Chapter thirteen

13.
R was absent from school Thursday and Friday. Sophia and I were both worried out of our skulls, especially since he wasn't answering on his cell. His mailbox wasn't even set up either, so we couldn't leave a message. If we could, he would have heard a lot of screaming voices, yelling his name, and shouting at him to “PICK UP THE PHONE!”.
Sophia called me three times on Saturday. The first two times we both asked each other if we'd heard from/seen R. We both said no. The third time, she was starting to get just a little bit heated.
“Hi, Shane, I guess you know who it is. No, I haven't heard from R, no, you didn't either. Look, why don't we just go to the freaking hospital and find him? Might as well beat him up while we're there, too, since it'll be convenient. What with him already being in the hospital and everything.”
We discussed that option, and decided against it. Well, I decided against it, and so did both of our parents. So she eventually came over to our side and decided it wasn't such a good idea. Our parents told us both that R needed his space, and we needed to respect that.
Once, James called, and when I answered the phone by saying, “Sophia?” in a tired, worn out voice, he got a kick out of it. We agreed to both bike into town and meet at the park. I wasn't exactly ecstatic to hang out with James, especially since I had a lot of other things on my mind. But my parents were itching for me to get out of the house (I think they wanted some “alone time”) and I also admitted that it might be good for me. So I saddled up my bike (ha ha...) and rode into town. James was there already, leaning against a swing set, looking cool and nonchalant. I exited my bike and walked it over to him. He noticed me only when I said his name.
“Oh, hey!”
“What's up?”
“Eh, bored. Kyle and Mike are both doing something. But I figured you wouldn't mind hanging out with just the two of us, right?” He grinned and kicked a rock. I smiled, but couldn't think of anything to say. My mind was elsewhere. I think James could tell.
“R's gonna be okay, Shane. Hey, do you wanna go grab some french fries from Carl's Junior? I'll pay.”
I nodded and we walked over to the restaurant. It only took about 15 minutes. We each got a big order of fries, and then took them outside to eat in the fresh autumn air. I breathed in deep. It felt good. I hated being cooped up inside all day long. Either in my house, or in school. But school was decidedly worse. The only TV there was in the teacher's lounge.
James sighed dejectedly. “Well, this is boring. I want to do something, not just sit here and eat. Hey, wanna see if we can catch a movie?”
“Isn't the theater, like, 3 miles away from here?”
“What, you chicken? What'd you think the bikes are for?” He grinned at me, a look of competition entering his face. I couldn't help but grin back.
“You're on.”
We jumped onto our bikes and as fast as we could, took off. I knew the basic route to the mall movie theater, but James knew some side streets, so it was a good thing that he was a faster rider than me. I followed him all the way there, and we pulled up into the parking lot side by side, breathing heavily from the workout.
“I won,” he said, grinning again, and then putting his hands on his knees and panting.
“No way, man. That was a tie.”
“Want to go back and do it again?” He raised his eyesbrows.
“Never mind,” I shook my head, exaggerating it to make it comical, “You won.”
We both laughed before locking up our bikes and heading inside. We were just in time for a showing of a kung-fu film we had both wanted to see, so we paid and snuck our way into a back row of the darkened room. The movie was pretty good, but very corny at some parts. James fell in love with the main girl character, and I teased him about it while we were riding – slowly – back home.
“Oh yeah,” he said in retaliation to one of my insults, “Well, well... ah, you got me. I got nothing.”
I laughed, and was going to admit that secretly I had thought she was pretty cool, too, but James started talking again.
“Shane, you're my friend, right?”
“Yeah...” I said, confused.
He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but then shook his head. He spoke again after a few moments. “Want to meet my family?”
I was sure that wasn't what he was originally going to say, but I didn't mention anything. I just nodded and said sure.
I slept over at James' house that night. We stayed up late, talking about the movie, and school, his family, my family. I got to meet his parents and two of his sisters, one older and one younger. His older sister, Katelyn, was a senior, so I had seen her around school before. I hadn't even known she was James' sister, though. His little 7-year old sister Jordan was cute, but a little bit of a pest, and somehow she liked me right away. How could I tell?
