Lost And Found Part 1
Have you ever seen those shows like The Locator or Long Lost Family on Lifetime or TLC or other sappy network television?
No?
Well, the simple break-down is, on these shows, people, your average Joe, are trying to find their adoptive parents or long lost relatives who have been swept under the family secret or scandal rug. They are hosted and run by a person or persons, who, with modern technology (thank you Ancestory.com and public city records) and some old fashion gumshoe pavement beating, usually done by a close knit team or network-funded stable of employees to find out all those dirty secrets or previously sealed documents about your missing quarry. They then contact these previously missing people and spill the beans of the secret/scandal or dump the lost child/relative on them. If the missing person is receptive to this ambush attack they, the hosts and show producers, film an almost always tearful reunion.
Why am I talking to you about this? Well, it’s because I am one of those people finders, only I don’t use all that fancy technology and I don’t travel around pounding the pavement for the ‘dirt’ or the ‘truth’. And I don’t film any reunion that I help set up because I learned very early on in my…calling…that things don’t always go as planned because not everything is as it seems in missing person’s cases. Some of the missing don’t want to be found and for good reason and some of the missing, well they aren’t found in a state for a happy, living reunion. In this I am almost one of a kind because those mopes who run TV shows can’t find the dead half of the time. Those they find dead are the good kind of dead with a proper burial and mourners and all that jazz. I find the dead that certain people don’t want found or didn’t expect to be found, i.e.. murdered, if you didn’t catch my drift. And lastly, the way I set up these reunions after I find the missing, and finding them isn’t exactly an easy thing to explain.
Is this getting confusing? Because I think I’m not doing that great of a job explaining from the way your eyes are crossing.
How about I start at the beginning? Well not the beginning, beginning, that’s boring and would take too long. I’ll start at the beginning or right before the beginning of my life as a finder.
It was spring of my junior year and I had just turned seventeen a month and a half ago. For my birthday I wanted my driver’s license but I had detention all week (which my parents didn’t know about) and the weekends are reserved for working in my parent’s restaurant. It’s nothing too fancy but we keep busy. We have to stay busy, as everything we own and are as a family, is tied up in the place. It’s also run by my family almost exclusively which cuts down on the cost since me and my siblings earn peanuts in wages. But again, we can’t really afford it otherwise. Thus I would catch a ride everyday with my best friend since kindergarten, Christian, call me Chris or else Kane. That was if he wasn’t in detention himself and his car privileges revoked or he had to get home to do chores around the family farm. Chris’s car or truck to be specific was an old beat up hand-me-down Chevy that had probably been new when his grandfather was a teenager. It was his car that got us in trouble on the day my life changed forever and I became a finder, (although I wouldn’t know about that bit for a while yet.)
It was lunch time and some of the football players were talking loudly about the star quarterback’s new car. Jake Abel’s parents were lawyers and had just bought him a convertible. This new toy just had to be shown off and tested to see its limits. Jake had driven it all over town and out into some of the back roads of the farmlands just outside the richer city limits. He had thus almost been late for school and when he parked in the dismal bit of concrete the school called its student lot, the only slot left was next to Chris’s truck. We weren’t far away from Jake and his gang of fellow players when they began to complain even louder, they must have known Chris was close by, about the piece of shit eye sore and total pile of scrap metal junk that was parked next to his fancy new car.
Chris’s truck is no pile of junk, it’s his pride and joy and he keeps it running and looking like it’s only a few years out of style. Chris will take a lot of ribbing about his looks, his manners, his band and, on occasion, his home, but he won’t stand for anyone making fun of his family, his friends, and his truck. So after we had paid for our lunches, we were at the register when Jake had started in on his bullying, we headed towards our usual table…taking the long way around past Jake and his buddies.
When we were passing them, Chris without even turning his head or giving away any tells with his body said, “Hey, Jake”.
When Jake looked at him, a sneer on his lips, it was promptly wiped off his face, almost along with his nose, which slid sideways after it gave off a cracking sound, blood gushing from it following the tray that had sideswiped it.
“Try this shit!” Chris yelled.
Jake screamed and fell backwards onto a table full of lunch trays as students scattered out of the way. The table collapsed, eliciting another scream from Jake and more trays flying. Jake’s buddies were stunned into statues for a few seconds after Jake fell but the first one to come around charged towards Chris.
Without really thinking, I swung my tray at his face to save my friend who was busy telling Jake where he could stick his new car. He saw it coming and tried to duck, and for a second, I thought I was going to miss. I was half right. The tray missed his face but hit him in the neck causing him to let out a gargling sound and clutch his neck, falling over. With Jake and one other football players down, the rest of the team, whether they worshiped Jake or not were going to come to his and their teammate’s defense. Hoisting my tray up again, but poised to run should I need to, I was ready for the fight. It never happened.
“What the hell do you two think you are doing?” A harsh voice boomed from behind me as a giant, meaty hand grabbed my shoulder close to the base of my neck and pressure was applied. It was Coach Fredric Lehne and he was pissed. He had been behind us in the lunch line and he saw everything that happened. However, he was likely to forget any part his players had in this confrontation when he turned us in to the principal. He always looked the other way for his players no matter how bad their behavior or actions. A bit more pressure and I was forced to turn around and as I did I saw he had Chris in a similar hold.
“Boy’s, get Jake and Avery to the nurse,” he talked over his shoulder at his team as he pushed us toward the principal’s office. Chris and I didn’t fight him and I set my tray on a table on the way out of the cafeteria. Best not to have the weapon in hand when defending one’s self to the higher authority. When we arrived at the front office we caught a break, the principal Kim Manners was out. Instead of expulsion, which would likely be on the table for repeated bad behavior and the fact that we already had detention for the week we were to be sentenced by our guidance counselors who were in residence to see us.
Chris was shoved into his counselor’s office with Lehne shouting about him being a menace to society and to just send him to boot camp before he got any worse.
I was then marched into my counselor’s office a few doors down. Jeffery Dean Morgan known to his charges as JD was seated at his desk about to bite into a giant slice of pizza. He blinked a few times in confusion before putting his pizza down as Lehne started in on my crime.
It was unsurprising that I was painted the villain who had attacked, unprovoked, one of his precious players who might be injured enough to have to go to the hospital and miss a game or two. I had not hit him hard enough for that as much as I wished I had in that moment. I’m loath to admit that I’m not as strong as I want to be or could be with my arm muscles. My leg muscles are a bit above average but my arms are a bit below. I had blocked out most of Coach Lehne’s tirade when the word suspension caught my attention.
“It’s clear to see that none of your discipline tactics have worked. He’s had enough detention that it must seem like vacation. I demand you suspend him for this incident.”
“Mr. Lehne,” JD never called him Coach, “Jensen is in fine shape but I don’t think that he hurt Avery that badly. But if you want I can file a report that Jensen, Avery’s previous tutor, got into a scuffle with him and should stay away from him. I’ll have to do some digging and ask witnesses about all the events leading up to and after to make sure that the official documents have all their I’s dotted and T’s crossed.”
At that, Coach Lehne sputtered and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from smiling.
“Just take care of him and make sure he keeps away from my players.” With that Lehne stormed out, slamming the door behind him.
JD sighed and waved a hand at the squat but comfy chairs he had squeezed into his office. When I sat down my knees brushed JD’s desk so I drew then up under me like a kid might have. The smell of the pizza began to fill the office and my stomach rumbled. I hadn’t had a bite to eat since breakfast and my lunch was all over the floor of the cafeteria. JD sighed again, ripped the slice in two and handed me half.
It was a meat deluxe from the Pizza Hut just down the road. Our school is a closed campus and only the staff and seniors get to leave during lunch. There is a fence with a huge gate around the school to help with this. If you’re late, you can’t get in and you get in trouble. JD always seems to have pizza for lunch but none of it shows up on his lean frame. If I had to guess, I’d say JD had played some football or other sport in high school or college himself. We ate in silence for the few minutes it took to scarf down our half slices.
“So, I heard Mr. Lehne’s side of the story with my usual pound of salt, now you tell me what happened.” JD settled back in his chair and watched me. He was a very good judge of who was lying and just about how much. So I told him the truth. When I was done he was shaking his head slightly with an exasperated look on his face. I knew that I had disappointed him, and I didn’t generally like to do that if I could help it. JD had been very good to me since I came to Midland Texas High School my freshmen year. He was like an uncle, except that we didn’t do family gatherings. “Jensen we’ve talked about fighting how often now?”
“A lot.” I shrugged my shoulders. “But we haven’t in a few weeks,” I helpfully added.
“Try two weeks,” JD said as he opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a rather fat folder after a moment of shuffling about. It was my folder and it was in his desk drawer instead of the filing cabinet behind his desk because I’m in his office so much.
“You’re a good kid and a great student but you have got to stop the bad habit of getting into fights. Especially with guys who are bigger then you are or one of these days you won’t be fast enough or lucky enough to get out of the line of fire. You need to find more friends besides Christian and his cousin, not that I’m telling you to abandon them. Are you going with Christian to his anger management classes?”
“Yes and it’s paying off, two weeks is good for me not to be here.” I smiled at JD. Chris, who I was defending in this latest fight, is twice or I’d even say three times more likely to end up in fights as me. But of course, Chris is stronger than I am (but I’m faster…and taller much to his dismay) and has his cousin Steve to back him up when I’m not around.
I, on the other hand, am all alone when I’m not with Chris. I’m considered tall to a majority of the population of the United States but here in Texas, in this small rural town, I’m average. Most sports around here are played by big kids, bigger than me and certainly more muscled and heavier. So someday, if I’m a little too slow or Chris isn’t around I’m going to get creamed. The fact that I have a bit of a temper doesn’t help me when I need to avoid situations where this could happen. Chris has to take mandatory anger management classes with his temper and history of fighting. I go with him at least twice a month (my parents think its book club and movie club).
