Runaways

Chapter 1

Rachel wakes up to Clarene vacuuming the house at 6:00am as usual. It had become a routine over the past 3 years she lived with her, dealing with her excessive cleaning habits.

Rachel almost fell back asleep until she remembered that she had to get out of bed today for her first day as a Junior. She looked over at her phone and sees that Tony, her boyfriend, will be there at 7:30 to pick her up. Rachel then decides it would be a good time to get up and start actually getting ready for school.

Rachel walks out of her room to get something to drink and sees Clarene doing the dishes. Rachel then decides that instead of having her stepmom yell at her for being useless, she could help. Clarene washes while Rachel rinses. They do this in silence until all the dishes are all washed, put up, and dried.

Clarene walks out in silence, not even muttering a thank you. This is how it has been since her dad's accident, Clarene only speaking to Rachel to yell at her for being useless. Rachel couldn't blame her for the first few months, Rachel had been useless. Her father had died, but after a while it seemed that she'd never stop.

Her stepmom is still torn up about it. Every few months they will have a day where they talk and laugh about things.

Rachel sighs and grabs a Snapple out of the fridge. As she walks out of the kitchen she notices it's somehow already 6:45. She hurries and puts on a band t-shirt, some skinny jeans, and her black converse. She puts on some basic makeup after she puts her brown hair into a very messy bun. She slides her black glasses over her bright blue eyes. She looks in the mirror and sees from the windows reflection Tony driving into the driveway.

She grabs her bookbag and walks out the door as she hears Clarene start to do laundry, right on time.

Tony gets out of the car and opens the door for her.

Tony walks to the driver's side of the car and settles into the seat.

"You excited for Junior Year?" He asks, looking over at me with his coffee brown eyes showing through his shaggy raven colored hair.

"Ah, as always," I sigh, showing him the biggest, most sarcastic, smile I can manage. He shakes his head showing a smile of complete adoration.

"So how's this foster family, who are they, the Finches?" I ask after we get out of the driveway.

Tony's parents got killed at a robbery when he was only 5. He now has to stay with many foster families, which, for some reason, he always switches them every few months.

"Oh, they're great," He replies, "And even if they weren't I can't leave. I'm down to the last 5 families in this area, and I do not want to move schools again, especially since I have you at this one."

We reach the school at 7:55, only 5 minutes to get to class. Me and Tony separate for classes. I go straight to the computer lab for my favorite class, journalism.

Writing is my favorite hobby to do over anything. When my mom left I started to keep a diary of my 'feelings' like my therapist told me to do. After a while I decided I wanted to write fiction, or as I called them at the age of 9 'made of mind words'.

"Hello Rachel," Mrs.Whiklea says to me as I walk in and take a seat at a computer.

"Hey Mrs.Whiklea, how was your summer?"

"Short," She says sighing.

I laugh, one of my favorite things about Mrs.Whiklea is her act. If it wasn't for the few gray hairs and wrinkles, I would believe she was a student herself.

When everyone enters she begins to set up how she wants the first paper to be set up. We have 10 people on the paper this year, which is 2 less than usual, but we can manage.

We all brainstorm ideas.

"How about," Ash speaks up after a while. Her platform boots sliding of the desk for her to lean forward, "We have a place for music and TV shows and stuff like that. We could have a survey on what things people like over the month."

"That is a very nice idea what does everyone think," Mrs.Whiklea looks over the room. Everyone was nodding their head, "Great, ok. Now that we have all our sections chosen, I will group people for their partner project. I'll work on the list and I'll announce it at the end of class."

I hated partner projects. The fact we had to communicate with other people. It was the worse thing for me.

We had one partner project, and two solo. One of the solos had to be your own idea and the other had to be an article about current events. I always did mine on controversial topics which caused some to get mad. I did one on that guys should learn how to handle themselves instead of girls having to wear as much as possible. For the next week guys would come up to me about how I offended them.

As I was writing ideas for some sections, Mrs.Whiklea started to announce the partners.

"Jake and Tray you'll be doing senior spotlight. Stephanie and Leya you guys can do beauty and trends. Tristan and Charlie you're in charge of internet obsessions. Harmen and Katy you'll be doing sports.. Ash and Rachel you'll do the interest survey. Now for the next 10 minutes, I want you guys to start a layout for what you're gonna do. Remember you must keep it for the rest of the year. Go" Mrs.Whiklea announced waving her hand and sitting back at her desk.

Ash shouldn't be too bad, I hope. She grabbed her bag and walked over. I already had my journal opened and ready.

"Aren't you the girl who wrote about the guys needing to learn how to treat women well? Like, instead of women having to dress for them and shit?" She asks as she sits in the computer beside mine.

"Umm. Yeah. That's me," I mumble out, my eyes darting from object to object.

"That was amazing. It was great to see someone at this school actually making sense," Ash laughs. Crinkles forming by her dark blue eyes.

