Stolen Read Free Page B

trying to imprint every detail of this
situation on our brains in case we do. I’m just happy Rogan is here and that
I’m not alone in this situation. I would be of no use to anyone, I’m sure. I
have a tendency to overreact, which is probably what I’m doing right now; but
what if I’m not?
    Luke turns toward our car and comes face to face with
Rogan while looking into the cabin of the car toward Cass and me. “Yeah, I was
just thinking about walking home. My uncle just got a call from my mom saying
she’s there, so it seems like a waste of a trip for him to drive me home only
to turn back around. We were just trying to figure it out, that’s all.”
    Before I can say it, the words I was thinking are
already out of Rogan’s mouth. “Why don’t we just give you a ride home? Problem
solved. Your uncle doesn’t have to waste a trip and, we get the honor of your
presence on our way home.”
    Rogan always seems so easy going and laid back, which
he is for the most part, but there’s a large part of him that no one knows
that’s the exact opposite. He comes from a pretty rough home life. Before his
mom divorced his dad, his dad used to beat her up pretty badly, but it wasn’t
until he turned his aggression toward Rogan that she decided to take action.
    I didn’t know him before the divorce but he has
confided in me some of what it was like living in constant fear that your dad
was going to kill your mom and if that did happen he would abandon you, leaving
you alone and parentless. At some point in every child’s life, the fear of
losing a parent is a real, terrifying fear, but to have that be a true fear is
unimaginable to me. I thank the Cosmos every day for my mom, and while Cass and
I’s father may be out of the picture, it isn’t for any dramatic,
life-threatening reason like Rogan’s. Our parents just didn’t love each other
anymore.
    The way Rogan is acting right now is making me uneasy.
The way that he so quickly came back to the school to check on Luke instead of
trying to calm me down by reassuring me everything was fine, that I needed to
stop worrying so much, as he has done in the past, he came back without any
prompting from me. Maybe he was saving trouble for later when I pestered him
about whether we should have checked on Luke or whether we should call Luke’s
house to make sure he got home safely and instead just checked now; or maybe
it’s something else?
    It doesn’t take long for Rogan to get out of the car,
pull the seat forward, and for Luke to hop into the back seat. Before Rogan
gets back in, I watch him bend down and say something into the other car’s
window. I try to hear what he’s saying, but the words are so soft it barely
sounds like words at all. What could he be saying? Maybe introducing us to his
uncle, letting him know we’re safe people to be taking his nephew home? I never
did think about the fact that we’re strangers to him and that he may be uneasy
letting us just ride off with Luke. Or maybe he knows something I don’t.
     I’m sure I’m being dramatic. There’s nothing
wrong here. Just an uncle and his nephew working out details about a car ride.
So why do I have an uneasy feeling about this situation?
    I watch as the other car pulls away and out of the
lot, with Rogan still standing there. I count the barely perceptible moments
that pass before Rogan gets back in the car. No one else would have noticed,
I’m sure, but I do, and it makes my hair prickle and a shiver to course through
my blood. I’ll have to talk to him once we’re alone. Something isn’t right and
I want to know what it is, but I’m not about to scare Cass by bringing it up. I
doubt I would scare Luke; I have a suspicion that he already knows.
    “So,” Rogan begins once behind the wheel and belted
in. “I think I could use an ice cream and I imagine if you let your mom know
that you’re with us she’ll be fine if you stay out a little while, don’t you
think?” He doesn’t turn