"Mom?" Jonathan asked, concerned for his mother.
She had been sitting in the living room for 7 hours straight, doing nothing but watching some TV program without moving an inch. She hadn't gotten ready for bed, she hadn't eaten dinner, and she hadn't even greeted her husband when he got home from work.
"Yes?" She responds, keeping her attention focused on the TV.
"They aren't coming back," He states. Jonathan could see his mother already knew that, but she was the type of person who had a hard time accepting misfortune. Instead of running away or facing the problem, she did nothing but stay still, somehow thinking that waiting long enough would solve all her problems.
Unless, of course, someone came around and made her listen to the logical side that said things weren't going to get better by doing nothing.
"I know, honey."
Jonathan stood still for a moment, then decided to go join his mother on the couch. "I'm sorry," He mumbles as he sits down.
"Why are you sorry?" She questions.
He pauses. "I should've said something earlier."
His mother eyes widen. "W-what?..." She stammered. "You knew? You knew about her parents and this whole scene? Why didn't you say anything? How did you figure it out?" She looked utterly confused, as if her son was stupid enough to ignore all these red flags and assume everything was peachy.
"Mom.. I'm not an idiot," He begins. "I knew something was up when she started coming over here more regularly. She'd come here at any time, even in the middle of the night. She'd say she was bored, but the fact that half her body was beaten up and her stomach was growling said otherwise. Most of the time, I didn't see all of the injuries because she always had on that giant black sweater I gave her a while ago. But one day, I saw a small scar underneath her sleeve. She was sleeping heavily, like she always does, so I decided I'd have a look and see if my assumptions were right."
Mrs. Marcell tenses up.
"I wouldn't say it was terrible... It wasn't like her parents tortured her or something. But she had enough bruises and scratches that proved that something was wrong."
"So why didn't you say anything to me, Johnny?" She starts to tear up a bit. "We could have saved her from all this drama! She could have been here right now! She exclaimed.
"I have a feeling you did the same thing as me." He states.
"What?..."
He didn't like talking to his mother like she was an imbecile, but he continued anyways. "Tell me if I'm wrong, okay?"
She nods.
"I think you had a hunch, too. But if no one explicitly stated that something was very wrong, you didn't want to believe it. Especially because Mrs. Kurdovic was your best, and pretty much only friend. For me, it was more like I wasn't allowed to say anything. If I came out of nowhere and just said, 'Hey there mom, Scarlett is going hungry half the time because her whiny dad is too busy getting drunk and having sex with a freakin prostitute on one of his business trips, but getting beaten up because he's bored and miserable when he comes home to his slutty yet ugly wife and finds his midget, powerless daughter as a perfect replacement for a punching bag'. And expect you to believe me, some stupid boy almost 30 years younger than you. "
Well, technically, no one had actually seen her father hit Scarlett. But the way he talked to her, the way Mrs. Kurdovic didn't even give a shit about his mother's feelings, and the fact that they felt threatened enough to run away proved it. And plus, that dude was already a crappy husband.
Jonathan's mother just stared at him in shock. "Okay.... Well, that was the most you've spoken to me in a long time. But you know I'm only letting you say things like this because of our situation, right?"
"Yea."
"Okay." She sighs. "Don't even think about talking like that to your father. God, if you talked to that like him he'd kill you, Johnny. But yes," She continues. "Although it was very... uh, disrespectful of you to assume things about your mother.... You are right. I suppose I didn't want to believe that something was wrong with Scarlett and her mother had been stringing me along this whole time. I don't think I would have believed you either."
"Actually, I had a plan."
"You had a plan?.." She wonders.
"I was thinking that I'd wait until you'd go back there to chat with Mrs. Kurdovic or something, making sure both her mother and father were home. Scarlett always told me they didn't want me inside there because their house was a mess and they were renovating or something, so I thought It'd be the perfect opportunity to make them angry. I'd go in there and say I needed to use the toilet or something, then I'd grab you, and we'd sneak up behind him and watch his reaction towards Scarlett. Of course, he wouldn't hit me around you, so Scarlett was the easiest to blame. Plus, he was most likely drunk from his 'Trip'."
"Wha- Jonathan! You wanted to get that poor girl hurt even more?" She yelled, suddenly getting angry.
"If we weren't around, it would have happened anyways."
"Yes.." She says, calming down. "I suppose I can see where your coming from."
"Besides, you told me yourself that you wouldn't believe me if I said it. With you, the best way is to show you in person."
Still, nothing really mattered now. Scarlett was gone, and almost nothing had gone according to Jonathan's plan. He knew he should have taken action before... but then again, there might have been an even worse outcome. This was a tricky situation, and with the enemy being someone as hotheaded and impulsive as Scarlett's father -Not to mention cowardly- he should have taken steps to make sure he didn't run away. Besides, her father had so much money he wouldn't even have to sell this house.
He just never would have thought he'd actually do it. Abandon everything. Just like that.
Now Scarlett had no one to go to anymore. He couldn't even contact her.
