Breaking Cosmos - A Midnight Mafia Novel

FIVE

              "Just like that? Grounded? We thought you were like dead or something!" Lia exclaimed and put a hand to her hip.

"Pfft. I wish."

"That sucks, your whole spring break? Are you off the hook now?" Erin asked.

Lia and Erin were really the only friends I had aside from family. Erin was sweet and mild spoken, she let her dirty blonde hair long but usually wore it up. She got along with nearly everyone, but was not one very outspoken or bold. Part of why everyone liked her was probably because she seemed to lack the ability to tell people no and when Lia wasn't around was liable to get her kind nature and soft spoken attitude taken advantage of.

Lia on the other hand was the complete opposite. She was one of the most outspoken and confident people in the entire school. It was a small private school and everyone knew each other, but Lia was definitely on top.

Having had little experience with socializing and the "real" world when I had started school I was, let's say, socially handicapped. Why Lia had approached me on my first day and decided we would be friends, out of everyone else in the school who looked up to her, I have no clue.

But I was grateful. At school she gave me confidence, and with her unpredictable, not afraid of anything attitude she brought excitement even into my boring life.

"I'm thinking no. He gave me my phone back but has like crazy setting restrictions on it, like he totally shut off the data and he's holding my laptop hostage." The tunnel in the bedroom was a bit of a secret. I'd told the girl I'd snuck out, but the terms how I kept to myself, meaning I couldn't explain to them why I had to change rooms either so I left that bit out too. "He was so mad, he brought a tutor in and made me study all vacation."

"Brutal."

"I know right!"

"So you haven't even got to creep on the hottie coppie?" Lia asked. Someone in the library shushed us, she leaned her chair back looking around for the culprit.

"How? I only know his last name. That makes it sort of hard to internet stalk someone."

She snorted.

"Shhhh." It came again.

"Oh Charlie." She pointed her thumb and index finger as though it was a gun towards the shusher and wrapped a rubber band up and shot it towards him.

"Hey!"

She let the front two legs of the chair come back to the floor and took out her cell phone. "You know where he works. All you need to do is find like, a group picture of the police department. They always caption those this left to right or whatever. Would you recognize him in a line up?"

I had only seen him once, and only for a few seconds....

"Absolutely."

She smirked slightly as she began searching on her phone.

"At least you got to go to the party." Erin said with her nose in her book. We were in study hall because our teacher had called out without leaving a lesson plan for a sub so all her classes just had a study hall today. Erin naturally found a way to keep herself productive.

The excessive shusher apparently tried to do the same.

"Uh, no. I was there for like 5 seconds, the beer was gross, and my mom embarrassed me so much I'm surprised no one posted the whole thing online or something and I can still show my face. I tell you what, I was so scared Dad would pull me out of school, and I was also scared he wouldn't and I'd just die of humiliation!"

"Don't worry, I'd make sure they buried you in something sexy." Lia said and passed her phone to me. "Here, look at this."

I zoom in on the photo and scanned over faces. "There, in the second row. How did you...nevermind." I handed her the phone back.

"Helllooo officer Morgan. So when are you going to see him?"

"What? I mean, probably never. He doesn't even know who I am, and I'm grounded."

"Do you know how many times I've gone out after I was grounded? I think my parents threaten to ground me just out of obligation now more than actual threat."

"Heh, well trust me, this isn't out of obligation. Dad means business."

She rolled her eyes. "Sometimes you really disappoint me Charlie. You just have to think outside the box. There are ways around everything."

"Maybe if I sucked it up and went on a stupid jog with Dad he'd loosen up."

"Well he is wrapped around your finger, but no. That would just make him suspicious. I was thinking more along the lines of ditching school and heading to the station." She shrugged like it was so simple!

"What!?" I said loud enough that several heads turned away. I opened a book and ducked my head into it. I'd never skipped school before. "They're having me personally dropped off and picked up and if the school calls and reports me absent-"

"You leave after second and come back by the end of the day. It's easy I've done it like a dozen times."

I looked to Erin, the reasonable one, she looked unsure but she didn't disagree with Lia, not vocally anyway.

"If I get caught-"

"Don't."

"But-"

"I'll bring you something to change into tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" My mouth went dry. This plan was moving really quickly. Things with Lia usually did, she went for exactly what she wanted and knocked down anything, and anyone, who got in her way.

"You won't want to go in your school clothes." She explained for me in case the change of outfit was the only thing crazy about this.

"Well yeah but-"

"Charlie." Lia said very sternly and leaned across the table to be closer to me. "Your Dad is a power hungry dἱck. You're like, almost an adult, you can't just let him control you forever. If anything, this is his fault, he's pushed you. If he let you explore, and live, like anyone else you could have dated like three or four douch ebags, had your heart broken and eaten ice cream and moved onto the next 17 year old heart throb. He didn't. He locked you up, he forced you to resort to sneaking around and you happened to meet someone older because of it." She leaned back and shrugged. "It's his fault, if he'd have let you hangout with us and people your own age you wouldn't have to resort to this and you wouldn't have fallen for officer Morgan here."

I sat upright. When she wanted you too, Lia had a way of making you feel almost as powerful as she did. And if not power, she was certainly good at making me angry with Dad. She was not a fan of his, or my Mom's. "Yeah. You're right."

"He brought it on himself." She shrugged. "Anyway, just don't get caught."

Just don't get caught. She made it sound so simple.