“I like you!” She had said, right after James had introduced me. “Give me a piggyback ride!”
James was a lot more talkative than usual when we stayed up late, just chatting and sometimes playing video games.
“I have another sister,” he told me while the Halo 2 screen was loading. “She's away at college in California, but she usually comes up for Christmas and Thanksgiving.” The game loaded right after he said that, so we played in silence except for the occasional exclamations that everybody does while playing video games.
“Aw, man, did you see that?”
“I killed you!”
“Shoot, I died.”
And so on.
While we were in the kitchen cooking a frozen pizza, his sister Katelyn came in.
“Hey, sis. Where were you?” James asked.
“Out with some friends. Oh, hi Shane. Are you spending the night?”
After quickly getting over the shock that she was talking to me, I replied. “Yeah.”
“Cool. Whatcha guys doing?”
“Making some pizza to eat while we watch a movie.” James said, and then asked, “You wanna join us?”
“I have some homework to do... ah, well, why not? Sure.”
I was surprised at first that she wanted to join us. After all, we were both just sophomores, and she was a senior. And she was James' big sister. From what I had heard of siblings (since I didn't have any of my own) they usually didn't hang out with their little brother and his friends. But then I realized she probably just wanted to avoid doing the homework she had mentioned. In fact, I might have done that too. If I had siblings, that is.
We settled down to watch the movie, and somehow Katelyn ended up in the middle of the couch we were sitting on. It was a little cramped, so I felt kind of awkward, but as the evening progressed that feeling mostly went away. Katelyn was fun and talkative. She laughed at the movie just as hard as we did, and even injected several behind-the-scenes things she had learned on the Internet.
“It's my favorite movie,” she explained. “I'm not just some geek who goes around collecting that kind of stuff.”
“She pretends not to be.” James whispered to me, and we all laughed. I was having a great time and hadn't remembered any of the day's earlier events until I was leaving James' home on Sunday afternoon.
We were saying goodbye, when he said triumphantly, “I bet you didn't think about R once last night.”
I was a little shocked, but I just said, “You're right, I didn't.” And left. But on my way home, that's who I was thinking about. R. I really had forgotten completely about him. I was just having a really good time with James, and with Katelyn, because she actually had hung out with us a lot. I was pondering whether I thought it was a good thing or a bad thing I had forgotten about R when I got home.
“Mom! I'm back!” I yelled, stepping inside. The house was quiet, so I entered the kitchen, looking for a note explaining where my parents were. Unless they were just upstairs. I looked all around, and no note. I went upstairs. No parents in any of the rooms. I checked the computer room, the downstairs bathroom, even the garage. They were gone. But why wouldn't they leave a note? I was walking through the front hallway, wondering if I should check the neighbor's house when I saw a little flashing red light. It was on the answering machine, so I pressed a button to see who had called. There were two messages. The first was from Sophia.
“Shane, you cheater, you quitter. I can't believe you actually went to hang out with someone. I just got my parents to say that we could swing over to R's house and see if he was at home. And now you're gone. They said I can't do it alone. I think you need to- oh, there's someone on the other line. You got lucky, I have to answer it. Don't call me, I'll call you.” Click.
The second was from my parents, and the sound of it sent a chill down my spine that worked its way throughout my bones. It was my mom's voice that did the talking. “Shane, I'm hoping that you'll get this message. I know you're at James' house, but we didn't have the time to write anything down on a note. We had to leave in a hurry. “ I could hear some muttered talking in the background. One of the voices sounded like my dad's. “Anyway, we're at the hospital. We got a call- oh, for- I have to go. Look, just, if we're not home by the time you get home, which we probably won't be, come to the hospital. Mrs. Garcia next door will probably be able to drive you if you need a ride. I told her. Okay? Oh, I really have to go. Bye!” Click.