“Just keep going and try to stay out of trouble, okay?” JD started writing in my file. “I’m not going to recommend suspension this time and with principal Manners gone for another day at least, I think you can get by with another week or two of detention. But if this keeps up and next time Manner’s is here, I might not be able to keep him from suspending you. Especially if he asks to see your file.” JD waved said file a little before he finished writing this newest incident and punishment.
“You can, of course, skip a detention or two as long as you tutor some of the students who need it. Just not any of the jocks for a while,” JD added quickly as if I’ll get any ideas about it. “Lunch is just about over so I suggest you go get your bag from wherever it might be and head straight to your next class.”
And that is all there is to say about the former half of my day.
When I left JD’s office, the door to Chris’s counselor, Judy, was still closed. From past experience and with how mad Coach Lehne was, he’d be in there for a while. I did what JD told me and found my bag, and Chris’s, under the table we usually ate at. Steve must have put them there after the fight when the jocks were too busy to pay attention, otherwise I might never have gotten it back. I took both bags and dropped Chris’s off in the office before going to history class.
The rest of my day passed quickly and by the time detention rolled around I was starving again. Chris wasn’t in detention and I guessed he was working some of his time off with community service since there was no way he was going to tutor struggling students. Not that Chris couldn’t do it, he was smarter than me, he just wasn’t all that interested in showing it. After detention I met Chris in front of the school for my usual ride home. Only Chris’s truck wasn’t there with him.
“Let’s get moving, Jen, it’s my turn to cook tonight and I forgot to buy bread” Chris had his backpack over one shoulder, arm up to hold the strap since the adjuster buckle was broken and in the other hand he had his guitar case.
“Chris, where’s the truck?” It was a very valid and important question considering I had gotten into trouble over it. Plus it had been gray and gloomy weather all day but a storm front had moved in during the last hour or so. Black ominous storm clouds were almost over our heads and there was a cold wind picking up. I did not want to walk with a spring storm about to break.
“Steve has it.” Chris kicked at a rock, sounding slightly angry. He wasn’t angry at Steve, he couldn’t ever be really mad at his cousin but he was mad about not having the truck. I didn’t ask why Steve had it. It was probably some kind of punishment from his dad for fighting. I don’t know how he got the news so fast unless Judy had called Mr. Kane. “Let’s get a move on. I want to beat the storm.”
Like that was going to happen. There was no way unless we traveled as fast as a runaway train we were going to beat this storm. Still, I started walking with Chris stepping into line next to me. We had just left the gateway when an engine revved and then slowed to a purr as a beautiful machine of a motorcycle pulled up alongside us. We didn’t slow and it kept pace as its rider turned to face us. There was no danger of the boy riding it crashing as the road was wide, flat and empty. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye before looking forward again.
“Hey, Jensen,” the boy said over the engine and the increasing wind, not greeting Chris. “Do you want a ride home?”
Oh boy, did I ever! But I was walking with Chris and he was giving the rider a nasty scowl I observed. “No, it’s okay, I’m walking with my friend.” Chris’s scowl lessened but only a fraction and I focused back on the road feeling a bit tense. I didn’t want Chris to get in another fight, especially with this boy.
“You sure? It’s going to start raining any minute,” the boy went on, ignoring Chris completely.
“He said he was walking with me and we got band stuff to discuss, so jet off” Chris answered before I could.
“Sorry, but no, thanks,” I said after turning my head so I could look at him and give him a quick tight smile.
“Sure thing,” the boy replied with a smile all his own before dropping back a bit, revving the engine and taking off at a clip, swerving around us in a wide birth.
I watched him go and wished that I could have accepted his offer of a ride, but Chris is my best friend and we stick together. It would have been a snub to have taken the ride and left Chris to walk home alone in the rain which had just started.
“Shit,” Chris said, speeding up like it will make a difference. “Who the hell was that guy, anyway?” Chris’s capacity to speed walk and talk doesn’t seem to be hampered by the wet hair that was falling into his face and sticking since he doesn’t have a free hand to brush it away.
“His name is Jared Padalecki. We have detention together.” And when I watched him in detention, I wish we had more classes in common. I had had the hots for him since that first day in detention when I had walked in late because I hadn’t known which room detention was in and he had smirked at me when the teacher chastised me. I learned his name first and his reputation second and the fact that most of it was probably a lie, third. Jared was a bad boy, but only on the outside, for appearances sake. We had never really had a conversation since we aren’t supposed to talk in detention unless absolutely necessary. But we had spoken a few words and greetings here and there in all that time.
“Padalecki! You do know who he is right? You might be considered mischievous, I might border on a menace but he’s a delinquent in the eyes of all the school and most town officials!” Chris sounded exasperated. Obviously he had heard and believed everything about Jared’s image and reputation.
“Relax, it’s not like we’re friends or anything,” I assured Chris wishing that we were, friends, I mean. “I see the guy in detention, we’ve spoke maybe twenty words to each other in like three years.”
“And he just happens to think it’s okay to offer you a ride home? He doesn’t even live anywhere near our side of town.” Our town is small, but it’s still divided into the rich and the poor, the haves and the have nots. Me and Chris are haves, but not rich, Jared is a not and poor, or at least that’s what everyone says. “Would you have taken the ride if I wasn’t here?” Chris asked. “Because that’s just asking for trouble. You may as well just tape a sign to your back saying rob me, beat me and leave me in a ditch somewhere.”
“Chris!” I hissed, surprised that he would think that of Jared. But then again, I guess most people would think that of him with what they known or don’t know. “No, I wouldn’t have gone with him.” Which was a lie. I would have, just out of curiosity, also to possibly pump him for knowledge about himself.
Okay, so maybe I had a bit of a crush on him, so sue me, he was hot. Tall, taller than me, warm hazel eyes, soft looking brown hair and a killer smile.
“Good, ‘cause I’d hate to have to go to jail for murder if you went with him and he did something to you.”
I don’t doubt Chris’s statement, he’s that kind of best friend. A friend who had stopped short and I had to back track a few paces to be able to see and hear him since the rain was now coming down in sheets and the wind was now howling and thunder had begun rumbling like an oncoming freight train.
“We need to get out of this damn rain before we drown.” Chris adjusted his backpack so he could carry his guitar with both hands and jog instead of walk. But just as he was putting his bag back on, a hail stone hits me. Hard. I looked down to see that it was the size of a golf ball just as another one hits me.
“Shit, let’s go!” Chris cradled his guitar and starts off and I don’t need to be told twice in order to catch up with him. We didn’t make it very far before the rain was replaced entirely by hail.
“Over there!” Chris shouts over booming thunder and the sound of hail thudding on the ground like drum beats nudging me into the road. On the other side is the community park and sports fields. When we got closer I saw a small stand of metal bleachers by the baseball diamond. It was the only shelter until you reach the end of the long road and we could be pelted to death by hail before then.
I was stopped short of going under the bleachers and out of the beating hail by a flash of lightning. I may not be a genius but I do know that electricity and metal, wet metal at that, don’t mix. I didn’t see the lightning strike anything but that didn’t mean it wasn’t close by.
“What are you doing? Get under cover!” Chris yelled at me from under the bleachers when he has picked a spot under a wider seating plank rather than a foot plank.
I debate whether I want to be beaten to death by hail, possibly struck by lightning or go under the wet metal bleachers and fry when lightning strikes it. In the end I opted for the lesser of the three evils and move in next to Chris. After all, what are the odds of lightning hitting the bleachers and us getting electrocuted? There are taller things close by such as the school not far behind us, the trees ringing the park, a water tower about a mile away (that doesn’t actually hold water anymore) or the flag pole at the entrance to the park’s parking lot. When I look around us the lightning is illuminating the dark landscape.
“We might be here for a while,” Chris said, setting his bag and guitar down. He squatted down and opened the bag to rummage through it. “I got a radio in here somewhere.” He slid his hand inside to grope at the bottom.
“A radio?” I sound as confused as I feel.
“Yeah, one of those cheap portable ones for weather, traffic and amber alert broadcasts and shit like that.” Chris must have found it because he smiled and pulled out a small black rectangle.
“Why do you have that?” I was interested now. In all the time I have known Chris I hadn’t known about this.
“My dad gave it to me last year when we had that real bad snow storm. It’s so I can check the weather and come home to help out getting the farm battened down if things get serious.”
“Why do you need it now? We know we’re in the middle of a shit storm and it won’t be over for a while. Unless someone thinks about where we might be and comes to get us we’re stuck as you mentioned a minute ago.
“True, but it is tornado season.” Chris switched on the radio and the buzzing of a severe weather broadcast was merrily pulsing.
“Fuck,” is all I can say as I realize it’s true and that we might be royally screwed. It was a warm, if cloudy day, the winds are cold, there’s plenty of moisture, the land is pretty flat and we live in the part of Texas that sits firmly in tornado alley. I should have thought of it sooner. I sighed and leaned back against a pole in exasperation.
“Jensen, no!”
It was the last thing I heard before a deafening boom that seemed to shake the ground. Chris leaped to his feet, a horrified look on his face.
A split second later there was a blinding flash, I felt pain like never before, my body seized up and I felt nothing at all.
Then everything went black.
When I come to, I still hurt but not as bad as just before. Or apparently a long time before because I was no longer under the bleachers with Chris. I was in a bed which was hard and painful to my sore body. The lights, while bright, weren’t as bright as the flash that had blinded me. And the hushed sounds took a minute for me to register before I realized where I was.
A hospital.
No one was around to see me wake up except the machines that I was hooked up to and they ratted me out. A nurse came in and checked my pulse, blood pressure, and temperature before making sure my sight, hearing and speech were fine. As she did this she was joined by a doctor who asked all those ridiculous questions like, do you know who you are, how old you are, what day it is and so on. When I checked out okay but said I was in pain, the doctor doped me up and it was back to the land of the unconscious.
