but it couldn't be a coincidence, could it? No, she wasn't too secretive or had been acting different lately. It couldn't've been her. I exhausted every possibility until it became so late that it frustrated me to think about it anymore. It just didn't make any sense. It was like a 100 piece puzzle with half the pieces missing.

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I woke up the next morning sprawled out backwards on my bed. The events from last night came crashing down on me like bricks, so hard and fast that I slumped back into my blankets again. Something crinkled as I moved and as I reached for it I found the crumpled paper with the solitary sentence that seemed to freak me out the most.

'It wasn't your fault.' Was it like a warning? Did it mean that I was next? I groaned in frustration, deciding to put it off for now. Rolling over to check my phone, I panicked as I saw the time was 7:50. School started at 8:00 and it took 5 minutes to get there. Quickly, I threw on some clothes, brushed my teeth, and ran down the stairs. Noise filtered in from the kitchen and I walked in to snag a granola bar. Luke was nowhere to be found and his car was gone from the driveway which meant he had already left for school. But other than him, the rest of my family was eating breakfast and making lunch.

"Carter, hurry up, you're going to be late for school. Don't forget you're taking Emily, Liv, and Vic to dance tonight," Mom reminded me after Dad left for work.

"I know, I know," I sighed. I spun around to finish putting my lunch in my bag when Sean, ignoring the entire world besides himself, ran into me. The glob of ketchup on the side of his plate from his eggs smeared all over my shirt.

"Sean! What the heck is your problem?!" I tried to wipe the ketchup off my shirt but ended up spreading it all over the front of my shirt.

"You." Seriously? What the heck was with the boys in my family?

"Sean." My mom turned around from making a sandwich. "Apologize to your sister and watch where you're going. Carter Mason, get to school right now. I don't want you being late."

"Mom, there's ketchup on my shirt. I have to change first."

"Just take this." Mom left the kitchen and came back from the living room with a t-shirt from one of the laundry baskets. It was wrinkled and questionably small but I didn't object.

"Now, git," Mom ordered sternly. I left as fast as I could. On top of being late, Mom looked like she was stressed and annoyed, the perfect combination to have an outburst and flip out at somebody. Don't get me wrong, she loved our family to pieces and told us all the time how she was grateful for every one of us kids but when she got angry you learned how to stay out of her way.

I stopped at a red light, beginning to tell myself over and over again how today was going to be a good day. I was not going to cry, whine, or get into any fights. I was going to worry about the sketchy note and the fact that Luke makes me so mad I really just want to slap him across the face twenty times at another time because now was time for school. The light turned green and I headed towards school, occasionally waiting in traffic, but making pretty good time. The parking spot that I pulled into was towards the back and tucked away so I took the chance to pull out the clean shirt Mom handed me to change into. But as I held it up in front of me, I felt my face droop and the irresistible urge to roll my eyes. First of all, the shirt was five sizes too small because it was Liv's. Second of all, it had a dancing sparkly cupcake that had a bubble saying, 'I luv to dance!'.