RUN!

13. Somebody Else

Song: Somebody Else by The 1975  

     Mr and Mrs. Lee are having a nice chat outside when Lee pulls over. They sit up and wait for us to come down, they're expressions never changing when Reyna comes down too. They're modern Korean people and that has a lot to do with the money they've acquired over the years but I feel like Lee's testing his mother's tolerance. Or maybe not. She may just be elated about the fact that her only son finally brought home a girl, even if she's not home bred and from Korea too.

"Min-ho! I thought you'd come back home tomorrow," Mrs. Lee says this in Korean. Lee doesn't reply his mother's question, rather he greets both of them in Korean.

"Hey Mr and Mrs. Lee," I wave at them. They wave back at me. Next to me, Reyna bows a little as she greets them.

"Who is this?" Mr. Lee asks, also in Korean.

"This is Reyna, a friend from school. She's here to take some things for our project," Lee lies easily. Mrs. Lee says something about Lee never bringing anyone home except me but suddenly brings a "drop dead model" for project. From her tone, it's evident that she doesn't believe him.

"Go on in, your sisters are already asleep so don't do anything that'll wake them up," Mrs. Lee warns him. Lee makes a face at her.

"What do you think we're going to do?" When she turns away to hide her coy smile all three of us gag and practically run inside.

"Did you understand a word they said?" Reyna asks me once we've closed the door. We pass the dining and climb the stairs after Lee.

"Yeah, I'm fluent in Korean. More than Lee actually," I gloat. It was how we'd started talking actually. Lee was the only Korean in our class in grade 5 and to make him feel more welcomed I'd said: ahnnyunghaseyo
He'd given me a blank look and told me point blank that he understood English. He'd been offended, not because it seemed like I'd assumed he couldn't speak English but because he couldn't speak Korean. Even now, his Korean is still bare minimum. When he's parents scold him about it he waves them off with the fact that his money would speak for him. Well their money.

"Why do you call him Lee? His name is Min-ho," Reyna asks again.

"When we first met that was what he told me to call him. It stuck."

"Here we are." Lee stops in front of his door and opens it for us. The first thing I spot is Avery's laptop on his table.

"Dude, couldn't you have hidden it? What if Kittie or Dal-mi saw it?" I whisper yell at him.

"The door was locked. And they don't play with my stuff anymore."

"Are those your sisters?" Reyna asks him, making herself comfortable. She's looking at the large frame on the wall. The one where Lee's trying hard to feed both his sister's crab at once.

"Yeah, they're cute." I roll my eyes, he'd die before saying that in front of them. I grab Avery's laptop and turn it on.

"How old are they?" She asks again, keeping us busy as it loads.

"12 and 9."

"And you're?"

"Huh?"

"How old are you?"

"Oh, 18."

"That's a gap."

"You have tween brothers too."

"Yeah, I forgot about them for a minute," she jokes.

I enter Avery's password and her bubble gum screensaver appears. We're in.

"What are we looking for?" I ask Reyna.

"Her Instagram. Do you know the password?"

"It's logged in," I reply. I hadn't gone to her Instagram before, only her Snapchat. And if the unread messages there left the stunned well the ones here leaves me speechless.

"She's got 13k followers!" Lee gasps. 13k? How is that even possible.

Reyna silently taps on the chat icon and starts scrolling down. They're many weird messages that we all ignore, that Avery ignored too. She keeps scrolling until one catches her eyes.

I think you should stop taking them.

Reyna taps on the chat so fast it's like she's flash. I scan through the last set of messages.

I'll give you at Landon's.

Okay sure. Bring a lot.

Why are you taking them?

Why are you selling them?

Fair point.

I'm not going to OD or anything like that. I just need the escape

There are other ways to escape

Like running away?

I'll show you. After school tomorrow, meet me at our spot.

Obviously, how else am I supposed to get it.

There's no conversation for an entire week until Nick sends that last message. I think you should stop taking them.

Reyna leans back, her entire expression like stone.

"Avery was buying drugs from this bastard," she says it mostly to herself. Avery was addicted to the drugs, that much is obvious. But what else? He said they were friend-ly, did that include being friends with benefits? What did he want to show her? The feeling of someone sliding down the bed brings me back to reality and I turn to see Reyna already wearing her shoes.

"Where are you going?" I grab her arm.

"To find that fucking bastard and beat him to a pulp!"

"Reyna calm down," Lee urges. Reyna glares at both of us before pouring down a string of colorful curses in Spanish.

"He was ruining her every day and I didn't even know!" Her voice cracks, she breaks. I gently sit her back down and hand the petting duty to Lee.

"I get you're angry but we still need to proceed with caution. Nick might have sold drugs to her but it seems as though he was on her side."

"On her side?" She spits.

"I mean that he didn't appear to want to hurt her. He thought he was helping, in his own sick way. We need as many friends as we can get if we want to find her and I think Nick is one friend."

My words are met with silence for the longest minute.

"He has a point," Lee finally says. Reyna concedes, nodding slowly.

"We'll talk to him when we get back from the beach party," I tell them.

"What Beach party?" Reyna asks us.

"It's this weekend out thing the school's planned for us," Lee replies.

"Do you have to go?"

"Yeah, I'm like their guardian," I roll my eyes. Also, there's the fact that I've got some spying to do.

"Declan. Do you know Declan?" I turn to Reyna, suddenly remembering that Nick knew Declan.

"Declan Jones? Yeah, sort of."

"He's always at Landon's parties right? Nick said so. I think that Declan must have spoken to Avery, even if they were drunk and wasted."

Reyna's eyes fall back to the laptop. Without any questions she goes to the search bar and types "Declan Jones".

The chat comes out immediately.

Wassup b?