When I woke up a second time I didn’t feel bad. In fact I felt great. The nurse and doctor came back to see me and I learned that I had only been out for the night but it felt like I had rested for days. This I didn’t tell the doctor, but I did tell him I was fine and wanted to go home. They had observed me over night with nothing bad happening to me. I didn’t appear to be damaged by my experience, I just didn’t want to stay and take up much needed space that some other, more worthy patient, could be using.
Secretly, I was worried about the bill for a longer stay. As I mentioned, before my family wasn’t rich and they were waiting for me in the lounge instead of working. I got to see them when the nurse was done with every possible test she could run without extensive equipment and left. The doctor stayed and tried to persuade them to get me to stay but they sided with me. By lunchtime I was up on my feet, dressed in yesterday’s dirty cloths and on my way out the door with advice to take it easy for a week, come back for a checkup or if I started to feel anything other than like a normal, human boy. Seriously, the list was so long of things to look for that could go wrong, I thought it would be easier to list the things that wouldn’t or couldn’t go wrong with me. I also got a free pass to skip school, and thus detention for the remainder of the week. That I took.
Dad drove while Mom sat nearly backwards to watch me and repeatedly ask me if I was okay during the drive home. I love my parents and I understand that I gave them a bit of a scare. Hell, even I had been scared for a bit until I understood that I wasn’t going to die and there didn’t appear to be any permanent damage from being shocked with a jillion wats of electricity. I just wanted to go back to normal like nothing had happened. Instead, Mom was going to try and treat me like an invalid and that was gonna fail because I wasn’t going to stay in bed like a fragile piece of glass that might shatter at any moment.
My little sister Mackenzie, who everyone had called Mac since she was born, to the point that she didn’t believe it when her first grade teacher used her legal name would try to copy our mother. Dad and my older brother Josh would do their best to help me out by acting as if I was normal, at least to my face, I would catch the worried look in their eyes later that night when I went down to help bus the tables at the restaurant.
We did good business that night and for the few nights leading up to the weekend as people, my parents business associates, friends and family (mom’s family who ignore us generally called to ask about me and offer some assistance in the form of a loan for my hospital bills) came in to say how good it was that I wasn’t truly hurt from my accident, to hear my harrowing tale of survival and a few to scold me on putting myself in harm’s way, like I could have avoided being hit by lightning. Like I actually wanted that to happen. Even my hospital doctor stopped in to check on me since I would not go back to the hospital. I felt fine and other than the fact that I seemed to have gained a starburst shaped burn scar on my chest (to which I didn’t tell anyone but Chris) I was back to normal. It wasn’t until Saturday that I noticed that something wasn’t right with me after all.
For mom’s sanity and to finally get out from under her mother hen wing, I agreed to run her usual errands with her. If I wasn’t tired out, sore, bruised, or otherwise unwell, I could resume normal life. She put me to the test by making me push the heavy shopping cart at the bulk cash and carry store, making me memorize the at-home grocery list and find everything she asked for, run into stores to pay outstanding bills and exchange dirty linens for clean ones at the dry cleaners while she waited at the curb in the car.
The last stop was at the post office. Post offices in small towns are notorious for being slow. They have a full staff there in the building but only one or two people actually at the counter, and the slowest people at that. There was no way Mom could wait at the curb while I ran inside and she wouldn’t let me wait in the car in the lot when she went inside, so we went in together. We stood in line together too. At least for a few minutes until I got bored and started wondering around looking at everything from various envelopes, boxes, tubes and tape for sale, cards and postcards for loved ones to the message board with layers of papers at least two inches thick.
As I stood and scanned the notices and flyers on the top most layer, advertising garage sales, hire for yard work, babysitters available and the usual notices what to not ship in the mail a yellowed poster half covered in the corner caught my attention. It seemed to call out to me and the other papers around it blurred like they were far away and this paper came into sharp focus by contrast. It was a missing poster but instead of a missing pet it read missing children. I moved the other papers aside to see it in full. On the top, in big bold type was written, ’Have you seen me, missing child.’ Below this, on the left was what looked like a school photo. The kid was light-haired with freckles and a gap-toothed grin where a front tooth had fallen out. Next was the same kid only older, the hair a bit longer, the freckles almost faded to nothing and all his teeth. Below that one, it said age progression, under the first it gave the stats of the kid.
Riley Van Galt, age six, dark blonde hair, blue eyes, four foot three inches, weight exactly eight-five pounds, last seen in tan shorts, sandals, and a red Mickey Mouse shirt when he disappeared from the park a few counties over on July 2nd, 2012. He would be eleven now, see aged photo opposite. If anyone had any information about or had seen Riley to please call the center for missing and exploited children or the local police.
Studying the face of the little boy I blocked out the rest of the world around me. Something in me stirred and my heart fluttered for a moment before everything seemed to slow. It was like I was in a trance, or that feeling you might get from deep meditation, not that I meditate, I had tried it once and that was enough for me, but that is what it felt like. My breathing slowed, heart rate slowed, I’m sure if checked, my blood pressure would have slowed. The image of Riley filled my entire vision and I’m sure lodged deep in my brain. It felt like this went on forever but it was probably only a few seconds. A woman with a whole tribe of kids came into the office then and one of them bumped me and back to living I came. It was like surfacing from a deep dive. Sounds and light were loud and bright for a second or so, I took a deep breath (but not a gasp) and felt like a heavier gravity had come back from being light and buoyant. I moved away from the posters board and stayed by mom’s side till she was finished with the mail. We went home and I forgot about Riley and the poster and how strange I had felt.
At least until the morning.
When I woke up the first thought was that my whole body was tingling and not the good pleasant way of teenage boys. It was the way I had felt the morning after the night I got hit by lightning. Then the next thought I had was that Riley Van Galt was in Georgia.
That made me pause.
Who was Riley Van Galt?
He, I was certain it was a he, wasn’t a friend of mine. I tried to concentrate of why I would know this of him when the memory of the missing person’s poster materialized in my mind. Now I was completely confused. I’d never met Riley, I’d never heard anyone talk about him. I’d sure never been to Georgia, but I knew he was there, deep down in my bones I was absolutely certain. I wasn’t sure if this was some remnant of a very vivid dream, although why I would be dreaming about little Riley Van Galt I wasn’t sure and didn’t want to know, or I had fried some part of my brain after all with the lightning. Either way I pushed those thoughts, and Riley from my mind when Mom yelled that I was going to be late for my shift if I didn’t get up right this minute. Being late for a shift was a criminal offense in my family so I hopped to it.
At first the day went fine, business as usual now that my notoriety was cooling down but it didn’t last. Riley began slipping into my thoughts along with the fact that he was in Georgia. A little town called Rock Creek to be exact. By afternoon I was beginning to see him or his features in any little or preteen boy who came in. I could also picture him in front of a small duplex that was painted a garish yellow in that small town. I was convinced that I was going nuts by the end of my shift and hurried back home and to my room to have a little freak out. Plus, I had developed a slight headache that throbbed when I thought of Riley. My thought process went a little something like this…
I’ve lost my mind. I am going insane. I’m going to end up in some nut house.
Or prison because I am thinking of a little kid so much I might start talking about him and my obsession with a little boy is not going to look good for me. I am going to go to the nut house for insisting I know where a missing kid is when I have only seen his picture. My head hurts. Why is this happening to me? What am I going to do so I don’t end up in the nut house? Or prison? I have lost my mind!
Just out of curiosity I decided to look up Rock Creek, Georgia to see just how badly I was losing my mind.
It turned out from Google maps that a tiny part of me was sane. The town did exist. Next just for shits and giggles I used that nifty feature that lets you see satellite images of the area so detailed that I might as well have been cruising over the town in a hot air balloon. Whenever I came to a more urban-ish block of houses I went to street level to see if any of them were yellow duplexes. Almost two hours later and with what felt like sand blasted eyes from staring at the computer screen I found the building. I had found the town and the building but how was I going to find Riley? Why was I considering this? What could I possibly do with the information if the last bit was as true as what I had found so far? I could just picture again ending up in the loony bin.
“Why yes, Mr. Police Officer, I know where Riley Van Galt is. Yes, he’s that kid who has been missing for years. No I never met him. I saw his picture on a missing poster. I just know where he is, because I just do, maybe I dreamed it. Yes, I am serious. You found him? Great! No, I didn’t have anything to do with his disappearance. No, I have no idea who the person(s) who took him is/are. My brain is fried from being struck by lightning so…oh, sure, I’ll just go with these nice people in white coats.”
I wasn’t sure what to do. Well, it wasn’t like there was much I could do at the moment. I had wasted more time on freaking out and now it was time for dinner. The whole day gone, just like that, and I had spent most of it thinking or rather obsessing about a boy whose face I had seen on a poster. Tomorrow was Monday and back to school. Detention too.
I wonder what Jared Padalecki would think of me if he knew about my sinking into insanity. It turned out he thought I was an interesting date.
All Monday I had that low headache, but it was getting stronger as time went by. Aspirin didn’t help at all so I just had to suck it up and suffer. By the time detention rolled around I just wanted to black out into painless oblivion. I was not to be so lucky. However the prize at the end of the crap day wasn’t shit but a plan to solve at least part of the problem.
When I got to detention, my usual seat was taken. This hadn’t happened since the fall when I had staked out my usual middle aisle window seat from last year and some freshmen thought that they were entitled to it if they got there before I did. A little ‘talk’ after school with him, me and Chris solved the issue. However, today, some kid I had never paid attention to but knew was a junior sat in my seat. As I made my way toward him with what I thought was purpose and he ignored me, I was intercepted by a hand on my arm and a pull towards the back of the room. Before I could protest a voice that made my heart beat just a bit faster stopped me.
“Hey, come sit by me, I need a study buddy.” It was Jared and he was smiling at me like we were old friends. I nodded as he lead me to the desk next to the one he always took at the back of the room next to the window. He let me have his seat and sat next to me pulling out a note book that had been rolled up in his back pocket. He’d ruin his jeans that way and then the shape of his butt wouldn’t look so good.
