Finding Theo

Three

Lena Müeller has two kids, that much is evident by her social media account. Kieran was her only son with a younger sister under his arm in the only available profile picture.

That's pretty standard, I think, to have your kids as your profile picture. My mom did until she changed it to tulips a couple years ago.

Unfortunately Lena has had the same picture since 2016 so I'm sure her kids look different now. But it doesn't stop me from sending a request and hoping she accepts.

Surprisingly enough it only takes a few minutes before that notification shows that she's accepted my request. Does she remember who I am? I shake my head at the dumb thought and immediately go to looking through her info and photos like a creep.

Yes, I'm pretty much stalking right now, but I need to know if she lives in California still... "OH MY GOD!" I belt in excitement. Somebody is watching from above because she has Kieran on her profile tagged as her son. I immediately click to his Facebook profile and begin stalking a little deeper now that I've found who I'm looking for.

My jaw drops when I see how much different he looks now from the photo his mom has. If it wasn't obvious that photo was old, it definitely is now because holy crap.. he had a glow up for sure.

The innocent looking boy with an arm around his younger sister is now a fully grown man, arms and chest covered in tattoos. Though, a faint scar can be seen peeking underneath the ink in the middle of his chest. He's a snack to admire from the screen, but in all his photos, not one presents a smile or even a smirk.

He turned hard. He changed and got angry. Kieran, what happened to you? It's not until I see a picture with a smoke cloud leaving his mouth and a packet of white powder in his hand that I slam my MacBook closed and fight off a huge feeling of sadness. I'm not going to judge but I'm so disappointed. But maybe, just maybe it's a façade and not really what it appears to be from the outside.

Except I knew it was; it's exactly as it looks and my heart breaks just seeing it. It's that fake okay that everybody gives to hide the pain underneath. In photos, you smile but in reality you're back and forth trying to decide if you even belong in this world. That's the exact look I see in Kieran's photos.

I tired of stalking on social media after a seeing the photos, but I've gathered that Kieran indeed still lives in San Diego, though I'm not sure if he lives alone or with his mom still. I wonder if it'd be weird to show up to his moms house looking for him..

I haven't left my bed yet today, having been awake and sitting here for three hours now. It's funny that we constantly get told to get out of the bed because we look lazy, but my parents would rather I stay in a place they know I am. Lazy? Sure. Full of hurt and on the verge of a mental breakdown where it's safer to be in the bed than anywhere else? Absolutely!

But then I decide to pull my suitcase back out to pull everything out of it again to go over what I have versus what I still need. Unfortunately this is a vicious cycle of events I've been doing at least three times a day for the past week and a half, even if nothing new has been placed in my bag.

I put my hair in two buns and fixed my pale green hoodie before plopping onto the floor on my butt in front of my closet. I pull my pink polka dot rolling duffel bag from my closet and begin to slowly remove everything and take an inventory, the same process I have repeated multiple times yesterday. This is the problem I have with myself, but the meds I take only do so much.

I wonder while going through everything if Kieran is actually the partier he plays out to be. I really hope not, in my bones I hope he isn't. And I also hope he's not a selfish prick, but these days we can't get very lucky with those ones.