alright ↠ dylan o'brien

thirty.

I'm under that night

I'm under those same stars

We're in a red car

You asleep at my side

Going in and out of the headlights

Could I have saved you?

~For Blue Skies by Strays Don't Sleep

Lola

When I got home that afternoon after school, I found the lights in my room on. I double-checked by turning on more lights in the house, and then turning on the water in the bathroom. It flowed freely through the tap and I felt a rush of excitement. It had been almost six months since I had last had electricity and now, I no longer had to go to the Grenderwalls', so long as Ray payed the bills.

I remembered now that with the electricity came a working phone. Having an idea, I dashed downstairs to where the house phone lay and, sure enough, it was working with 316 voicemails. I grabbed one of Mom's journals and skimmed the pages until I found what I was looking for. Reid. The hard part was getting Ray's laptop without him knowing. He was still at work, but there was no way for me to know when he would come home because it always differed. But I took the laptop from his room anyways and laid on my stomach on top of his bed, the phone and Mom's journal by my side.

Logging into the password-free account, I opened up the internet and typed in a name:

Kameron Reid.

Images and sites instantly popped up based off my search. I saw old men and teenage girls and sites that had something to do with Kameron Reids, but none of them matched who I was looking for. I decided to go on 'Whitepages' and look up his name again, this time with much better results. The third one down caught my eye:

KAMERON REID

Brooklyn, Manhattan

I clicked on his name quickly and a phone number and address appeared. Picking up the house phone, I dialed one of the numbers that were on the screen and pressed "call", hoping that the number was right.

After a few rings, someone picked up. My breath hitched in my throat.

"Hello?" a male voice said. His voice was deep and carefree. He sounded much older, and of course he was, because he had been ten when I was born. He would be twenty-seven now.

"Is this Kameron Reid?" I asked.

"Yeah, who's this?" He had a kind tone.

"It's--this is Lola Henderman."

"Sorry, Lola-who?" Kameron asked with no sense of recognition at all.

"Lola--your sister," I spoke timidly.

I heard a loud bang in the background and some ruffling before Kameron said, "L-Lola? What--how did you get my number?"

"I just found it online," I told him. "Sorry if this is weird; can you meet me somewhere? Unless you're busy."

"No, yeah, of course I can," Kameron stammered. "Where?"

"You live in Brooklyn, right?"

"Yeah. Where are you?"

"Right outside of Manhattan. Listen, can you meet me at the Sunset Cafe in Manhattan at 4:30?"

"Today?"