Then I blushed as I considered my last thought. Jared didn’t seem to notice as he got busy writing in his note book holding it down and mostly flat with his huge hand. Jared had nice big hands that were calloused and I was sure a perfect mix of rough and soft in just the right places. I was drawn out of these thoughts before I could turn as red as a cooked lobster when Jared plopped the notebook on my desk. It rolled a bit and I had to hold it flat like he had in order to read it.
You may be asking yourself why we were passing notes, or a notebook in this case like little kids instead of talking like normal teenagers or adults. Well, detention is meant as a punishment, so to make sure we know that, there is no talking in detention unless you are tutoring someone. However, there are no rules against passing or sharing notes. At least I don’t know of any rule stating that it’s not allowed. Still I did glance at the front of the room when Miss. Pacon was sitting.
Miss Pacon was what old timers called an old maid. She never married, and rumor had it she’d never even had a boyfriend. In today’s freer world of thinking, at least in bigger towns than middle-of-nowhere Texas, she didn’t have a girlfriend either. She had grown old alone with no one around to see her do so but all the classes of students she taught. After decades of this she was close to retirement and getting more and more bitter about it. She could be a real stickler for rules when she wanted and make your time in her detention a real pain instead of a bore. Today she wasn’t paying the least bit attention to us so I fell into a conversation with Jared for the first time.
What are you doing this afternoon?
I had to blink a few times before what I was seeing registered. Jared was possibly asking me out on a date! Or at least I hoped he was.
Why? I wanted to be clear what was going to happen, and passed him back the note book.
He quickly wrote something and passed it back. I thought we might go for a ride.
For a brief moment I wondered if this would be just a ride or if there was a secret double meaning or hidden layer to this message. I was about to reply with a witty comment about that thought when another more interesting one popped into my head. How about tomorrow? I raised an eyebrow as I passed it back.
Jared stared at it for a moment and I thought he might not answer before he shrugged and wrote back. You going to try me out before some other hot date and compare us over the weekend?
I gave him a dirty look and scribbled back a response hoping I wasn’t playing too hard to get. I wanted a ride on Jared’s motorcycle. I also wanted a favor from him.
If you’re too busy I can find someone else with a ride.
I didn’t actually know anyone else with a motorcycle or anyone else interested in me. If Jared couldn’t help me I would be forced to beg Chris for his truck and I didn’t want to do that because he’d ask questions I wasn’t ready to answer yet. Also he wouldn’t like the place I wanted to take his beloved truck.
Jared’s response was so hastily written and sloppy it was hard to read but it made me smile.
Hey tomorrow’s cool, after detention we can hit the open highway.
Now came the part about the favor and I hoped that he would follow my lead and stick with me just this last little bit. As long as we end up at ACES for dinner. Aces was a biker joint a few towns over the county line. I know Jared had been there before, it’s where all the serious bikers in the area hang out. But it isn’t the place that someone like me would normally frequent or that would welcome me with open arms. I knew of it because once a quarter, our family restaurant did a special on more expensive seafood and ACES was on the route to our fish supplier. My parents and Chris would freak if they knew I had wanted to go there.
But there was a working pay phone there. I had seen it and people using it from our trips past it.
I wanted to call the number on the poster for Riley. But I wasn’t stupid enough to call from home, or any of my families or Chris’s cell phone. Like-wise it wouldn’t be wise to call from any phone in town if I wanted to stay anonymous. Which I did very much in case I really was truly nuts.
Jared must have thought I was nuts at least for a minute. He studied the note as if it was written in a foreign language. I thought I had pushed him too hard after all. He had been offering me a quick joy ride, not to be introduced to his friends. But maybe he thought he could spin it as I was just some eye candy (I thought I ranked handsome enough for eye candy status if you asked me) to hang on his arm (or in this case off the back of his bike), all my opinion when he finally passed the note book back.
I practically ripped it out of his hand so I could read it.
I’ll take you if I get a good night kiss.
I think I could deal with that.
I struggled not to blush or have my hand shake as we exchanged the note book for the last time.
Deal.
That night I gave my parents pause when I volunteered to take a stack of restaurant ad flyers and bills to the post office. If I wanted to call in what I knew about Riley I needed the right phone number to call. I wasn’t going to call the police in case I was wrong or they didn’t believe me and I didn’t think that the other number for whatever organization put out the posters would bother to trace the call, they got so many tips that never panned out it wouldn’t be worth it.
Or at least that was what I was counting on.
When I got to the post office it was closed, of course, but you could still go into the outer lobby to use the machine, mail slot or P.O. boxes. The message board with Riley’s missing poster was in the outer lobby. I took one of the ad flyers up to the board and held a bunch as I fake struggled to pin one up over where Riley’s poster was. When I went to drop everything else off where it should go I had Riley’s poster folded and slipped it into my pocket as I left. I don’t know why I was being so covert about my taking the thing but I just wanted as little about what I was going to do traced back to me, not that I thought anyone would try. As I crawled into bed my mind bounced back and forth between the call I’d make to set Riley free from whatever trouble he was in and my date with Jared. Because a motorcycle ride and dinner at a biker bar with a goodnight kiss at the end counted as a date in my book.
The next day, however, I almost canceled on Jared, not to mention school in general, as my head pounded and I understood what people with migraines complained about.
I knew more about Riley Van Galt now, like the address of his house, the phone number, since it apparently had a land line, that the backyard was always overgrown and filled with tennis balls which were bounced against the fence surrounding the yard. It was a good thing there wasn’t any tests because I probably would have started writing down those things I knew about Riley. Jared kept giving me looks during detention as we sat together again and I whispered “nervous excitement” as any excuse for what he thought I looked like. He just smiled and I tried to concentrate on looking and acting normal.
“You sure you’re up for this, Ackles?” Jared asked as he handed me a spare helmet before strapping on his own.
“Oh, yes.” I didn’t have to fake the excitement in my voice as I followed Jared’s lead and put on my helmet. With the motorcycle right in front of me and the immanent prospect of speeding (I like to go fast) down open highway while hanging on to a hot guy, the pain in my head was pushed a little to the side with the rush of adrenaline. I had lied to my parents and told them I’d be practicing music with Chris and Steve while telling Chris I would need to be studying somewhere quiet away from the possibility of getting roped into working an extra shift and asking him to cover for me if my parents called. He agreed reluctantly after I had promised to actually play a gig with them, but singing would not be guaranteed.
Jared got on and started up the engine which purred like perfection and I quickly got on behind him.
“Hold on tight,” he said as he released the brakes and we shot out of the parking lot. Jared’s abs under his shirt and jacket were solid under my hands and I considered copping a feel of his whole chest before we got out onto the main road. Jared went the speed limit within the city but as soon as we crossed the town line and the land turned flat without a hiding place for cops he hit the throttle.
I could have yelled with glee as we shot down open road and the thrill of getting my speed fix pushed my headache further away. Jared must have picked some older, lesser known or highway because there wasn’t a lot of traffic. We spent quite a bit of time just speeding along and by the time my headache started letting itself be known again with great force I felt Jared’s stomach rumble. I was a little hungry but me head prevented me from having a real apatite.
We stopped briefly for Jared to ask if I was ready for dinner and I agreed. I wanted to get the call to the center for missing and exploited children done and over with before my head got worse and I asked Jared to take me home. Or to a hospital if things got worse and I was suddenly reminded that this could be a very delayed symptom of something bad going wrong with my brain thanks to being electrocuted by lightning. I hardly payed attention to the last bit of the trip to ACES. We went inside and got a lot of looks (or I did anyway) until Jared put his arm around my shoulder and guided me up to the bar along the back wall.
He greeted the bartender by name, Chad, a guy who didn’t look older then we were. Chad passed me an old and greasy menu that had lots of things crossed out and new things hand written in along the border. Jared waited till I ordered, already knowing what he wanted before I told him I was going to go outside and try the pay phone just for kicks. Jared laughed but didn’t stop me as I went out, telling him to come get me when the food was ready.
Once outside and standing in front to the pay phone, I was unsure if I wanted to go through with my plan. I took the missing poster out of my jeans pocket and looked at Riley’s face. He looked so innocent and sweet in his school photo. I wondered what was happening to him now and if he actually looked like his aged photo in which he was presented as clean, healthy and happy. His parents must miss him, I know my parents would miss me if I went missing. That was what made my decision up for me. That Riley’s parents loved him and missed him and wanted him home. Taking several dollars’ worth of quarters out of my pocket, I picked up the receiver and fed the machine almost all the quarters. I didn’t think it would take that long to get the information out, (at least I hoped it wouldn’t) and any left-over ones would be returned to me. I dialed the number slowly to make sure I got it right even thought I was reading it off a piece of paper.
It rang three times before being picked up by a woman with a southern accent. “National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, this is Danneel. How can I help you?”
For a second I was tongue-tied but then I looked down at Riley’s smiling face and I could talk again. “Yes, I think I saw this kid from a missing poster. His name is Riley Van Galt,” I paused so she could take that down. “He was at this house in Rock Creek, Georgia” and I gave her the address. Since that was all the information I had to give and I didn’t want to answer questions I repeated the address and hung up. I was just in time too as Jared came out and yelled out food was ready and he’d grab up a table. When he went back inside I breathed out a sigh of relief at having done something right, even if crazy.
It was then that I noticed my headache was gone and I felt good. Better than good, actually, as I walked back inside ACES.
I felt a little like the morning after I was struck by lightning.
It was then I decided that whatever it was that had made me know Riley’s location had to be related to me being zapped. All that electricity had done something to my brain alright, just nothing that any doctor would know anything about.
I somehow knew that it was over, too. I had been given something, I had no idea what, and I had used it and now it was done. I could go back to being me again and with luck, Riley could go back to being…well, whoever he was before he went missing.
I didn’t know then, that that was just the beginning for me and the new power I had gained. At the moment I was just a boy having a great greasy dinner with a cute guy who would thrill me on the way home with speed and leave me breathless with a full, thirty second kiss, a block down from my house so my parents wouldn’t see.