Suddenly, Jonathan heard gentle sobbing next to him. "Mom?" He asked, noticing the tears streaking down her face. "What's wrong?"He felt so bad for his mother. In fact, she had it worse than him. Mrs. Marcell always wanted a daughter, and she considered Scarlett to be just that. Now, she had lost not just her, but her best friend too. A best friend that had been lying to her for years.
Jonathan couldn't help but wonder: Would it have been better if Mrs. Kurdovic left without his mother knowing the truth, believing she was totally innocent? Or if the situation stayed the same now? Either way, she'd have to deal with two huge losses, except one involved anger and the other was mostly sadness.
"I-I feel like this is all my fault..." She choked out. "I'm such an imbecile for just... going along with it this whole time. I was t- too afraid... "
"But you did take action."
"Yeah, after what, almost a year of hesitating? And plus, I didn't have a good reason to wait. I wasn't planning, I was being a coward and avoiding any sort of conflict. Plus, when I finally got the guts to say something, it was all done impulsively. I should have thought things through like you did."
Jonathan pulled his mother in an tight hug. "If I really had a good plan, I would have expected that guy to take the wuss way out and done something about that."
"I guess so," She mumbled.
No one said anything for a while. In a way, the silence was comforting. There was nothing more to talk about, and bringing up the subject again would just make things worse. Before Jonathan knew, his mother had already fallen asleep. He lifts her head off his shoulder and gently lies her down on the pillow by the arm rest. It was warm out, but he figured he should give her a light blanket just in case.
After taking care of her, Jonathan walked over to his parent's bedroom and flicked on the light. "Dad?" He asked.
His father was already awake, reading some Stephen King book underneath the light from the lamp. He wasn't surprised. Despite his work, his father always had a hard time sleeping. "What's wrong, Jonathan?"
He hesitated. "Let's just... take care of mom tommorow."
"So what exactly happened?" He questions, sitting up from his uncomfortable position. He obviously had figured out that something was up.
His father wasn't normally around Scarlett that much. He didn't know much about the neighbors, he only knew about his wife's friendship with Scarlett's mother. Most of the time he was at work, but occasionally he would greet her on the weekends.
"Scarlett... Have you ever noticed anything up with her? Anything suspicious?"
"No... Why?" He asks. Typical.
"Her father beats her, and her mother ignores her." He says, extremely blunt.
"What the fuck? Give a little more context, boy!"
And so Jonathan continues talking, filling his father in all the details about him, his mother, his plan, and everything that failed to work how he wanted it to. And worst of all, how she was gone. Forever.
Once he was finished, his dad looked like he had just seen a ghost. Jonathan didn't blame him, he was too busy to notice anything going on around him. And now, out of nowhere, Johnathan bombards him with all this shit he never even payed attention to.
"Wow... well, um..." He was at a loss for words. After all, what was he supposed to say? Sure, he knew the girl and her family, but he never really talked or established any sort of relationship with them. He didn't feel what Jonathan and his mother felt. "I'm sorry." He finally says. "I know you had a really close friendship with that girl, and so did your mother. Where is she?"
"In the living room."
"Oh. Well, let her sleep then. We'll talk tommorow. And yes, let's try not to fight and keep things calm in this house, okay? We don't want her to get any more stressed."
Jonathan nodded. Despite what it looked like, he was not any less stressed or sad than his mother. But he had a tendency to close up whenever something bad happened, as usually people just mistook it as him not caring.
But he didn't say anything. It was true that she's having a harder time.
So he walks back to his room and goes to sleep, waiting to see what the next day would bring.
********
The news spread like wildfire. Despite being near the city, this dinkass town and their residents acted no better than village people.
Everyone at school was starting rumours of what happened to the people in that house. One day they were there, and the next day, they were gone. No one noticed the house was abandoned for quite a long time. But one day, some girl scout went up to their house to see if they wanted any cookies. When she noticed no one was there, she decided she'd go check again the next day.
And the next.
And the next.
That was when she realized that the residents no longer lived there. There was no "For Sale" sign, and most of the furniture was still inside the house. So she went to school and told all her friends that Scarlett, the weird girl from class 7b, was not out of school because of a summer vacation.
Kids are cruel. And to prove it, they came up with rumours that demonized Jonathan and his friend.
The most popular one was that Scarlett had murdered her parents and ran way. Supposedly Jonathan was the mastermind behind it, and Scarlett was the one who took action and killed them. The two were close, and her parents were trying to keep them apart because of money differences. So she chose the best possible option and got rid of them once and for all. Jonathan planned for her to run away for a few years, and then they'd reunite again with no one in the way once the cops were off her tail.
All Jonathan could think was: What the fuck? She was a ten year old girl, totally innocent and in no way as phsyco as they peg her to be. She couldn't pull off a stunt like that. Plus, Jonathan wouldn't just let her run away alone, she'd be dead before they met again in another few years.
People asked him why he did it, they asked him when him and Scarlett would reunite, they asked him what his parent's response to this whole scene was. But he didn't answer to any of them. He ignored them, and kept ignoring them unless they tried to fight him.
Jonathan became more and more miserable with each passing month. These bigmouth village twats were not making it easy to forget everything. Despite this, though, Jonathan had a talent for ignoring and forgetting things.
Before he knew it, a year had already passed.
Until the next day, a letter came in the mail addressed to him.