Here is the next Chapter!
Enjoy . . .
Sandy had to fight not to turn around and smack Seth in the back of the head. The teenage boy had been babbling about absolutely nothing for the past hour. At first it was comforting to hear that the boy had not yet lost his sense of . . . 'Seth logic'. Sandy had often wondered about how Ryan could possibly stand hours upon hours of Seth's musings.
"Seth, if you keep talking like that your going to lose your voice," Sandy prayed that this would at least shut the boy up, or if he was lucky it could possibly confuse the boy into silence. He waited patiently for his son to answer.
Sandy was absolutely flustered when heard Seth's babble continue. He looked over at his wife to see her grinning madly at him, she could read him like a book and she knew what he was thinking at that moment.
"He gets that trait from your side of the family you know!" Kirsten defended. It was hard not to start giggling like a schoolgirl. She knew a long time ago that her son would be marvelous at talking anyone in earshot's head off. Sandy and herself had often found themselves having playful arguments about what traits that their belated son had gotten from which side of the family. And indeed both sides of the gene pool had cursed them forever.
Sandy looked over at his wife, she grinned widely and showing off her pearly whites. He rolled his eyes and sighed. "I don't think so, I do believe he speaks like your Aunt Miriam, he definitely does not get that little annoying trait from my family. Us Cohen's have an absolutely flawless gene pool thank you very much!"
Kirsten lost it; she was laughing so hard she snorted. It wasn't soon after that, that Sandy started chuckling. Good times, times without frustration and without pain. Sandy thought back to when he brought Ryan home, Kirsten had been furious. It wasn't like Sandy was bringing home a stray dog; this was a boy, a young man, and a juvenile delinquent. But that lost boy . . . had become their son.
It took a good few minutes to get themselves under control, but they were able to do so in record time. At that moment, both parents realized that Seth had stopped speaking.
Kirsten looked back cautiously; hopefully Seth hadn't heard their little conversation.
Seth was eyeing both parents suspiciously. Just leave it to the parental units to start losing their minds in a time of crisis. His mom had snorted, that thought alone had brought shivers down the curly-haired boy's back. Mothers don't snort, they aren't even supposed to laugh . . . are they? And his dad was . . . chuckling, what had the world come to?
"Okay, maybe both of you should come sit in the back and I'll drive, I actually want to make it home in one piece!" the boy spoke half-heartedly. Really he just wanted to drive, that way he wouldn't have to hear dad's infamous show tunes. Anyone who has ever had to ride a long distance with that man had had to go through mass amounts of agony. 'The Sound Of Music' was one of Seth's father's favorite plays, so naturally the man had bought the music that went with it.
"I'm fine Seth," Sandy told him. Sheesh, that boy had no shame he could just come out and say anything. Sandy smiled to himself, it was part of Seth's charm to talk without thinking, it was like his mind ran on auto-pilot.
An uncomfortable silence settled in the car. Seth no longer felt like talking, he was to busy worrying about his brother. Ryan protected him from everything bad, Ryan was his brother, and he did what brothers do, he protected Seth. Seth closed his eyes and layed his head back on the headrest and let out a frustrated sigh. "Where are you Ryan?" Seth mumbled.
The Cohen's were still a good half-hour away from Chino, and Seth was getting even more impatient. No one would ever understand how it felt to sit in a car going thirty-five miles an hour in a sixty-mile an hour zone on the freeway, until they had stepped into a car with Sandy Cohen. "Dad, can we pick up the speed here? I'm going to go crazy; you drive like you're turning seventy-eight tomorrow!"
Sandy rolled his eyes. He knew Seth was taking his brother's disappearance the worst, why shouldn't he? Ryan had been Seth's salvation, and in other sense, his guardian angel.
The senior Cohen found himself pushing down the gas, he had to find Ryan. It was all to clear that if he didn't then his family would fall off that damn ledge they had been before Ryan had come into their lives.
Seth let his head fall back onto the headrest. He let out a sigh of relief, his dad was picking up speed, and with any luck, Theresa may have seen Ryan. This time the curly-haired boy couldn't say quips to make everything better, he had to suffer up-front and it was killing him.
If Ryan had left because he was tired of Seth's psychobabble, Seth would gladly never speak a word again if it would make him come home. But deep inside, Seth didn't believe that his annoying talk was the reason Ryan had suddenly disappeared, deep inside he knew that Ryan was hurt, both physically and mentally.
His father spoke from the front of the car, breaking him out of his epiphany. "We're here." The car slowed down.
Seth looked to the right, the little duplex stood proudly next to its siblings of the neighborhood. He sighed deeply and got ready to become a detective, he wouldn't leave here without some answers, and he was very determined.
TBC . . .