I wouldn’t think about Riley Van Galt for another month and a half when I got the chance to meet him face to face.
No?
Well, the simple break-down is, on these shows, people, your average Joe, are trying to find their adoptive parents or long lost relatives who have been swept under the family secret or scandal rug. They are hosted and run by a person or persons, who, with modern technology (thank you Ancestory.com and public city records) and some old fashion gumshoe pavement beating, usually done by a close knit team or network-funded stable of employees to find out all those dirty secrets or previously sealed documents about your missing quarry. They then contact these previously missing people and spill the beans of the secret/scandal or dump the lost child/relative on them. If the missing person is receptive to this ambush attack they, the hosts and show producers, film an almost always tearful reunion.
Why am I talking to you about this? Well, it’s because I am one of those people finders, only I don’t use all that fancy technology and I don’t travel around pounding the pavement for the ‘dirt’ or the ‘truth’. And I don’t film any reunion that I help set up because I learned very early on in my…calling…that things don’t always go as planned because not everything is as it seems in missing person’s cases. Some of the missing don’t want to be found and for good reason and some of the missing, well they aren’t found in a state for a happy, living reunion. In this I am almost one of a kind because those mopes who run TV shows can’t find the dead half of the time. Those they find dead are the good kind of dead with a proper burial and mourners and all that jazz. I find the dead that certain people don’t want found or didn’t expect to be found, i.e.. murdered, if you didn’t catch my drift. And lastly, the way I set up these reunions after I find the missing, and finding them isn’t exactly an easy thing to explain.
Is this getting confusing? Because I think I’m not doing that great of a job explaining from the way your eyes are crossing.
How about I start at the beginning? Well not the beginning, beginning, that’s boring and would take too long. I’ll start at the beginning or right before the beginning of my life as a finder.
It was spring of my junior year and I had just turned seventeen a month and a half ago. For my birthday I wanted my driver’s license but I had detention all week (which my parents didn’t know about) and the weekends are reserved for working in my parent’s restaurant. It’s nothing too fancy but we keep busy. We have to stay busy, as everything we own and are as a family, is tied up in the place. It’s also run by my family almost exclusively which cuts down on the cost since me and my siblings earn peanuts in wages. But again, we can’t really afford it otherwise. Thus I would catch a ride everyday with my best friend since kindergarten, Christian, call me Chris or else Kane. That was if he wasn’t in detention himself and his car privileges revoked or he had to get home to do chores around the family farm. Chris’s car or truck to be specific was an old beat up hand-me-down Chevy that had probably been new when his grandfather was a teenager. It was his car that got us in trouble on the day my life changed forever and I became a finder, (although I wouldn’t know about that bit for a while yet.)
It was lunch time and some of the football players were talking loudly about the star quarterback’s new car. Jake Abel’s parents were lawyers and had just bought him a convertible. This new toy just had to be shown off and tested to see its limits. Jake had driven it all over town and out into some of the back roads of the farmlands just outside the richer city limits. He had thus almost been late for school and when he parked in the dismal bit of concrete the school called its student lot, the only slot left was next to Chris’s truck. We weren’t far away from Jake and his gang of fellow players when they began to complain even louder, they must have known Chris was close by, about the piece of shit eye sore and total pile of scrap metal junk that was parked next to his fancy new car.
Chris’s truck is no pile of junk, it’s his pride and joy and he keeps it running and looking like it’s only a few years out of style. Chris will take a lot of ribbing about his looks, his manners, his band and, on occasion, his home, but he won’t stand for anyone making fun of his family, his friends, and his truck. So after we had paid for our lunches, we were at the register when Jake had started in on his bullying, we headed towards our usual table…taking the long way around past Jake and his buddies.
When we were passing them, Chris without even turning his head or giving away any tells with his body said, “Hey, Jake”.
When Jake looked at him, a sneer on his lips, it was promptly wiped off his face, almost along with his nose, which slid sideways after it gave off a cracking sound, blood gushing from it following the tray that had sideswiped it.
“Try this shit!” Chris yelled.
Jake screamed and fell backwards onto a table full of lunch trays as students scattered out of the way. The table collapsed, eliciting another scream from Jake and more trays flying. Jake’s buddies were stunned into statues for a few seconds after Jake fell but the first one to come around charged towards Chris.
Without really thinking, I swung my tray at his face to save my friend who was busy telling Jake where he could stick his new car. He saw it coming and tried to duck, and for a second, I thought I was going to miss. I was half right. The tray missed his face but hit him in the neck causing him to let out a gargling sound and clutch his neck, falling over. With Jake and one other football players down, the rest of the team, whether they worshiped Jake or not were going to come to his and their teammate’s defense. Hoisting my tray up again, but poised to run should I need to, I was ready for the fight. It never happened.
“What the hell do you two think you are doing?” A harsh voice boomed from behind me as a giant, meaty hand grabbed my shoulder close to the base of my neck and pressure was applied. It was Coach Fredric Lehne and he was pissed. He had been behind us in the lunch line and he saw everything that happened. However, he was likely to forget any part his players had in this confrontation when he turned us in to the principal. He always looked the other way for his players no matter how bad their behavior or actions. A bit more pressure and I was forced to turn around and as I did I saw he had Chris in a similar hold.
“Boy’s, get Jake and Avery to the nurse,” he talked over his shoulder at his team as he pushed us toward the principal’s office. Chris and I didn’t fight him and I set my tray on a table on the way out of the cafeteria. Best not to have the weapon in hand when defending one’s self to the higher authority. When we arrived at the front office we caught a break, the principal Kim Manners was out. Instead of expulsion, which would likely be on the table for repeated bad behavior and the fact that we already had detention for the week we were to be sentenced by our guidance counselors who were in residence to see us.
Chris was shoved into his counselor’s office with Lehne shouting about him being a menace to society and to just send him to boot camp before he got any worse.
I was then marched into my counselor’s office a few doors down. Jeffery Dean Morgan known to his charges as JD was seated at his desk about to bite into a giant slice of pizza. He blinked a few times in confusion before putting his pizza down as Lehne started in on my crime.
It was unsurprising that I was painted the villain who had attacked, unprovoked, one of his precious players who might be injured enough to have to go to the hospital and miss a game or two. I had not hit him hard enough for that as much as I wished I had in that moment. I’m loath to admit that I’m not as strong as I want to be or could be with my arm muscles. My leg muscles are a bit above average but my arms are a bit below. I had blocked out most of Coach Lehne’s tirade when the word suspension caught my attention.
“It’s clear to see that none of your discipline tactics have worked. He’s had enough detention that it must seem like vacation. I demand you suspend him for this incident.”
“Mr. Lehne,” JD never called him Coach, “Jensen is in fine shape but I don’t think that he hurt Avery that badly. But if you want I can file a report that Jensen, Avery’s previous tutor, got into a scuffle with him and should stay away from him. I’ll have to do some digging and ask witnesses about all the events leading up to and after to make sure that the official documents have all their I’s dotted and T’s crossed.”
At that, Coach Lehne sputtered and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from smiling.
“Just take care of him and make sure he keeps away from my players.” With that Lehne stormed out, slamming the door behind him.
JD sighed and waved a hand at the squat but comfy chairs he had squeezed into his office. When I sat down my knees brushed JD’s desk so I drew then up under me like a kid might have. The smell of the pizza began to fill the office and my stomach rumbled. I hadn’t had a bite to eat since breakfast and my lunch was all over the floor of the cafeteria. JD sighed again, ripped the slice in two and handed me half.
It was a meat deluxe from the Pizza Hut just down the road. Our school is a closed campus and only the staff and seniors get to leave during lunch. There is a fence with a huge gate around the school to help with this. If you’re late, you can’t get in and you get in trouble. JD always seems to have pizza for lunch but none of it shows up on his lean frame. If I had to guess, I’d say JD had played some football or other sport in high school or college himself. We ate in silence for the few minutes it took to scarf down our half slices.
“So, I heard Mr. Lehne’s side of the story with my usual pound of salt, now you tell me what happened.” JD settled back in his chair and watched me. He was a very good judge of who was lying and just about how much. So I told him the truth. When I was done he was shaking his head slightly with an exasperated look on his face. I knew that I had disappointed him, and I didn’t generally like to do that if I could help it. JD had been very good to me since I came to Midland Texas High School my freshmen year. He was like an uncle, except that we didn’t do family gatherings. “Jensen we’ve talked about fighting how often now?”
“A lot.” I shrugged my shoulders. “But we haven’t in a few weeks,” I helpfully added.
“Try two weeks,” JD said as he opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a rather fat folder after a moment of shuffling about. It was my folder and it was in his desk drawer instead of the filing cabinet behind his desk because I’m in his office so much.
“You’re a good kid and a great student but you have got to stop the bad habit of getting into fights. Especially with guys who are bigger then you are or one of these days you won’t be fast enough or lucky enough to get out of the line of fire. You need to find more friends besides Christian and his cousin, not that I’m telling you to abandon them. Are you going with Christian to his anger management classes?”
“Yes and it’s paying off, two weeks is good for me not to be here.” I smiled at JD. Chris, who I was defending in this latest fight, is twice or I’d even say three times more likely to end up in fights as me. But of course, Chris is stronger than I am (but I’m faster…and taller much to his dismay) and has his cousin Steve to back him up when I’m not around.
I, on the other hand, am all alone when I’m not with Chris. I’m considered tall to a majority of the population of the United States but here in Texas, in this small rural town, I’m average. Most sports around here are played by big kids, bigger than me and certainly more muscled and heavier. So someday, if I’m a little too slow or Chris isn’t around I’m going to get creamed. The fact that I have a bit of a temper doesn’t help me when I need to avoid situations where this could happen. Chris has to take mandatory anger management classes with his temper and history of fighting. I go with him at least twice a month (my parents think its book club and movie club).
