A friend indeed

 Rico knew Liv was worried. She hadn't seen Alex.

"What could have happened?" 

"Maybe Alex's mom..um.." Rico started thinking they could call, but Liv wanted to leave right after school.

"Are you sure we should?" Rico winced. Of course, he'd do whatever Liv wanted. But .."Maybe he's sick."

Liv looked at him as if he wasn't supposed to refer to Alex that way.

Rico didn't say anything. He just followed Liv hoping they'd get to the bottom of this. Maybe everything was OK.

But when they got to Alex's house, they could both see Alex's mom was worried.

"He's never home." She knew he wasn't going to school. The school had called her. "I thought everything was going OK."

Liv said maybe they could look for him.

"Oh, no telling what's going on, I'd rather you two just worry about school." She said it was something that was complicated. She wasn't quite sure how to fix it. She said she loved him. "But..but he's wreckless."

Rico never thought of Alex that way, but maybe she was right.

"I'm trying my best to stay positive," but of course, she broke down. "I don't know what I did."

"Alex might need to be on his own," Rico was bold enough to say. "Maybe he'll figure it out."

Of course, Liv festered a frown as if he'd said the wrong thing. Maybe he had, but then again, did anyone really know the right answers about Alex at the moment?