“No, they can’t trace prepaid phones, that’s why drug dealers use them? You know? Info you probably shoulda picked up by now at very least by pop culture, if nothing else. Where’ve you been?” Juvie would’ve taught her that, right? And most of the kids in the foster care system Miah had met at least had the street smarts that he did, if not miles more, making him look like the naive result of a Baptist home schooled upbringing in comparison. Utah was his second guess, what with their terrifying unregulated ‘troubled teen industry’ - although camps like the ones he’d heard of required tens of thousands in tuition, which he somehow doubted any guardian to a sibling of Beth’s would be privy to.
“Girl… sorry, what was your name again? I gotta real question here - I’ll forget your name a couple times before it sticks ‘cause I’m a little slow in that department…” Miah took a pause for emphasis to make his next question harder to skip over, since he wanted the answer more than any of the shits he gave about her name. “When was the last time you actually saw Beth?”
It had to’ve taken some genuine resourcefulness for the two to’ve gotten in contact with each other so recently, but Miah was pretty sure he knew Beth better at this point than the girl who sat in front of him did, despite the blood relation she and Beth shared. “People change, yo - profoundly. Doesn’t even take that long before any of us become completely different people from the ones you might remember.”
“So Beth? She’s made plenty of friends - girlfriends in prison. There’s also me… “ He didn’t tell her this, but Beth made it pretty clear that Miah was the only ‘friend’ she had who actually mattered in any dependable way, but he kept going. “… there were other patients at the psychiatric hospital… staff at that same psych ward… connections in the outside world… “
His last two examples were about as exaggerated as he could get - there was no way in Hell he’d actually count the psych ward staff who took sexual advantage of Beth or her truckers-turned-Johns as ‘friends’ of hers just ‘cause they ‘let’ her blow them - and God knows what else - for drugs, for rides and for survival. Because of people like them, Beth had been, for her survival’s sake, exploited in ways that Miah didn’t think he’d ever survive, which, despite the matricide, earned Beth a modicum of respect and a crap ton of sympathy from him.
“… so it’s not like she can’t make friends. But she’s still not so great at staying out of trouble. Now: based on what you know about her, go ahead and guess… I’ll even give you a hint: yesterday morning Beth was here, in this apartment… so where do you think she is now?”
Rebecca snorted, her breath coming out in a puff of smoke. “Friends? God. You don’t know her at, do you? We don’t have friends. We use people up, turn ‘em out like pretty little coin purses. What are you good for? A fuck and some drugs right? Some degree of comfort in being with someone else, I suppose.”
She stared down at her arm as she spoke, the tattoo both she and beth shared glaring back up at her. “When did you last see her? Does she have like.. a pub or something? She usually finds one of those to crawl back into.” Forcing a smirk back onto her face, she continued to puff away at the small joint she clutched in her hand.
Miah made her nervous, the way he was talking about her sister. As if he knew her, as if Beth had told him stuff of great importance. Rebecca didn’t have anyone else but the ghost of the sister she’d grown up with, having even bitten the last girl who’d tried to crawl into her bed for some degree of comfort. The idea of Beth not being here.. of being somewhere Rebecca couldn’t reach her was terrifying. She could feel the walls closing in.
“Where. The. Fuck. Is. She?” She asked again, fear creeping into her voice.
Originally posted by tjsndvkmoe
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