The Future Of Us

Troubled Times

"Brad!" I lean over his side of the bed nudging him to wake up "Brad!  Wake up!"

"What, Jen?" He finally rolls over, not looking happy with me at all "What do you want now?"

I choose to ignore the fact that he's still mad from an earlier argument and move on to what is more important.

"Aly isn't home yet."

"What do you mean she isn't home yet?" He shoots up looking at the time "She told us she would be home by 11... it's after 1."

"No, Brad.  I woke you because she's a minute late." I roll my eyes, grabbing the sheets "Come on, we need to find her."

"Well where do you think she is?" He quickly gets dressed "Have you called her?"

I feel like an idiot.

"I texted her but no, I didn't call.  She read the messages though."

"Definitely not the smartest kid."

"Yeah, I know." I wait for him to call her, but of course she doesn't answer.  He leaves a message and calls again.

"Okay. Who has a better chance of knowing who she's with? Cat or Josh?"  He asks as he hangs up "I know she's with her friends, but there's probably someone else too."

"I think Josh.  They've been closer recently.  Her and Cat are still pissed at each other over the whole phone thing."

He goes to wake Josh while I try calling her friend's parents.  One says their kid is home already, and the other says hers told her she's sleeping over here.

"Michelle's mom is on her way over.  Apparently Michelle told her she's sleeping here." I walk into Josh's room where he looks pissed because Brad woke him "Find anything out?"

"There's some guy named Caleb she mentioned earlier.  But she only said his name once or twice and moved on to talking about her friends." Josh yawns, literally falling back asleep the second he's done talking.

"Okay, well we have a first name at least." I follow Brad out, walking downstairs to wait for Kasey.

"Hey," she walks in a few minutes later "Sorry if I knew I would have called you about it earlier.  I thought it was weird they would have a sleepover on a school night, but I knew I could trust you guys."

"I fell asleep early and just didn't think anything of it until I woke up and she wasn't home yet." I grab my phone, sitting on the couch "Josh told us she mentioned a Caleb... maybe we can find him on here."

I look through Aly's friend list while Kasey looks through Michelle's, hoping to find something.

"I found a Caleb Miller.  Looks about their age." She shows us a picture "The last picture he posted has a bottle of vodka in it."

"I'm gonna see if I can find him anywhere else."  Brad looks through other social media for a while.  He ends up finding some more pictures from earlier tonight, some that even have girls that look like Aly and Michelle.

"So what do we do?  We have no idea where he lives, or if they're even at his house."

"I don't know.  James said he's going to let me know if they go back to our house, but I doubt they will."

"Well they can't get too far.  The only one of them that drives went home early." Brad says "Wherever they go Caleb will either have to take them or they'll have to walk."

Just as he finishes saying that, I hear something moving upstairs.

"That's probably Kaiden.  I'll go make sure he's okay."