Alex’s POV:

I should have known immediately. Why I didn’t think about it before was a mystery to me as well. It should have come to my mind straight away two days after Mickey had made an appearance at my house and somehow managed to worm her way into my mom’s heart.

You might be wondering what I was referring to. Well, it all started during lunch that one day.

We were all sat around our usual table, discussing whatever came to our minds; school, the band, things that had happened the day before, other random shit. I was too busy talking that I didn’t even notice Mickey sneakily taking bites of my lunch. She was picking pieces of whatever what was on my tray, the pieces being too small for me to really see. I didn’t even realize when I took bites myself. But then I caught her in the act.

“Hey! My food!” I protectively brought my tray closer to me and saw that she had no food in front of her.

She stared right into my eyes and reached out, picking up way more than she had initially been taking and stuffed it into her mouth. I let out another whine and tried to move it out of her reach even more.

“Where is your lunch anyway?” Rian asked, picking up on the same thing I had.

Mickey shrugged, still chewing on what she had stolen from me. “I haven’t had anything to eat since yesterday’s lunch.”

“What? That’s just stupid.” Jack shook his head disapprovingly at her. With how she had confidently said that she had nothing to eat, it almost sounded like she was doing it on purpose. It was something I would never have expected her to do.

She rolled her eyes and reached into her bag, placing something on the table. “I have some stale marshmallows, but I don’t think that’s the best thing to eat.”

The package, however, was still closed. I always saw her eating junk and trying it despite it being way over the expiration date, so why wasn’t she touching this? “How do you know they’re stale?”

“Alex, they’re from 2002. What do you expect?” She deadpanned, turning the package around so show the date that was printed on it.

“But your mom always has amazing food!” Rian argued, not understanding where this was all coming from. Even I didn’t get why the hell she had food from three years before with her.

“I know,” Mickey nodded and pointed at what she brought with her, “but I have stale marshmallows.”

I also knew that she probably didn’t have any money with her. Her parents didn’t trust her with it, so she never really got any. Apparently, things hadn’t gone so well in the past. I didn’t blame them, though. So, I sighed, “yeah, you’re not eating those. I’ll go buy something for you.”

That was strike two. The first strike obviously was her showing up at my house unannounced, expecting to be able to stay there for a night. I could have figured it all out then, she had given enough clues. I even bought her lunch every day. But, no. I only figured it out exactly a week later, also during lunch break.

I walked into the cafeteria, already a few minutes late, going straight for the same old table. Luckily, Mickey was already there, because she was exactly the person I needed to talk to.

I threw my bag on the table, glaring at her as I sat down. I caught everybody’s attention that was sat at the table or the tables surrounding it. “You didn’t tell me you were missing!”

She frowned, shaking her head at me. “I’m right here.”

“Your mom filed a missing person’s report and I was just interrogated by the principal and police! Apparently, they think I know where the hell you are but just don’t want to tell them because you manipulated me or because I’m hopelessly in love with you.” Jack snorted as soon as the last part came out, causing me to glare at him as well. “We can laugh about that later. None of what they believe is true!”

“Ok… but I’m right here…” Mickey repeated.

“Wait, what happened?” Rian interrupted, wanting some back story instead of me just complaining.

“Well, apparently, Mickey disappeared from her room just over a week ago,” I elaborated vaguely, having to fight the urge to tell them about the argument that happened before as well. “She never came back and never said where she went.”

“Yes, I understand. But how can I be missing when I’m right here?” Mickey continued to act like it was no big deal.

“And in a few seconds, you’ll be at the principal’s office.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” she scoffed. “I avoid that place like it's the plague.”

“If you don’t go, I’m going to be in a whole load of shit. And I don’t just mean getting told off, I mean getting into a shit load of trouble for lying to the police. I don’t care whatever shit you get yourself into, but I do not need that right now.” I tried convincing her that not doing anything was only going to make a mess of everything. It was true. I was told multiple times that bad things could happen if they found out I wasn’t telling the truth. For some reason, they didn’t think my truth was good enough.

She looked at me for a little while, contemplating what to do. As I saw it, she only had two options. Either she was going to do what she thought was good for her and stay hiding away here, or she was going to push that aside and do what was right for me. I, of course, hoped it was the latter, it was also the right decision if it was just for her and I was out of the picture.

“Fine,” she eventually said and reached down to grab her belongings.

However, before she could leave, I also stood up. “I know you better than that. I’m not letting you go there by yourself.”

“Cool.” She started leaving the cafeteria, expecting me to just follow to escort her.

I quickly ran after her, not wanting to lose her in the large group of teenagers. Although she had bright red hair, she was pretty good at hiding in crowds. She wasn’t even that short, just a little shorter than most people at school. So, you can probably understand why I made sure she didn’t leave me eyesight. I only fully caught up once we were out in the hall.

As I walked beside her, she ignored me completely. It was nothing like an awkward or possibly comfortable silence. She was purposely trying her best to walk a few feet away from me, always going further to the side when I got closer. Her head was turned away slightly, making sure she wouldn’t even look in my direction.

And just like that, we were back to square one again.

“You can be mad at me all you want.” I shrugged, no longer understanding her mood swings. If she wanted to kiss me one day and then hate me the next, that was her problem. “But I did not know you ran away from home. So, don’t blame this all on me now. You’re the one that left and got yourself into the mess, I was the one dragged along in it. You can’t keep doing shit like this.”

She just hummed in response, acknowledging that she had heard me but didn’t care at all. Then again, what was I supposed to expect? I should have known by now that getting her to open up one day meant losing her the next.

“I’m not just thinking about my own future, here,” I continued, still hopelessly and aimlessly trying to explain everything to her, “I’m also thinking about yours. Do you really think breaking all ties with your parents is a good idea? Do you really think running away in your senior year is going to do you any good? Don’t just think about the past. I can see that you’re mad, but will it help anything in the long run? There’s no point always being angry about everything.”

“I’m not,” she snapped back. “I just don’t believe moving to another state will help me either. I’m finally in a place I don’t want to throw myself off a fucking bridge, and she wants to move away again because she constantly runs away from everything.”

I wasn’t sure if it was just a figure of speech or if Mickey had had suicidal tendencies, but I was glad she didn’t feel that way about being here. Still, I didn’t think she was going about this the right way. “Have you at least tried talking to your mom instead of acting out?”

“You probably don’t know my mother. There is no such thing as talking reasonably to each other.”

“But do you?”

“Know my mother? That’s the problem. I don’t.” We stopped at the administration at the principal’s office. We didn’t even have to announce that we were here, they already knew exactly what was going on. “Now, do you have any more questions for me or can I go to my death sentence straight away?”

While I really wanted to know what she meant with not knowing her own mom, there was another pressing question on my mind that I’d rather ask her. I could always come back to this later. “Yes. Where are you staying?”

“Michael’s,” she said bluntly and walked into the office, slamming the door shut behind her.

I had to keep telling myself that she wasn’t mad at me but at the situation. She wouldn’t have told me that stuff if I was the problem here.

Notes

More drama llama. I'm not usually the one to write a lot of drama since I tend to think it's annoying myself, but it just keeps happening! Please do tell me as soon as it goes on for too long and you guys get too annoyed.