This is the space to tell us how you would answer the writing prompt that appears in CrimeBits on page 229.
There’s something about being eleven years old and having no real say over what you do with your life. You can scream IT’S NOT FAIR all you like, but it means nothing to your parents. Strike that, she only has one parent now. No matter what her mum thinks, there’s no way she’s calling him dad. He can’t just show up when she’s aged nine and expect to replace her real dad.
It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t see him anymore.
That he doesn’t seem interested. He’s still her real dad. Only, she can’t find him now.
She’s scared she never will.
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Kate met Adam online five months ago, which to an eleven-year-old may as well have been years. They were in love, and ready to meet in-person. To Step-Douche, this idea was outrageously dangerous, and he would not allow Adam into his house. The only way he would allow them to meet was in a public place, with both kids’ parents present. Even then, he made sure to specify Kate wouldn’t be allowed out of arm’s reach from him.
Her Mum was placid and aloof in the aftermath of this discussion turned argument. Her knuckles were gently bent, resting against her lips as if she had mildly burned her mouth on soup. Kate herself was fucking humiliated. She could feel Adam’s desire to be with her washing away like sand after Step-Douche Marshall’s meat-head opposition to their meeting. Kate tried to appeal to Mum in private but had been given some spineless drivel about respecting Marshall’s wishes. Dad would’ve understood. He and Mum met on the internet, after all. Kate may not live with him, but his blessings had to count for something.
It wasn’t even the fact that Marshall wouldn’t allow Adam to stay with them. It was his clear disgust of Adam. The only boy who ever loved her. And why would Marshall be protective of her anyway? There’s no blood relation. There’s barely even a relationship. It was obvious faking protectiveness over her was an act. An act to placate Mum, and to hide the real reason he didn’t trust Adam. Not because he was a stranger. Not because he was “from the internet.” It was because Adam was black.
Tears burned down Kate’s face in the blue light of the Macintosh’s screen. She recounted the utter humiliation of hearing Marshall mispronounce Adam’s mother’s name not once but thrice over speakerphone with her and no doubt, Adam, listening. It couldn’t have been accidental. Her heart hurt for Adam and his mom, and she no doubt now had a similar distaste for Kate if Marshall was any representation of her and her so-called family.
This was all going to change. Dad would have her back. She just needed to find him. It was the internet age. Y2K. She could find him the same way she found Adam. The same way Mum found Dad- using the internet. Even if he didn’t want to be found, even if he didn’t have his own phone or address to be found, she would track him down. After minutes of scrolling, parsing through tears down an endless list of IRC chat rooms, she double clicked on “Serial Killer Groupies”.