LOTF: Before and After

Phase 3: Chapter 42

"Ralph, what the hell are you talking about?" his father piped up in a low but firm tone.

"I don't know that Jack's in Brookhaven because I never saw him" Ralph said as he lifted his head to look Jeffery in the eye. Jeffery couldn't see past his son's hollow, empty gaze. He knew Ralph was hurt beyond measure, and was dissociating, shutting down as a means to cope with the grief. But what he didn't understand was why Ralph was lying about it.

"Ralph" his mother chimed in, her voice full of disapproval and disbelief. "You need to tell the truth and you need to tell it now" she firmly demanded.

"That is the truth" Ralph countered daringly. "I have no idea where Jack is right now."

If Laurie didn't feel so terrible for her son given everything he's been through and still is going through, she would've whooped his ass right there in the police station parking lot. She wanted to scream at him, demand answers, shame him for lying, tell him how disappointed she was in him, that she didn't recognize him right now. But she couldn't. She couldn't shake the memory of heartbroken Ralph coming in the door last night on Jeffery's arm, clinging to him for refuge, a unfathomable pain staining his damp face as he carried himself through an unexpected and ill-prepared rejection.

She wordlessly got into the vehicle beside her husband while Ralph climbed into the backseat. He said nothing as he dropped his head against the window, staring out it at nothing in particular. Laurie could see that her son was looking straight through everything and everyone he's set eyes on in the last twelve hours. He seemed broken, like a screw had come lose in his head or a string was snapped in his heart. Something was missing in him; a light that used to shine bright as day burnt out and was replaced by an unrecognizable darkness.

"Ralph" his father said as he latched onto the boy's shoulders just after they got inside the house. "Why did you lie?" he asked, straightforward.

Ralph said absolutely nothing; stared his father dead in the eyes and he held his own. Neither parent had ever seen Ralph this bold, this daring, this... different. Certainly he had gone through changes after being rescued from the island, but this wasn't like that. It wasn't like he was going through changes, but he was changed; the kind of change that can't be reversed or cured with time. It was like his personality was adjusted overnight. It was hard for his parents to watch, knowing there wasn't a damn thing they could do about it.

Jeffery and Laurie considered temporarily pulling Ralph from school and re-enrolling him in the online cyber academy for the next semester that would begin in a couple weeks in January. But when they took it up with Ralph to get his opinion on the matter, he shrugged, unamused, and claimed not to care either way. Ralph's disengagement from not only his parents, but from everyone and everything in his life left the Langley parents conflicted about how to make any decisions regarding the boy.

Laurie spent every night over the following two weeks crying herself to sleep. She was beginning to feel like she was reliving the trauma she'd experienced when Ralph was missing after the plane crash, unaware of where he was or if he was even alive. It had been the worst four months and twenty-one days of her life, and she was starting to feel that way again now; helpless, confused, overwhelmed, desperate. She needed to understand, needed to do something, anything to bridge the massive gap that had been wedged between Ralph and the rest of the world.

Jeffery could barely look his son in the eye. Ralph had grown custom to giving one word answers to questions and comments of any kind. Jeffery felt like he lost his son all over again, just like he had when his plane disappeared just over a year ago now. It was the second time in his life he felt like he had no idea what to do or how to handle the situation. He and Laurie talked excessively about it, going back and forth, in circles, every day and night. Ralph wasn't just hurt, he was becoming someone else entirely. Just short of nothing was scarier to him and his wife than that. Unfortunately, they were already familiar with the only situation that compared.

One day, Laurie decided to call Paige Merridew. There was nobody she could reach who could give her the answers she needed, but the eldest Merridew child was the closest thing to it.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Paige? This is Laurie Langley calling" the woman composed herself to announce.

"Oh, hi" Paige responded politely. "Is there something I can do for you, Mrs. Langley?"

"I was hoping you might have a couple minutes to chat" Ralph's mother requested.

"Yeah, sure. What's up?" the twenty-three-year-old hesitantly but willingly agreed.

"I was just checking in to see if the police ever contacted you about Ralph coming in to the station here in East Point a couple weeks ago. We were advised that they would be the ones sharing the information with your department up in Dalton and then with your family, of course" Laurie began.

"Yeah, they did. The woman I spoke to just told me that you guys came in having thought that Ralph and Jack were in contact but then Ralph disputed that and said it never happened. She said they didn't have enough information to follow up on the lead, especially considering it wasn't concrete. I wasn't sure what happened, but I was strictly advised not to question you guys about it at all, so I didn't" Paige explained, a shakiness in her weakened voice.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart, I thought they would've told you more than that. Ralph did set out to look for Jack, he told us, and said he was staying with someone in Brookhaven. He didn't tell us more about that, so we took him into the station so they could investigate it and hopefully locate your brother. But yes, Ralph did change his story, said he hadn't seen or talked to Jack at all. It was strange to us because he was very clear about the fact that he had met up with Jack that day only a couple hours before we brought him in. I don't know what came over him or changed his mind. He's been pretty distant lately, can't get an honest word out of him. I think something happened when he was in Brookhaven. I don't know for sure how Jack fits into it all, but Ralph hasn't been himself since that day" Laurie elaborated.

"Wow, that's... odd" Paige struggled to string her words into comprehensible sentences. "They told me about Brookhaven but I don't know who lives there, if anyone. Jack had a lot of friends in different parts of the state because of the military school, but he never shared any details with me."

"So it sounds like they haven't found Jack yet?" Laurie wondered curiously.

"No" Paige regretfully confirmed. "But they've deemed it a run away case. They got in touch with my mom and confirmed she hasn't seen or contacted him since she came to our house the night before Jack went missing. I told the police everything about that night, and with that and Ralph's story, it was enough to confirm Jack likely just ran away. They said they're still looking for him, but I highly doubt they're trying too hard. Just knowing he's not with my mom brought me some peace but I still worry about him" the girl continued to explain. "And I'm sorry about Ralph, I have no idea what could've happened between them. They were connected at the hip the last time I saw them together."

"I'm sure they're still looking for him, honey. And wherever he is, I'll bet he's okay and he'll come home when he's ready. It sounded like that stuff with your mom must've gotten to him. Give him time, he probably just needs space to clear his head. You know better than anyone that home isn't the most dependable place for him to do that" Laurie tried to assure the worried girl.

"I know" Paige considered as she realized the likelihood that Jack hadn't been running to anything, but rather away from the house that continued to fill itself with traumatic memories for him, with no real parent to provide him with comfort and refuge after the fact. "Thanks for checking in on us. I hope Ralph starts feeling better soon. I wish I could do something to help. Ralph was the most important and impactful person in Jack's life. My brother would be stupid to forget that."

"Thank you, Paige. I hope so too. They were both pretty special to each other, I think it's probably a factor in the decisions they're both making right now" Laurie thought aloud.

"You're probably right about that" Paige agreed. "Thanks again for calling."

"Keep in touch, sweetheart, okay?"

"We will, hope things get better soon" the blond-headed girl added before she hung up.

Laurie was silently hoping so too, but she couldn't shake the feeling that none of this would soon repair itself as easily as it had fallen apart.