“Just keep going and try to stay out of trouble, okay?” JD started writing in my file. “I’m not going to recommend suspension this time and with principal Manners gone for another day at least, I think you can get by with another week or two of detention. But if this keeps up and next time Manner’s is here, I might not be able to keep him from suspending you. Especially if he asks to see your file.” JD waved said file a little before he finished writing this newest incident and punishment.
“You can, of course, skip a detention or two as long as you tutor some of the students who need it. Just not any of the jocks for a while,” JD added quickly as if I’ll get any ideas about it. “Lunch is just about over so I suggest you go get your bag from wherever it might be and head straight to your next class.”
And that is all there is to say about the former half of my day.
When I left JD’s office, the door to Chris’s counselor, Judy, was still closed. From past experience and with how mad Coach Lehne was, he’d be in there for a while. I did what JD told me and found my bag, and Chris’s, under the table we usually ate at. Steve must have put them there after the fight when the jocks were too busy to pay attention, otherwise I might never have gotten it back. I took both bags and dropped Chris’s off in the office before going to history class.
The rest of my day passed quickly and by the time detention rolled around I was starving again. Chris wasn’t in detention and I guessed he was working some of his time off with community service since there was no way he was going to tutor struggling students. Not that Chris couldn’t do it, he was smarter than me, he just wasn’t all that interested in showing it. After detention I met Chris in front of the school for my usual ride home. Only Chris’s truck wasn’t there with him.
“Let’s get moving, Jen, it’s my turn to cook tonight and I forgot to buy bread” Chris had his backpack over one shoulder, arm up to hold the strap since the adjuster buckle was broken and in the other hand he had his guitar case.
“Chris, where’s the truck?” It was a very valid and important question considering I had gotten into trouble over it. Plus it had been gray and gloomy weather all day but a storm front had moved in during the last hour or so. Black ominous storm clouds were almost over our heads and there was a cold wind picking up. I did not want to walk with a spring storm about to break.
“Steve has it.” Chris kicked at a rock, sounding slightly angry. He wasn’t angry at Steve, he couldn’t ever be really mad at his cousin but he was mad about not having the truck. I didn’t ask why Steve had it. It was probably some kind of punishment from his dad for fighting. I don’t know how he got the news so fast unless Judy had called Mr. Kane. “Let’s get a move on. I want to beat the storm.”
Like that was going to happen. There was no way unless we traveled as fast as a runaway train we were going to beat this storm. Still, I started walking with Chris stepping into line next to me. We had just left the gateway when an engine revved and then slowed to a purr as a beautiful machine of a motorcycle pulled up alongside us. We didn’t slow and it kept pace as its rider turned to face us. There was no danger of the boy riding it crashing as the road was wide, flat and empty. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye before looking forward again.
“Hey, Jensen,” the boy said over the engine and the increasing wind, not greeting Chris. “Do you want a ride home?”
Oh boy, did I ever! But I was walking with Chris and he was giving the rider a nasty scowl I observed. “No, it’s okay, I’m walking with my friend.” Chris’s scowl lessened but only a fraction and I focused back on the road feeling a bit tense. I didn’t want Chris to get in another fight, especially with this boy.
“You sure? It’s going to start raining any minute,” the boy went on, ignoring Chris completely.
“He said he was walking with me and we got band stuff to discuss, so jet off” Chris answered before I could.
“Sorry, but no, thanks,” I said after turning my head so I could look at him and give him a quick tight smile.
“Sure thing,” the boy replied with a smile all his own before dropping back a bit, revving the engine and taking off at a clip, swerving around us in a wide birth.
I watched him go and wished that I could have accepted his offer of a ride, but Chris is my best friend and we stick together. It would have been a snub to have taken the ride and left Chris to walk home alone in the rain which had just started.
“Shit,” Chris said, speeding up like it will make a difference. “Who the hell was that guy, anyway?” Chris’s capacity to speed walk and talk doesn’t seem to be hampered by the wet hair that was falling into his face and sticking since he doesn’t have a free hand to brush it away.
“His name is Jared Padalecki. We have detention together.” And when I watched him in detention, I wish we had more classes in common. I had had the hots for him since that first day in detention when I had walked in late because I hadn’t known which room detention was in and he had smirked at me when the teacher chastised me. I learned his name first and his reputation second and the fact that most of it was probably a lie, third. Jared was a bad boy, but only on the outside, for appearances sake. We had never really had a conversation since we aren’t supposed to talk in detention unless absolutely necessary. But we had spoken a few words and greetings here and there in all that time.
“Padalecki! You do know who he is right? You might be considered mischievous, I might border on a menace but he’s a delinquent in the eyes of all the school and most town officials!” Chris sounded exasperated. Obviously he had heard and believed everything about Jared’s image and reputation.
“Relax, it’s not like we’re friends or anything,” I assured Chris wishing that we were, friends, I mean. “I see the guy in detention, we’ve spoke maybe twenty words to each other in like three years.”
“And he just happens to think it’s okay to offer you a ride home? He doesn’t even live anywhere near our side of town.” Our town is small, but it’s still divided into the rich and the poor, the haves and the have nots. Me and Chris are haves, but not rich, Jared is a not and poor, or at least that’s what everyone says. “Would you have taken the ride if I wasn’t here?” Chris asked. “Because that’s just asking for trouble. You may as well just tape a sign to your back saying rob me, beat me and leave me in a ditch somewhere.”
“Chris!” I hissed, surprised that he would think that of Jared. But then again, I guess most people would think that of him with what they known or don’t know. “No, I wouldn’t have gone with him.” Which was a lie. I would have, just out of curiosity, also to possibly pump him for knowledge about himself.
Okay, so maybe I had a bit of a crush on him, so sue me, he was hot. Tall, taller than me, warm hazel eyes, soft looking brown hair and a killer smile.
“Good, ‘cause I’d hate to have to go to jail for murder if you went with him and he did something to you.”
I don’t doubt Chris’s statement, he’s that kind of best friend. A friend who had stopped short and I had to back track a few paces to be able to see and hear him since the rain was now coming down in sheets and the wind was now howling and thunder had begun rumbling like an oncoming freight train.
“We need to get out of this damn rain before we drown.” Chris adjusted his backpack so he could carry his guitar with both hands and jog instead of walk. But just as he was putting his bag back on, a hail stone hits me. Hard. I looked down to see that it was the size of a golf ball just as another one hits me.
“Shit, let’s go!” Chris cradled his guitar and starts off and I don’t need to be told twice in order to catch up with him. We didn’t make it very far before the rain was replaced entirely by hail.
“Over there!” Chris shouts over booming thunder and the sound of hail thudding on the ground like drum beats nudging me into the road. On the other side is the community park and sports fields. When we got closer I saw a small stand of metal bleachers by the baseball diamond. It was the only shelter until you reach the end of the long road and we could be pelted to death by hail before then.
I was stopped short of going under the bleachers and out of the beating hail by a flash of lightning. I may not be a genius but I do know that electricity and metal, wet metal at that, don’t mix. I didn’t see the lightning strike anything but that didn’t mean it wasn’t close by.
“What are you doing? Get under cover!” Chris yelled at me from under the bleachers when he has picked a spot under a wider seating plank rather than a foot plank.
I debate whether I want to be beaten to death by hail, possibly struck by lightning or go under the wet metal bleachers and fry when lightning strikes it. In the end I opted for the lesser of the three evils and move in next to Chris. After all, what are the odds of lightning hitting the bleachers and us getting electrocuted? There are taller things close by such as the school not far behind us, the trees ringing the park, a water tower about a mile away (that doesn’t actually hold water anymore) or the flag pole at the entrance to the park’s parking lot. When I look around us the lightning is illuminating the dark landscape.
“We might be here for a while,” Chris said, setting his bag and guitar down. He squatted down and opened the bag to rummage through it. “I got a radio in here somewhere.” He slid his hand inside to grope at the bottom.
“A radio?” I sound as confused as I feel.
“Yeah, one of those cheap portable ones for weather, traffic and amber alert broadcasts and shit like that.” Chris must have found it because he smiled and pulled out a small black rectangle.
“Why do you have that?” I was interested now. In all the time I have known Chris I hadn’t known about this.
“My dad gave it to me last year when we had that real bad snow storm. It’s so I can check the weather and come home to help out getting the farm battened down if things get serious.”
“Why do you need it now? We know we’re in the middle of a shit storm and it won’t be over for a while. Unless someone thinks about where we might be and comes to get us we’re stuck as you mentioned a minute ago.
“True, but it is tornado season.” Chris switched on the radio and the buzzing of a severe weather broadcast was merrily pulsing.
“Fuck,” is all I can say as I realize it’s true and that we might be royally screwed. It was a warm, if cloudy day, the winds are cold, there’s plenty of moisture, the land is pretty flat and we live in the part of Texas that sits firmly in tornado alley. I should have thought of it sooner. I sighed and leaned back against a pole in exasperation.
“Jensen, no!”
It was the last thing I heard before a deafening boom that seemed to shake the ground. Chris leaped to his feet, a horrified look on his face.
A split second later there was a blinding flash, I felt pain like never before, my body seized up and I felt nothing at all.
Then everything went black.
When I come to, I still hurt but not as bad as just before. Or apparently a long time before because I was no longer under the bleachers with Chris. I was in a bed which was hard and painful to my sore body. The lights, while bright, weren’t as bright as the flash that had blinded me. And the hushed sounds took a minute for me to register before I realized where I was.
A hospital.
No one was around to see me wake up except the machines that I was hooked up to and they ratted me out. A nurse came in and checked my pulse, blood pressure, and temperature before making sure my sight, hearing and speech were fine. As she did this she was joined by a doctor who asked all those ridiculous questions like, do you know who you are, how old you are, what day it is and so on. When I checked out okay but said I was in pain, the doctor doped me up and it was back to the land of the unconscious.
When I woke up a second time I didn’t feel bad. In fact I felt great. The nurse and doctor came back to see me and I learned that I had only been out for the night but it felt like I had rested for days. This I didn’t tell the doctor, but I did tell him I was fine and wanted to go home. They had observed me over night with nothing bad happening to me. I didn’t appear to be damaged by my experience, I just didn’t want to stay and take up much needed space that some other, more worthy patient, could be using.
