Sarah sat on the side walk as she waiting for Vance to finally leave Grab N Go. She untied her shoe laces before tying them again, counting her breaths, and twisting one of her curls. When he'd finally came out, it was easy to see something had clearly been on her mind the whole time she's been waiting. "Oh god, what's that face for?"

"How come you never kiss me?" she stood up and walked fast to follow him down the sidewalk.

"What the hell are you talking about? I kissed you just before I went in there." he rolled his eyes and kept up his pace, not bothering to wait until she caught up.

"No, I kissed you. You just kissed me back." Sarah pointed out, he really started to regret leaving her out there for so long just so she'd get lost in her thoughts.

"That's the same thing. You're being weird." Vance rolled his eyes.

"It's not the same thing. I thought about every time we've kissed and i'm always the one that initiates it. Never you." Sarah argued even more as she kept up her speed, glad she'd tied her shoes before. "If I stopped kissing you, we'd never kiss."

Vance huffed as he turned around, making her run right into him. He grabbed her face and placed a violent, rather pissed off, kiss to her lips before yanking her head back. "Happy now?"

Sarah smiled. "Happy now."

She ran to catch up with him, taking his hand as they walked down the side walk together. Her house hadn't been far, he'd planned to drop her off there and that would be it. He'd then go home and they'd see each other again tomorrow or later tonight. But, that didn't go to plan as the front door swung open the second they stood infront of the house. "Sarah!"

"Mother!" Sarah mocked her tone, waving with her free hand.

"Invite your friend in for dinner!" was all she yelled back before shutting the door.

Sarah's face lit up. "Vance-"

"No." he cut her off and tried to yank his hand from hers. "Nope. Get off me, Sheeps."

She let his hand go but then hurried to keep up with him as he started to walk away. "Vance! Vance Hopper! Please stay here with me! My family never does dinner together, this is clearly all for you!"

"I'm leaving, Sheeps." he said in return, glad when he heard her feet stop walking behind him. All to feel a weight latch onto his ankle as Sarah laid on the concrete and held onto his ankle like her life depended on it. "Sarah!"

"Don't go!" she begged as he attempted to walk, dragging her along with his very struggled steps. "It'll be thirty minutes at the most. My Dads a really good cook!"

"S-" Vance started.

"Sarah?" an unfamiliar voice to Vance made them both look back.

Sarah's face lit up from the concrete. "Grandpa!"

"What on earth are you doing to this young man?" his jaw fell slightly.

"He my boyfriend." she hadn't moved as Vance tried to walk away with her dragging behind him. "We're just having a fight. I'll be in in just a second!"

His jaw fell just slightly, going to question the matter, but decided against it as he went in to see his son and daughter-in-law. Vance tried to shake Sarah off. "I'm gonna kick you in the face in a second and you're gonna start crying and act like it's my fault."

"Please stay." she twisted around to manage to wrap her arms and legs around his right leg. "I'll get you free pinball every Thursday!"

He paused, thinking about it. His gaze shifted done to see she'd already been giving her best begging smile. "Thursdays and Monday's."

"Deal." she held her hand up, letting him grasp it as they shook on it.

Shockingly, Vance didn't mind having dinner with Sarah's family. Her Dad did make really good food, and Sarah just seemed happy to be there. Non of them really spoke to either him or Sarah, which was a relief because he didn't wanna talk to them. Vance learned that Sarah's grandpa was once a cop but now was a detective, and that her dad had taken Ella's last name when they got married to avoid anyone at the department comparing him to his father.

Vance mentally couldn't think of Sarah's name being Sarah Wright. He'd probably had called her Sarah Erase if that was the case, but even he was smart enough to know that hadn't been her name versus when he genuinely thought her last name was Sheeps. They listened as Detective Wright and Officer Barns speak like they'd been in a police station, discussing cases that were happening here and wherever Sarah's grandpa had been last.

They never once spoke about Billy. Vance wondered if they did that for Sarah's benefit, or if they didn't think he was as important as the other cases. Ella took a sip of her water. "Are you sticking around of just passing through?"

"Just passing through. Wanted to see my girl." he gave Sarah a grin from across the table as she smiled back. Sarah had never spoken about her grandpa before, yet they seemed close enough that Vance figured she'd have mentioned something. Then again, he loved his Mom a lot, but he never spoke about her.

"Maybe you should stick around." Sarah insisted. "Until August."

Here it goes, Vance put his hand on Sarah's knee.

"What happens in August?" Detective Write seemed lost on the matter. Jason looked severely uncomfortable.

"Another boy is gonna go missing." Sarah shook her head. "There's been a ten month gap between the two that have disappeared. Meaning the next will be in August."

"Sarah, maybe not right now." Ella tried to be sincere with her daughter, knowing this was her form of coping.

"You think the missing boys were connected?" Detective Wright was unaware by Sarah's assumption, looking to his son. "Have you heard about this?"

"It's just a theory. We can't back up it up until there's a third victim, and Sarah thinks it'll be in August because Billy and Griffin had a ten months gap." Jason explained to his father, but there was a sense of dread in his tone. Maybe because he wanted his Dads validation just as badly as Sarah wanted it from him, and seeming like he wasn't doing what he could to help. Sarah seemed to leave out the fact that Jason put nearly everything on hold for almost two years to search for Billy, to connect dots that just weren't there. That wasn't her fault, but he wished she'd have said that.

"There was also a body." Sarah insisted. "Maybe Billy's. Dad, tell him."

"Sarah-" he started.

"It was found where other people went missing a while back. It's just a skull so they need to run dental records." she was talking fast, painfully fast. It was almost like she was genuinely not hearing anyone around her, or the world was speeding up little by little. "Could be Griffin too, but he's so tiny it's hard to assume that body was his."

"Sarah." Ella insisted. "Do you think we could talk about this after-"

"Of course, it might not be either of their bodies and they could just be stuck somewhere or backpacking in Europe. How would I know?" Vance hadn't seen her like this before, he wasn't sure what it was. It was like she was angry but trying to joke, all while her eyes were watery. "Or he could be dead, rotting away somewhere all alone and stuck on an endless loop because all the books say that people that aren't put to actual rest just start to fade away instead of crossing over after a while of being stuck."

Vance was starting to understand why Sarah and her family weren't close, why they never did dinner together. By the look on Ella's face, something like this had happened before and it scared her. Even Vance was a little scared, because she just didn't seem stable. Whatever set her off, whatever clicked and made her start acting out, was so unclear that no one was prepared or understood why she was laughing, crying, and yelling all at once. It was quiet for a second before Sarah laughed again, tears rolling down her cheeks with a smile plastered across her face. "Who knows, right? Not me. Not the department. Not anyone here. I guess we'll just have to let the case go unsolved in another year and bury some empty casket to try and make ourselves feel better. Say he's in a better place like any of us have a clue what the fuck he's actually doing!"

Now she was yelling, and she stood up. If Vance didn't know the situation, he'd have thought something wasn't right in Sarah's head. Though, something wasn't. She didn't have her best friend anymore, and she hid it so well that it suddenly snapped all at once when she sat there and listened to her father and grandpa talk about a bunch of cases, yet never mentioned Billys once.

Vance immediately followed Sarah when she stood up with a harsh push to her chair, going toward the door. "Sheeps."

She just kept walking. "Where are you going?"

"I wanna go to the 24 hour diner." she paused, turning around right before he could run into her. "Do you wanna come with me?"

•

kylie speaks

i gotta ask....when i get to
the actual movie part of this
book, do y'all wanna read what
the boys say to finney about
sarah or would that be too painful to relive and add even more pain to it