The Missing Boy

Chapter 1 - The Missing Boy

He's supposed to be dead.

Or abandoned in a country Miles doesn't know the name of.

He isn't supposed to be sitting on his own front door step, a puff of greyish smoke escaping from his lips into the even greyer night, a cigarette now firmly crushed under the sole of his leather boot.

He's supposed to be missing.

But then again, Miles isn't supposed to be spying out the kitchen window.

•••••••••••

The father wasn't prepared to bring his child to work that day. With his wife suddenly pulled into a shift she didn't comply to, he wasn't prepared to bring his 13 year old son to his lab. But Richard was never prepared for anything. When his wife, Grace, told him she was pregnant, he wasn't ready. When his boss told him to figure out the cure for a new disease circling the country, he wasn't ready. When that car suddenly came out of nowhere and crashed into his, he wasn't ready.

It had happened fast. In the blink of an eye. One second Richard was cruising down an empty road with his son playing on his phone in the backseat, the next his car had spun, laying on its side on said road. Shattered glass covered the ground around Richard's head like a halo. He could feel the bent metal of the car hood squeezing painfully at his right leg. It was unbearable. But Richard had to force himself to forget about the pain and remember his son. The 13 year old boy he was never prepared for laying motionless on the middle of the road.

Richard fought his way through the pain, climbed out the car but with the current condition his right leg was in, he could barely crawl to his son. He could tell from the odd angle and the searing pain that his knee was broken. He screamed for help and when he thought all hope was lost, a man emerged from behind the wreckage with a new car at the scene.

He was surprised by the smile on his face.

•••••••••••

It's been 8 minutes and the boy is still sitting at the door step of his parents' house. He looks so different. Miles notices that his black hair is longer than it used to be. But it frames his sculptured face impressively. He's grown into his once fuller cheeks and now looks less like a child but like a man. If you can call a 17 year old boy a man. Miles can't seem to imagine that they were once the same age, that they still are the same age. Seventeen, huh? He'll probably never be asked to show his ID.

The boy's skin is paler than what Miles remembers from childhood. Probably didn't see much sun. His skin was barer before. Miles can see the tattoos that now cover his hands, can just about catch the snake head on the boy's neck. Then Miles realises that he should probably stop calling him the boy and call him by his name.

Axel.

•••••••••••

Miles saw the name on the news for weeks, the name printed across the street on posters, the name muttered in secret conversations that he wasn't invited in. And then all hope was lost and Miles slowly came to accept that he would never see the boy the name belonged to.

Axel.

Kidnappings and people going missing were situations that felt so far away from Miles. It felt like things that only happened in movies or in another more messed up world. It felt too beyond reach that the possibility that someone so close to him could just disappear was minuscule. But as unlikely and otherworldly it may have seemed to Miles, it happened. Axel was gone. It destroyed Axel's mother, devastated his father, shocked the town, silenced the neighbours and broke Miles.

Even though Miles would introduce Axel as his best friend, the two were never really friends. Their parents were friends but Axel and Miles were more neighbours than buddies. Maybe even an acquaintance if Miles was lucky. Occasionally one of their parents would invite the other family to dinner. They would barely talk, but their parents spoke enough for the both of them. Until they stopped talking. Because what do you say to the mother and father of the missing boy you see on TV every night.

They went to the same school, the one 20 minutes from both of their homes. Occasionally they would be in the same class but even sitting next to each other in Chemistry didn't make Axel talk. So Miles learned about Axel through observations. Axel didn't talk to any of the other kids but he saw how persistent Miles was and when he told him to shut up and leave him alone, Miles cried and told his parents, who told Axel's parents, who told Axel to be nicer. So Axel let Miles sit with him at lunch and even though only Miles talked, Miles saw him as his best friend.

Miles didn't have other friends. Unlike Axel, he did want to speak to the other kids, the kids just didn't want to speak to him. Miles deduced that it was the nerdy persona that he put across with his large glasses and love of all school subjects (except gym) but Axel didn't care about that. Not that Miles would know, Axel never really spoke.

•••••••••••

Axel Jacobson. What the hell happened to you?

The missing boy gone for 4 years is back. But he's different too.

You've changed so much.

Longer hair.
Paler skin.
You smoke.
Have tattoos.
But the same eyes.

The same captivating grey eyes as if they were frozen in time, exactly like the ones of his 13 year old self. And Miles wonders what those 13 year old eyes have seen.

•••••••••••

A/N

This is my third book and I'm not going to lie, the book I am most excited to write. I decided to put this at the end so you could jump straight into chapter 1 (Was it good?) but if you were confused (sorry) the italics are just the thoughts of the characters and there are going to be a couple flashbacks in some chapters. The flashbacks should be in past tense, the rest in present and also this is my first time writing in 3rd person which is slightly weird. Did I mention I'm excited?!?!

This is BOYXBOY and will get a little mature in future chapters.

Thanks for reading sweetie 🧡😉