Secretly, I was worried about the bill for a longer stay. As I mentioned, before my family wasn’t rich and they were waiting for me in the lounge instead of working. I got to see them when the nurse was done with every possible test she could run without extensive equipment and left. The doctor stayed and tried to persuade them to get me to stay but they sided with me. By lunchtime I was up on my feet, dressed in yesterday’s dirty cloths and on my way out the door with advice to take it easy for a week, come back for a checkup or if I started to feel anything other than like a normal, human boy. Seriously, the list was so long of things to look for that could go wrong, I thought it would be easier to list the things that wouldn’t or couldn’t go wrong with me. I also got a free pass to skip school, and thus detention for the remainder of the week. That I took.
Dad drove while Mom sat nearly backwards to watch me and repeatedly ask me if I was okay during the drive home. I love my parents and I understand that I gave them a bit of a scare. Hell, even I had been scared for a bit until I understood that I wasn’t going to die and there didn’t appear to be any permanent damage from being shocked with a jillion wats of electricity. I just wanted to go back to normal like nothing had happened. Instead, Mom was going to try and treat me like an invalid and that was gonna fail because I wasn’t going to stay in bed like a fragile piece of glass that might shatter at any moment.
My little sister Mackenzie, who everyone had called Mac since she was born, to the point that she didn’t believe it when her first grade teacher used her legal name would try to copy our mother. Dad and my older brother Josh would do their best to help me out by acting as if I was normal, at least to my face, I would catch the worried look in their eyes later that night when I went down to help bus the tables at the restaurant.
We did good business that night and for the few nights leading up to the weekend as people, my parents business associates, friends and family (mom’s family who ignore us generally called to ask about me and offer some assistance in the form of a loan for my hospital bills) came in to say how good it was that I wasn’t truly hurt from my accident, to hear my harrowing tale of survival and a few to scold me on putting myself in harm’s way, like I could have avoided being hit by lightning. Like I actually wanted that to happen. Even my hospital doctor stopped in to check on me since I would not go back to the hospital. I felt fine and other than the fact that I seemed to have gained a starburst shaped burn scar on my chest (to which I didn’t tell anyone but Chris) I was back to normal. It wasn’t until Saturday that I noticed that something wasn’t right with me after all.
For mom’s sanity and to finally get out from under her mother hen wing, I agreed to run her usual errands with her. If I wasn’t tired out, sore, bruised, or otherwise unwell, I could resume normal life. She put me to the test by making me push the heavy shopping cart at the bulk cash and carry store, making me memorize the at-home grocery list and find everything she asked for, run into stores to pay outstanding bills and exchange dirty linens for clean ones at the dry cleaners while she waited at the curb in the car.
The last stop was at the post office. Post offices in small towns are notorious for being slow. They have a full staff there in the building but only one or two people actually at the counter, and the slowest people at that. There was no way Mom could wait at the curb while I ran inside and she wouldn’t let me wait in the car in the lot when she went inside, so we went in together. We stood in line together too. At least for a few minutes until I got bored and started wondering around looking at everything from various envelopes, boxes, tubes and tape for sale, cards and postcards for loved ones to the message board with layers of papers at least two inches thick.
As I stood and scanned the notices and flyers on the top most layer, advertising garage sales, hire for yard work, babysitters available and the usual notices what to not ship in the mail a yellowed poster half covered in the corner caught my attention. It seemed to call out to me and the other papers around it blurred like they were far away and this paper came into sharp focus by contrast. It was a missing poster but instead of a missing pet it read missing children. I moved the other papers aside to see it in full. On the top, in big bold type was written, ’Have you seen me, missing child.’ Below this, on the left was what looked like a school photo. The kid was light-haired with freckles and a gap-toothed grin where a front tooth had fallen out. Next was the same kid only older, the hair a bit longer, the freckles almost faded to nothing and all his teeth. Below that one, it said age progression, under the first it gave the stats of the kid.
Riley Van Galt, age six, dark blonde hair, blue eyes, four foot three inches, weight exactly eight-five pounds, last seen in tan shorts, sandals, and a red Mickey Mouse shirt when he disappeared from the park a few counties over on July 2nd, 2012. He would be eleven now, see aged photo opposite. If anyone had any information about or had seen Riley to please call the center for missing and exploited children or the local police.
Studying the face of the little boy I blocked out the rest of the world around me. Something in me stirred and my heart fluttered for a moment before everything seemed to slow. It was like I was in a trance, or that feeling you might get from deep meditation, not that I meditate, I had tried it once and that was enough for me, but that is what it felt like. My breathing slowed, heart rate slowed, I’m sure if checked, my blood pressure would have slowed. The image of Riley filled my entire vision and I’m sure lodged deep in my brain. It felt like this went on forever but it was probably only a few seconds. A woman with a whole tribe of kids came into the office then and one of them bumped me and back to living I came. It was like surfacing from a deep dive. Sounds and light were loud and bright for a second or so, I took a deep breath (but not a gasp) and felt like a heavier gravity had come back from being light and buoyant. I moved away from the posters board and stayed by mom’s side till she was finished with the mail. We went home and I forgot about Riley and the poster and how strange I had felt.
At least until the morning.
When I woke up the first thought was that my whole body was tingling and not the good pleasant way of teenage boys. It was the way I had felt the morning after the night I got hit by lightning. Then the next thought I had was that Riley Van Galt was in Georgia.
That made me pause.
Who was Riley Van Galt?
He, I was certain it was a he, wasn’t a friend of mine. I tried to concentrate of why I would know this of him when the memory of the missing person’s poster materialized in my mind. Now I was completely confused. I’d never met Riley, I’d never heard anyone talk about him. I’d sure never been to Georgia, but I knew he was there, deep down in my bones I was absolutely certain. I wasn’t sure if this was some remnant of a very vivid dream, although why I would be dreaming about little Riley Van Galt I wasn’t sure and didn’t want to know, or I had fried some part of my brain after all with the lightning. Either way I pushed those thoughts, and Riley from my mind when Mom yelled that I was going to be late for my shift if I didn’t get up right this minute. Being late for a shift was a criminal offense in my family so I hopped to it.
At first the day went fine, business as usual now that my notoriety was cooling down but it didn’t last. Riley began slipping into my thoughts along with the fact that he was in Georgia. A little town called Rock Creek to be exact. By afternoon I was beginning to see him or his features in any little or preteen boy who came in. I could also picture him in front of a small duplex that was painted a garish yellow in that small town. I was convinced that I was going nuts by the end of my shift and hurried back home and to my room to have a little freak out. Plus, I had developed a slight headache that throbbed when I thought of Riley. My thought process went a little something like this…
I’ve lost my mind. I am going insane. I’m going to end up in some nut house.
Or prison because I am thinking of a little kid so much I might start talking about him and my obsession with a little boy is not going to look good for me. I am going to go to the nut house for insisting I know where a missing kid is when I have only seen his picture. My head hurts. Why is this happening to me? What am I going to do so I don’t end up in the nut house? Or prison? I have lost my mind!
Just out of curiosity I decided to look up Rock Creek, Georgia to see just how badly I was losing my mind.
It turned out from Google maps that a tiny part of me was sane. The town did exist. Next just for shits and giggles I used that nifty feature that lets you see satellite images of the area so detailed that I might as well have been cruising over the town in a hot air balloon. Whenever I came to a more urban-ish block of houses I went to street level to see if any of them were yellow duplexes. Almost two hours later and with what felt like sand blasted eyes from staring at the computer screen I found the building. I had found the town and the building but how was I going to find Riley? Why was I considering this? What could I possibly do with the information if the last bit was as true as what I had found so far? I could just picture again ending up in the loony bin.
“Why yes, Mr. Police Officer, I know where Riley Van Galt is. Yes, he’s that kid who has been missing for years. No I never met him. I saw his picture on a missing poster. I just know where he is, because I just do, maybe I dreamed it. Yes, I am serious. You found him? Great! No, I didn’t have anything to do with his disappearance. No, I have no idea who the person(s) who took him is/are. My brain is fried from being struck by lightning so…oh, sure, I’ll just go with these nice people in white coats.”
I wasn’t sure what to do. Well, it wasn’t like there was much I could do at the moment. I had wasted more time on freaking out and now it was time for dinner. The whole day gone, just like that, and I had spent most of it thinking or rather obsessing about a boy whose face I had seen on a poster. Tomorrow was Monday and back to school. Detention too.
I wonder what Jared Padalecki would think of me if he knew about my sinking into insanity. It turned out he thought I was an interesting date.
All Monday I had that low headache, but it was getting stronger as time went by. Aspirin didn’t help at all so I just had to suck it up and suffer. By the time detention rolled around I just wanted to black out into painless oblivion. I was not to be so lucky. However the prize at the end of the crap day wasn’t shit but a plan to solve at least part of the problem.
When I got to detention, my usual seat was taken. This hadn’t happened since the fall when I had staked out my usual middle aisle window seat from last year and some freshmen thought that they were entitled to it if they got there before I did. A little ‘talk’ after school with him, me and Chris solved the issue. However, today, some kid I had never paid attention to but knew was a junior sat in my seat. As I made my way toward him with what I thought was purpose and he ignored me, I was intercepted by a hand on my arm and a pull towards the back of the room. Before I could protest a voice that made my heart beat just a bit faster stopped me.
“Hey, come sit by me, I need a study buddy.” It was Jared and he was smiling at me like we were old friends. I nodded as he lead me to the desk next to the one he always took at the back of the room next to the window. He let me have his seat and sat next to me pulling out a note book that had been rolled up in his back pocket. He’d ruin his jeans that way and then the shape of his butt wouldn’t look so good.