I smiled back, my anxiety making it look less than what I was meaning it for. Ash sits down and bring out her journal and a pump pencil. For the rest of the class we decided on how we were going to show our data.

"Hey, umm, how come I never see you around much?" I ask with only about two minutes left in the class.

"I don't like talking to people that much, and I don't eat lunch, I spend it in Mrs.Carvins."

"You should sit with me, Tony, and Emmy, It'd be fun and I bet they'd like you." I pick up my bag and start storing my stuff in it as does she.

"Hmm. I don't know I'll have to think about it. What's your class before lunch?"

"I have creative writing in here," I say as the bell lets out a loud ring.

"Oh, so do I. I'll talk to you about it then." She waves at me and walks out the classroom and I follow soon after.

-

Emmy walked into Mrs.Whiklea's English class. She was craving some of her Arizona tea that sat in the lunch box in her hand.

As Emmy walked in she noticed Rachel, her best friend, talking to a girl, who she thought, Ashley.

"Emmy! Come over here! I need to introduce you to Ash," Rachel waves me over to the seat behind her.

Oh, her name was Ash, not Ashley. It must be her short name.

Emmy sits in the seat Rachel had saved for her and looked close at Ash. She had her black, very long and shiny, hair up in a ponytail that went right over her chest. She was wearing a plain black t-shirt tucked into some black high-waisted skinny jeans. A leather jacket was covering her arms. Her platform shoes made the look even better.

Emmy could feel her observing her too. Her eyes glancing over the messy bun filled with my brown hair with dyed blonde highlights. She then went to her shiny, emerald green eyes, which matched her real name, Emerald, perfectly.

"You seem very sporty," Ash says, seeing Emmy's sporty branded clothes.

"I'm not that sporty, It's that I like the look of the clothes," she replied. "You seem very... punk," she commented, wanting to show her the she too was judging her based on her clothes.

"And you would be right," she says nodding her head.

Rachel coughs sensing some tension in the air, "So, Emmy! I was just asking Ash if she wanted to join us for lunch," Rachel chided, trying to lighten the mood up between the three.

"I am all up for it," Emmy says, smiling. She can't really judge Ash right now, Ash was just pointing out the obvious.

"Ok fine I guess I'll join," Ash replies playfully rolling her eyes.

All three of them then laugh until they hear that familiar bell ring again.

During class Emmy thinks about her dad. Wondering, Will he be drunk, or will I be able to go home and not have to worry about him passing out on the couch? Will I be able to tell him about my day? Or even my week?

Questions like this swarm her mind. Her father had become an alcoholic after her mom, ironically, died. She had gotten into a wreck with a drunk driver.

Thankfully, the bell rang and the three girls walked to the lunch room.

Tony and Rachel sat next to each other like always. This time though, I sat right in front of Rachel and Ash in front of Tony.

Rachel introduced Tony to Ash and vise-versa. Lunch was going great, until Tony brought up parents.

"So, Ash, each week us three all go on a Saturday Night Adventure," Tony began to explain, "It starts at 12am. We all meet up at Starbucks and then, up until 9pm, we do whatever we have planned."

"Would your parents be cool with you joining us?" Tony, unknowingly, asked after explaining.

"Umm, actually, my parents aren't... around anymore," Ash replied looking at her feet with a look of sorrow. "I now live with my sister," she replied looking back up seeming to have forgotten the mood she seemed to of just had.

"But no, I don't think she'd really care. She works that time anyways," Ash smiles.

"So it's settled!" Rachel shout, a little too loudly, causing some people to stare.

Rachel blushes and says, a lot quieter, "You will be joining us on our Saturday adventure."

"What are we gonna do this week?" Emmy asks, finishing her Arizona tea with 5 minutes left of lunch.

"I don't know. I guess we'll have to decide later."

By the end of lunch they all retrieved Ash's number and added her to there group chat.

-

It's 10:00 pm

Rachel is washing her face after a long shower and listening to her stepmom's final vacuum session of the day.

Ash is braiding her damp hair as she hears her sister get home after her second 6 hour shift of the day.

Tony is listening through the walls of his new house as the other kids get through with their showers.

Emmy is cleaning up glass bottles from by her father passed out on the couch.

They are all wondering the same thing.

Rachel puts her wet hair into a ponytail and turns on a lamp the climbs into bed.

What would happen if they all somehow disappeared from their horrible homes.

Ash turned off her lights and lays in her bed staring at the posters on her ceiling.

What would happen if they just up and left.

Tony tries to sleep with the thoughts of all these strangers in the house with him.

And that's when they all singularly decided.

Emmy puts a blanket over her dad and takes a quick shower and plops into bed.

That on that Saturday.

They all sigh.

They each planned on asking a question.

They all open their eyes.

A question that would change their lives.

They let that tear that has been threatening to spill out fall onto the bed.

On if they

They wipe the trail it left off their faces.

Would like to run away.

Then they fall asleep.