Shae

Chapter 11

My dad didn't come home for another three weeks. Mom had called in and the police were searching for him. She was frantic. Crocheting loads of seat covers and cooking lots of chicken nuggets. I was worried, too. My nails had been chewed to the beds and I swear my hair was beginning to fall out every time I ran my fingers through it nervously. I felt older, weaker, like I'd been stretched out too far too fast. Being the imaginative teen that I was, I was assuming both the worst and the best. In many cases in my head, dad had been kidnapped and violently murdered by the joker or the boogie man, while in other cases, dad was a spy in the CIA working on some awesome case that took him away for a while and he wasn't allowed to tell anyone.

So yeah, sometimes I'd hyperventilate and chew my nails, while other times I'd be walking around the house wearing a sly smirk and getting death stares from Mom.

There seemed to be a new fad going around the neighborhood, called baking. And my currently quite broken family seemed to be the go-to taste testers. Everyone and I mean everyone was bringing us cookies or brownies or three layer cakes. We even got a bag of small brownies tied to a little dog. I kept the dog. Mom still doesn't know, though Beau breaks out into fits of giggles every time someone mentions dogs.

Kade's mom was always bringing over lasagnas and snickerdoodles after school. I normally love snickerdoodles, but seriously? Two plates piled high ever two days was too much, even for a garbage disposal such as myself. She of course, always brought Kade with her. It was super awkward. Beau would stand like three feet away from me and watch me with an expression that clearly stated, I'll keep my cool, but try anything and I'll heat up like the fires of Mordor. So Kade and I just sat in the living room avoiding each other's gazes while our mother talked.

Toad never came around anymore, and I missed it. It was like a bit of me had gone rotten and was eating away at the rest of me. I was angry with him, too. I needed him now and he deliberately knew and avoided me. He shouldn't have tried to make a move on me in the first place, that way everything could stay normal.

No one at school talked to me anymore. Of course, everyone knew about how Mr. Cooper had mysteriously disappeared. It was like everyone was having a big pity fest for me and I wasn't invited. I sat alone at lunch, at the best table in the cafeteria, no one else thought to take it from me, I was the girl whose dad was missing. I decided to take advantage of what I could in the situation. The tables around me stayed relatively quiet, and I knew they were talking about me. Beau unfortunately had a different lunch time as I did, the same one as Kade, so I didn't even have either of them to talk to.

Three and a half weeks after my dad's disappearance, I was headed to gym, changing in the locker room, when I overheard a couple of girls talking in high pitched, critical teenage girl voices.

"Have you seen her lately? She is so sad like 'oh my goodness why won't anyone talk to me!' It's like, girl, if you wanted people to talk to you, you should stop being such a debby downer. No one likes someone who mopes around everywhere."

It still wasn't clear who they were talking about, but I had a pretty good idea.

Another voice. "Oh my gosh yes. Just because her dad is missing doesn't mean she gets to walk around like everyone should pity her and pay attention to poor little Shae Shae."

I could feel my face heating up. "Do you see her sitting at the best table in the cafeteria? All smug like she knew people would just bend to her will if some great tragedy happened to her. Ha. Bet she got rid of her own dad."

I'd had enough. I purposely dropped my shoe around my end locker and bent over to pick it up with a little 'whoops.' I smiled venomously at them, apologized for interrupting, and invited them to continue as I stood there hopping around trying to get my shoe on. Both girls flushed, obviously mortified. They were silent as they quickly shoved their bags into their lockers and hurried out of the room. I sighed and headed into the gymnasium for more pity from my coach.

'You want to sit this one out, Cooper?', 'Think you can handle this, Cooper?', 'Go ahead and take a while off, Cooper, study up or go grab some happy hour drinks or whatever.'

Sickening. I tightened my ponytail and lapped everyone around the room a few times.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

When I got home that day after I'd overheard the girls gossiping, I saw a silver convertible Mercedes and dropped my backpack. My jaw fell to my ankles and I ran inside. That was my dad's car. My mom was crying from the kitchen and I rushed in, grabbing the wall to swing around the corner. I saw my dad sitting at the bar, head hanging. My mom was crying into a half finished seat cushion until she noticed me. She sniffed and wiped her eyes, sitting up straighter and blinking hard. Beau walked around the corner briskly. She gasped a little when she saw my dad.

My mom looked at me and my cousin, then she asked us calmly to leave. I heard some barstools scoot around and a slap. My dad's voice grunted and my mom screamed. She yelled some things about 'a month, James! A month!' And 'do you have any idea!?'

I went back outside for my backpack and ended up sitting in the grass numbly for like an hour. Beau looked out the window a few times, but she knew better than to try and talk to me while I looked so much like a human vegetable.

Eventually I came back inside where Dad asked me to please sit down in the living room. I moved slowly to my claimed couch where Beau was already settled in. Mom was on the love seat by the window, glaring at the pool like it'd done something despicable to her.

Dad spoke to the family, carefully, glancing at my mom like she was a human minefield. "I'd like to begin with I'm sorry, but I know that will go in ear and out the other for you girls. So I'll cut to the chase. I am on the run. We are on the run. Or I'll be arrested for extortion against my own company."