"Where's Mr. Simpson?" Sean said, looking around the classroom. If anyone would know it would be Emma.

"He left. He had to go help Joey," Sean scowled, dark eyebrows in a sharp V. Emma was using this free time to do some homework, her blond hair falling toward the paper as she wrote.

"Hey, is Craig here today?" Sean said. He'd been worried about the kid since he ran off yesterday. When Craig had called him on the phone he had heard his father yelling in the background, and he had heard the veiled panic in Craig's voice.

"I don't know. I haven't seen him,"

Sean remembered walking along the railroad tracks with Craig, and telling him how his parents were pathetic and that now he lived with his brother here. Then Craig asked him if his parents hit him, and he didn't really look at him when he asked that.

"Spinner!" In the hall, the flow of kids, the halls packed because the schools merged, he saw Spinner's blond spiky hair.

"Hey, man," Spinner came over, his eyes squinty, wide smile.

"Hey, uh, is Craig here today?" Sean said.

"Nope. He's out,"

"Damn,"

"What's it to you?" Spinner said, the slight smile never leaving his face. In Spinner's own clueless way he struck a nerve. What was it to him? Nothing, except Craig had told him he was running away. And even before he played chicken with the train Sean had seen that he was in rough shape. And maybe that meant he'd had a responsibility to intervene and he'd done nothing. And now Craig's absence was knawing at him.

"Hey, Emma," he caught up with her at her locker, and she looked at him with her wide eyed Emma Nelson look.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" he said.

"Sure. Talk,"

"Not here. Somewhere private,"

She shrugged her slight shoulders, blond hair swishing around her face and he remembered how he felt when he liked her.

In an empty classroom, the room dim with the lights off, Sean stared at the floor.

"Sean, what is it?"

"It's Craig. Look, I think he might have run away,"

"What? Why? Because his dad won't let him see Angela?"

"No, I think it's more serious than just that,"

"What do you mean, Sean?"

"I think his dad might, might beat him," Emma's eyes widened.

"You think? Did he tell you that?"

Sean swallowed, looked at the last lesson written on the chalkboard.

"No, not exactly,"

He didn't quite know why he thought it, everything seemed to add up to that. Craig's dad screaming at him in the background of the phone call, and then his plan to go to B.C.

"Emma, he's not here today. Yesterday he said he was running away to British Columbia and I think he did. We've got to go find him,"

Emma stared at him for a second, lips in a tight line, eyes wide.

"Sean, what? First of all, maybe he's just home sick or something. Second, if he did run away just how are we supposed to find him?"

"I don't know. But he's gonna end up on the street if he ran away. We've got to try and find him,"

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Craig wasn't thinking right. All his thoughts felt thick and slow, like that lava stuff in lava lamps. He'd fucked up and no one could help him. He was beyond help now.

If he sat here and waited for Joey he'd end up in jail, or juvenile lock up or a mental hospital. And maybe he belonged in those places.

He still had the money, it had been in his pocket all along. Enough to get to B.C. He'd wanted to take Angela, he'd wanted Sean to go with him, but maybe he had to go alone.

He stood up, shrugged into his leather jacket, patted his pocket that the money was in, and left. He headed for the bus station.