Then I blushed as I considered my last thought. Jared didn’t seem to notice as he got busy writing in his note book holding it down and mostly flat with his huge hand. Jared had nice big hands that were calloused and I was sure a perfect mix of rough and soft in just the right places. I was drawn out of these thoughts before I could turn as red as a cooked lobster when Jared plopped the notebook on my desk. It rolled a bit and I had to hold it flat like he had in order to read it.
You may be asking yourself why we were passing notes, or a notebook in this case like little kids instead of talking like normal teenagers or adults. Well, detention is meant as a punishment, so to make sure we know that, there is no talking in detention unless you are tutoring someone. However, there are no rules against passing or sharing notes. At least I don’t know of any rule stating that it’s not allowed. Still I did glance at the front of the room when Miss. Pacon was sitting.
Miss Pacon was what old timers called an old maid. She never married, and rumor had it she’d never even had a boyfriend. In today’s freer world of thinking, at least in bigger towns than middle-of-nowhere Texas, she didn’t have a girlfriend either. She had grown old alone with no one around to see her do so but all the classes of students she taught. After decades of this she was close to retirement and getting more and more bitter about it. She could be a real stickler for rules when she wanted and make your time in her detention a real pain instead of a bore. Today she wasn’t paying the least bit attention to us so I fell into a conversation with Jared for the first time.
What are you doing this afternoon?
I had to blink a few times before what I was seeing registered. Jared was possibly asking me out on a date! Or at least I hoped he was.
Why? I wanted to be clear what was going to happen, and passed him back the note book.
He quickly wrote something and passed it back. I thought we might go for a ride.
For a brief moment I wondered if this would be just a ride or if there was a secret double meaning or hidden layer to this message. I was about to reply with a witty comment about that thought when another more interesting one popped into my head. How about tomorrow? I raised an eyebrow as I passed it back.
Jared stared at it for a moment and I thought he might not answer before he shrugged and wrote back. You going to try me out before some other hot date and compare us over the weekend?
I gave him a dirty look and scribbled back a response hoping I wasn’t playing too hard to get. I wanted a ride on Jared’s motorcycle. I also wanted a favor from him.
If you’re too busy I can find someone else with a ride.
I didn’t actually know anyone else with a motorcycle or anyone else interested in me. If Jared couldn’t help me I would be forced to beg Chris for his truck and I didn’t want to do that because he’d ask questions I wasn’t ready to answer yet. Also he wouldn’t like the place I wanted to take his beloved truck.
Jared’s response was so hastily written and sloppy it was hard to read but it made me smile.
Hey tomorrow’s cool, after detention we can hit the open highway.
Now came the part about the favor and I hoped that he would follow my lead and stick with me just this last little bit. As long as we end up at ACES for dinner. Aces was a biker joint a few towns over the county line. I know Jared had been there before, it’s where all the serious bikers in the area hang out. But it isn’t the place that someone like me would normally frequent or that would welcome me with open arms. I knew of it because once a quarter, our family restaurant did a special on more expensive seafood and ACES was on the route to our fish supplier. My parents and Chris would freak if they knew I had wanted to go there.
But there was a working pay phone there. I had seen it and people using it from our trips past it.
I wanted to call the number on the poster for Riley. But I wasn’t stupid enough to call from home, or any of my families or Chris’s cell phone. Like-wise it wouldn’t be wise to call from any phone in town if I wanted to stay anonymous. Which I did very much in case I really was truly nuts.
Jared must have thought I was nuts at least for a minute. He studied the note as if it was written in a foreign language. I thought I had pushed him too hard after all. He had been offering me a quick joy ride, not to be introduced to his friends. But maybe he thought he could spin it as I was just some eye candy (I thought I ranked handsome enough for eye candy status if you asked me) to hang on his arm (or in this case off the back of his bike), all my opinion when he finally passed the note book back.
I practically ripped it out of his hand so I could read it.
I’ll take you if I get a good night kiss.
I think I could deal with that.
I struggled not to blush or have my hand shake as we exchanged the note book for the last time.
Deal.
That night I gave my parents pause when I volunteered to take a stack of restaurant ad flyers and bills to the post office. If I wanted to call in what I knew about Riley I needed the right phone number to call. I wasn’t going to call the police in case I was wrong or they didn’t believe me and I didn’t think that the other number for whatever organization put out the posters would bother to trace the call, they got so many tips that never panned out it wouldn’t be worth it.
Or at least that was what I was counting on.
When I got to the post office it was closed, of course, but you could still go into the outer lobby to use the machine, mail slot or P.O. boxes. The message board with Riley’s missing poster was in the outer lobby. I took one of the ad flyers up to the board and held a bunch as I fake struggled to pin one up over where Riley’s poster was. When I went to drop everything else off where it should go I had Riley’s poster folded and slipped it into my pocket as I left. I don’t know why I was being so covert about my taking the thing but I just wanted as little about what I was going to do traced back to me, not that I thought anyone would try. As I crawled into bed my mind bounced back and forth between the call I’d make to set Riley free from whatever trouble he was in and my date with Jared. Because a motorcycle ride and dinner at a biker bar with a goodnight kiss at the end counted as a date in my book.
The next day, however, I almost canceled on Jared, not to mention school in general, as my head pounded and I understood what people with migraines complained about.
I knew more about Riley Van Galt now, like the address of his house, the phone number, since it apparently had a land line, that the backyard was always overgrown and filled with tennis balls which were bounced against the fence surrounding the yard. It was a good thing there wasn’t any tests because I probably would have started writing down those things I knew about Riley. Jared kept giving me looks during detention as we sat together again and I whispered “nervous excitement” as any excuse for what he thought I looked like. He just smiled and I tried to concentrate on looking and acting normal.
“You sure you’re up for this, Ackles?” Jared asked as he handed me a spare helmet before strapping on his own.
“Oh, yes.” I didn’t have to fake the excitement in my voice as I followed Jared’s lead and put on my helmet. With the motorcycle right in front of me and the immanent prospect of speeding (I like to go fast) down open highway while hanging on to a hot guy, the pain in my head was pushed a little to the side with the rush of adrenaline. I had lied to my parents and told them I’d be practicing music with Chris and Steve while telling Chris I would need to be studying somewhere quiet away from the possibility of getting roped into working an extra shift and asking him to cover for me if my parents called. He agreed reluctantly after I had promised to actually play a gig with them, but singing would not be guaranteed.
Jared got on and started up the engine which purred like perfection and I quickly got on behind him.
“Hold on tight,” he said as he released the brakes and we shot out of the parking lot. Jared’s abs under his shirt and jacket were solid under my hands and I considered copping a feel of his whole chest before we got out onto the main road. Jared went the speed limit within the city but as soon as we crossed the town line and the land turned flat without a hiding place for cops he hit the throttle.
I could have yelled with glee as we shot down open road and the thrill of getting my speed fix pushed my headache further away. Jared must have picked some older, lesser known or highway because there wasn’t a lot of traffic. We spent quite a bit of time just speeding along and by the time my headache started letting itself be known again with great force I felt Jared’s stomach rumble. I was a little hungry but me head prevented me from having a real apatite.
We stopped briefly for Jared to ask if I was ready for dinner and I agreed. I wanted to get the call to the center for missing and exploited children done and over with before my head got worse and I asked Jared to take me home. Or to a hospital if things got worse and I was suddenly reminded that this could be a very delayed symptom of something bad going wrong with my brain thanks to being electrocuted by lightning. I hardly payed attention to the last bit of the trip to ACES. We went inside and got a lot of looks (or I did anyway) until Jared put his arm around my shoulder and guided me up to the bar along the back wall.
He greeted the bartender by name, Chad, a guy who didn’t look older then we were. Chad passed me an old and greasy menu that had lots of things crossed out and new things hand written in along the border. Jared waited till I ordered, already knowing what he wanted before I told him I was going to go outside and try the pay phone just for kicks. Jared laughed but didn’t stop me as I went out, telling him to come get me when the food was ready.
Once outside and standing in front to the pay phone, I was unsure if I wanted to go through with my plan. I took the missing poster out of my jeans pocket and looked at Riley’s face. He looked so innocent and sweet in his school photo. I wondered what was happening to him now and if he actually looked like his aged photo in which he was presented as clean, healthy and happy. His parents must miss him, I know my parents would miss me if I went missing. That was what made my decision up for me. That Riley’s parents loved him and missed him and wanted him home. Taking several dollars’ worth of quarters out of my pocket, I picked up the receiver and fed the machine almost all the quarters. I didn’t think it would take that long to get the information out, (at least I hoped it wouldn’t) and any left-over ones would be returned to me. I dialed the number slowly to make sure I got it right even thought I was reading it off a piece of paper.
It rang three times before being picked up by a woman with a southern accent. “National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, this is Danneel. How can I help you?”
For a second I was tongue-tied but then I looked down at Riley’s smiling face and I could talk again. “Yes, I think I saw this kid from a missing poster. His name is Riley Van Galt,” I paused so she could take that down. “He was at this house in Rock Creek, Georgia” and I gave her the address. Since that was all the information I had to give and I didn’t want to answer questions I repeated the address and hung up. I was just in time too as Jared came out and yelled out food was ready and he’d grab up a table. When he went back inside I breathed out a sigh of relief at having done something right, even if crazy.
It was then that I noticed my headache was gone and I felt good. Better than good, actually, as I walked back inside ACES.
I felt a little like the morning after I was struck by lightning.
It was then I decided that whatever it was that had made me know Riley’s location had to be related to me being zapped. All that electricity had done something to my brain alright, just nothing that any doctor would know anything about.
I somehow knew that it was over, too. I had been given something, I had no idea what, and I had used it and now it was done. I could go back to being me again and with luck, Riley could go back to being…well, whoever he was before he went missing.
I didn’t know then, that that was just the beginning for me and the new power I had gained. At the moment I was just a boy having a great greasy dinner with a cute guy who would thrill me on the way home with speed and leave me breathless with a full, thirty second kiss, a block down from my house so my parents wouldn’t see.
I wouldn’t think about Riley Van Galt for another month and a half when I got the chance to meet him face to face.