Midnight Birdsong [Dreamnotfound AU]

Chapter 33: Mistakes

Clay came to school Monday hopeless.

It had been a depressing weekend. No news of George. Also Clay had been scolded by the coach for daydreaming "at the most important time in the game, thank god Techno was there to save the team when you were off in la-la-land."
Not that Clay had even been listening to him that much. He was still thinking about George.

He didn't know much about missing person cases, but he figured it didn't look good if a week went by with no contact or evidence or anything.

Well technically the broken phone was evidence, but evidence of what?
When he and Sapnap brought it to the police station and told them it went with the missing person's case, he didn't know what they were talking about. Apparently whoever took the worried phone calls from Clay and George's mom and dad just wrote it down on a notepad in the lounge and no one else had looked at it. They hadn't even sent out a search party. When Sapnap insisted they use the phone and try to find fingerprints or something the guy took it and sighed, "yeah sure but I don't think we'll get to it for awhile. The hardworking folks here are very busy working on actual cases."
Then Clay had to cover Sapnap's mouth from shouting what case could be more important and that it's such a small-ass town those lazy fucks are just sitting around most of the time and they should get off their asses and start investigating George's case.

Clay thanked the man for his time and quickly escorted Sapnap outside before he blew up in frustration and yelled all the way home about incompetence.
Clay just sat in the passenger's seat of Sapnap's car and kept quiet.
He was shocked that they didn't care. He has assumed the police would be doing their job since it was their responsibility after they were informed of something going wrong. He had never stopped to consider that they ignored their calls or didn't care to dust the evidence for prints.
It was their responsibility to uphold the law right? He couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that not everyone is as honest and moral and hardworking as they're supposed to be.

Little did he know his town's police had taken their jobs on the assumption it would be easy in a town with little-to-no crime. Now that they had a case they shrugged and decided it would work itself out, it was easier for them that way.

Eventually it had sunk in to Clay that he wouldn't get any help finding George besides what he did himself.
He was already riding his bike around as much as possible, but he started looking more and more.
The more he looked, the more desperate he got to find a clue, and the more he thought he saw George. Riding around town played tricks on his ears and he thought he heard George once or twice calling out, but always when Clay stopped and listened it was nothing. Riding through the woods he would see him behind a tree, but go look and there was nothing there.
It was like George was haunting him.

Then at the game, a week after Clay last saw him, he showed up again. But it was some other brunette in a blue shirt.
And Clay had almost fallen apart at the last disappointment.
He spent every hour possible that weekend on his bike, searching.

Now it was up to him, and only him, to find George.
And you're doing a terrible job.
I just don't know why he won't come back.
You think if you love him once he's gone then he'll just magically appear? You're pathetic.
I am pathetic but at least I'm trying.
Failing.
Shut up.
George hates you.
He said he loved me.
If he loves you, why isn't he here?

Clay had no answer. Why wasn't he there? He couldn't figure it out.

So Monday.
He wandered around school like a lost soul, just waiting to get out and get on his bike again.

Halfway through the morning he decided to try something.
His first meeting with Grian hadn't gone well because Skeppy made him angry, but maybe Grian would be reasonable if Clay tried to talk to him alone.
He knew Grian had a club somewhere around the hallway past the library, so he wandered around looking through doors until he found one that sounded like it had a lot of people inside.