[Friday]A week after the events that occurred outside Ruby"s house, time continued as normal. The weekend pa.s.sed with no one doing anything, and school progressed until the weekend arrived again.
"THIS ISN"T RIGHT!" Kaylee screamed at Owen again. "You walked her home last week, right? Well? Where is she?"
"I don"t know. She hasn"t been showing up to music but I just a.s.sumed she was sick." Owen said.
"Sick? You think she"s sick?" Kaylee said. "She would at least message me if she was! I haven"t spoken to her since last week. None of my messages are getting through. Nothing is working."
Kaylee paced around the room frustrated whilst Owen and Ethan sat unable to understand why Kaylee cared so much.
"Kaylee," Ethan said. "I think Owen has the right att.i.tude."
"What?!" Kaylee said snapping her head towards Ethan and moving in like a predator.
"I-I mean, It"s not our business what happens in her family."
"I know that," Kaylee said. "But it"s not right, she always talks about how her stepdad controls her and forces her to do things. She even had to dye her hair back because of him."
"Didn"t she do that herself?" Owen said.
"YOU ARE AN IDIOT!" Kaylee said repeatedly hitting Owen. "That was clearly her asking for help! How do you, of all people, not know that?"
"She said she liked it."
"Idiot," Kaylee said as she used Ethan"s hands to hit Owen.
"Look," Owen said. "What can we do? We can"t do anything against him. It"s not up to us to rebel against a stranger. Ruby is the one that has to want the change. It can"t start without Ruby doing whatever she has to do."
"What are suggesting? She runs away?" Ethan said.
"That will never happen. She follows the rules too much. As long as she keeps hanging onto her dead dad, she won"t run away."
"What do you mean? Why would her dead dad stop her from running away?" Kaylee asked.
"Because everything she does is for him. Her violin, her singing, her piano, her art, her acting. All this is just to make her dad proud. I could be wrong but I"m sure Ruby still hasn"t gotten over her dad."
"B-but… that"s ridiculous," Kaylee said slumping in a chair.
"How? It makes sense. It"s the only attachment she has left. Her dad is with her as long as she continues to play." Owen said. "Ruby misses her dad more than anyone. But she will continue to miss him and not live for herself. She can"t run away because of this. She runs, she loses her connection to her dad."
"It"s possible she doesn"t want to upset her mother," Ethan added.
"Or that," Owen said going back on the long speech he just made and continued to go back to focusing on something else.
"WHATEVER!" Kaylee said as if she wasn"t listening to anything that was said. "We are going to do something."
"You really weren"t listening, were you? Ruby has to be the one to do something. We can"t."
"THEN WE JUST GIVE HER A JUMP START!" Kaylee screamed at the top of her lungs.
After school that day, Ethan, Kaylee and Owen waited for each other by the gate. They made a plan during the day of what they wanted to do. Owen didn"t listen to any of it and Ethan was just happy to hang out.
"You ready to go?" Kaylee asked as she leads the way.
"How nice of you to care about your friend"s feelings," Owen said.
"What are you saying?" Kaylee replied. "You trying to start a fight?"
"You know what I mean." He replied snarkily.
"I"m trying. Ok? you should also try for your friends, she cares about you more than you think."
They continued to walk with Ethan not listening as he was too absorbed with other issues. They arrived outside Ruby"s house and didn"t want to approach the doorbell.
"Well," Kaylee said. "Go on…" She pushed Owen forward who immediately ran backwards and hid behind a car.
"I"m not doing it." He said. "He scares me. I can"t be brave this many times in one month."
"Oh forget it, I"ll do it." Ethan said pressing it and running back to where Owen was.
Ding Dong
Several seconds the sound of locks coming undone and keys turning preceded the door being opened. Ruby"s stepdad, a man with a fierce expression that fits perfectly for someone who hates children, stood at the door, looking down on Kaylee.
"H-h.e.l.lo..." She said. "Is Ruby here?"
The man looked at her before saying, "She isn"t in."
"Ah, I see. When will she be back?"
"Don"t know," he said immediately. "I"m busy. Goodbye." He said as he slammed the door in her face.
"What a d.i.c.k," Owen said from behind the cars, looking at the windows on the second floor.
"Well, we tried," Kaylee said. "We can"t do anything. We can only hope."
They walked away with Owen not looking away from the windows. A figure approached as they were moving away and pressed their hand against the window.
# # #
"Do you think she"ll ever come back?" Kaylee said in a group chat message to Owen.
"Don"t know? maybe go to sleep and forget about it for today? it"s already nearly midnight."
After failing to meet with Ruby in the day, they created a group chat t.i.tled "annoying stepdad chat". You would think it"s a chat for annoying stepdads but it"s actually just for Kaylee to gossip about the annoying stepdad to Owen and Ethan. The adrenaline she faced at that moment wasn"t going down and she needed a way to calm herself down.
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"Alright," Kaylee said. "I"ll see you all on Monday. Hopefully, we get some good news soon."
"Finally she"s gone," Owen said out loud as he was home alone, as usual. "What to do now?"
He rested on his bed looking at the plain ceiling. "What to do now?" he repeated.
Ding dong
"The doorbell?" He said getting up forgetting that he was talking to himself. "Who is it at this hour?"
Owen walked down the stairs as carefully as possible. He wielded a bat as he was aware of possible intruders at this hour. His parents had always warned him about bad people.
He reached out to the door handle and slowly opened the door.
"Oh, It"s you." He said to the girl standing at the door.
"H-hi. um, I kinda ran away."
Owen looked at the cold girl with blackhole hair who stood at his front door, wondering what to do.
"Come on in, Ruby. You can stay here for the night."