How Cliche to Have My Heart Stolen

The sound of the local news station took the part of background noise as we looked over the menus for a main course. Chatter picked up and stares had completely gone away now.

"Is it okay if we all share the chicken strip basket?" Luke asked.

"Sure," Rachel agreed. "I'm content with that if Brodie is."

"That's fine." They made it seem like I was freaking out over nothing. I think that I was right in saying something. I should have gone about it differently, but I was in the right.

Our drinks were brought out. While we were drinking, the waitress took out her small order note pad. "Have y'all decided?"

Taking up all our menus, Luke said, "We're just going to share a chicken strip basket."

Looking slightly disappointed, she folded up her note pad and shouted, "Hens in a barrel!" to the cook.

She began to take the menus from the table when someone said, "Hey, turn that up!"

The volume on the television rose. "Two teenage girls have been missing for nearly a week from Willard," said the anchor. "Last seen at Eagle Stop, they left at different times. One of them left with a boy in a hooded grey hooded jacket." While the anchor talked, video played from the one security camera that was in the entire store. It showed Luke talking to us, then me leaving with Luke. "None of his features were visible apart from his skin tone. The only witnesses were the girls. There is no sketch of the male suspect. All that is known is he is a slender, white male. Since both girls are still missing we assume them to be together. The search has spread to regional. If you have any information, please call the police."

"Do they expect the girls to still be alive?" asked the co-anchor.

"One of the girls is a known runaway," replied the head anchor. "The other is said to have a good relationship with her family. After twenty-four hours, it's usually a body hunt, but there have been cases were girls have been kidnapped and returned home years later."

"Let's get these girls home," said the co-anchor, wanting to move on to the next story.

I remembered what Luke had said when we were at the hotel about acting completely natural to avoid suspicion. My way of acting casual was blowing bubbles in my chocolate milk. With my head down blowing into my straw, I looked and saw Luke trying to hide his worry by spooning into his whip cream and ice creamy mixture, just enough to taste the combination.

Rachel was a wreck, nervously sipping at her coke.

The waitress, looking nervous said, "You kind of look like the girl on the news story."

"How could you tell? The screen is so fuzzy I couldn't make out anyone's face," I replied. "But yeah, we might look like of similar. I have one of those boring 'familiar faces.' I'm always being compared to someone!" I add a little laugh at the end. "I lived up here all my life."

Without missing a beat, she said back, "I've never seen you 'round here before."

"Well, not here here. But north, you know? I'm just traveling through with my friend's family. Right, Kimmy?" I passed the buck, giving her an alias.

"Totally, Jen," she picked up on what I was doing, surprisingly. "All the time people are coming up to me, 'Hey, Rayray!' 'Where have you been Amanda?' I usually ignore them until they come up to me and tap me on the shoulder or something. It's totally annoying."

"Yeah," said the waitress. "I didn't think it was you, but I guess with the poor picture it just looked similar. Your food should be done soon."

I was pretty sure we'd gotten rid of her. Maybe it was police who'd heard about us coming through town that were at the hotel? It's hard to say how much longer we can stay on the run before someone recognizes Rachel or me. For some reason, that scares me.