Dear: Who Now?!

Chapter 23

I take in a shaky breath as I stand and walk towards the man. He thanks Joey and then walks out with me following behind. I hear the door close behind us and Joey and Lou talking excitedly - probably happy I'm leaving. 

Once outside, the man points to a red truck. "Get in." He tells me while going around to the driver's side. Before getting in, I look up to the top floor and see Lou and Joey's faces in the window as they watch me being taken away. Sighing, I pull the door open and get in. I barely have time to close the door before we go zooming off. 

Very quickly, we pull into the KFC parking lot and park. Well at least I'll get to eat before I'm brutally murdered, I think to myself. I glance over at my captor. He has dark black hair, a mustache and tattoos on his very tan and muscular arms. I notice he's typing away on his phone. A minute later he holds it up to his ear and lets out a grumpy noise when nobody answers. He goes back and forth between texting and calling but both seem to get him nowhere. He starts the truck back up and goes through the drive through. 

"Hi and welcome to KFC. How can I help you today?" The lady asks through the crackly speaker.  "Yeah, I'll have a popcorn chicken and a small coke." The man replies. It's quiet a moment before the speaker crackles again. "We don't have coke but we do have pepsi. Is that okay?" The woman asks. The guy nods his head. "Yeah that's fine." The speaker crackles again. "Okay, pull right up to the first window. The man drives up to the only window and pays before he's given the food and drink. "Do you want any sauce with that?" A lady asks. He nods and says "Barbeque." The woman quickly obliges and gives him more sauce than needed. He hands everything to me and we drive off. 

I take the bag and look at him. He looks back at me. "It's for you, eat." He tells me. I nod and start digging into the bag. He parks and we're silent except for an occasional rustle of the bag every once in a while. He goes back to his phone as I eat. 

Ten minutes of no luck, the guy starts his truck again and starts aimlessly driving - probably looking for a good place to leave my body once he kills me. Out of nowhere, and rather suddenly, he makes some weird excited noise and starts driving in a different direction than we were originally going in. I start to recognize my surroundings and begin to think he's taking me back to Joey's house but we stay on the main road behind it and just keep going. 

We go past two sets of lights, a sewage system building, random little stores and finally turn down some roads before the roads become empty and the landscape becomes bare. I have absolutely NO idea where we're going, who this man is or even WHY I left with him! I'm snapped out of my thoughts by him. "Sooo. What happened?" He asks and looks at me for the slightest second. I furrow my brows in confusion. "Do you mean-" He cuts me off. "Back there with everybody. What happened?" He asks slightly annoyed. I'm quiet a moment while I debate what to say and finally just spit it out. "I got mad at my mom and kissed one of her friends for revenge which made them both get mad at me, mom ran out and left me, then the guys yelled at me and then you came along and here we are." I say all in one breath. He looks at me once and does a double take. "That's seriously fucked. Now I get why your mother is all upset." Is all he says to me. I let out an annoyed sigh. "Who are you anyway?" I ask the mystery man. I notice we've stopped. I see a big green house to our right and mom's car in the middle of the big parking area- as if she just jumped out of it as soon as she got here. The guy sees the car and lets out a little  "YES!" Before pumping his fist in the air excitedly. He opens his door then turns to me. "I'm your grandpa. Now let's go." I watch him get out. I feel numb by his declaration. What? Mom never told me I even had any family.... Not dwelling much longer on the thought, I jump out of the truck and follow the man up and small paved path with flowers to a front door where he knocks on it and waits. With no response, he turns around and motions me to come with him. Heading right, we go around a slight bend, and come to another, much larger set of stairs. Jogging up it, he pounds on the door and waits. He goes to knock again when the door opens, revealing non other than my mother.