The Way Back to You (10 page)

“It really does. It’s kind of late, but we can buy a tent and find a campsite.”

“Wait. You want to
camp
?”

Now it’s my turn to laugh while she gapes at me, horrified. “You’ve lived in Bend your whole life. Don’t tell me you’re afraid of camping.”

“I’m afraid of needing an osteopath before I’m legal. But sure, let’s sleep on the ground. It’s not like we were cramped up all day. Or better yet, why not sleep in the car?”

I stare at the Xterra for a long moment.

“Oh, no,” she says.

Y
ou’d be surprised how much action a twenty-four-hour Home Depot gets after midnight.

A lot, it turns out, and enough to keep the Xterra—and the three squatters inside of it—unnoticed by security. For now.

Shifting as quietly as possible, I scrunch my body into a tighter ball and shiver under my coat. Earlier, when he saw me messing with the passenger seat’s adjustment handle, Kyle offered to stay up front while I took the cargo area. I turned him down, though. He’d just be origamied up where I am now, worse because he’s so tall, and I owe him a goodish night’s rest after driving all day. He also proposed that we share the back of the Xterra—with the backseat folded down, it’s big enough for the both of us. I brushed that off, too, and told him I kick when I dream, a cheerleader side effect. It’s a lie, but honestly, the image of Arm settled in safely between us, like our newborn or something, was too much.

It’s weird enough being in the same cramped space as Kyle, but thinking that he and I have a cat baby is proof I’m close to the edge.

I look out the sunroof—it’s steamed up like the other
windows—and listen to Kyle breathe, in and out, evenly. The idea of sharing a hotel room with him seemed like a nightmare, but this is torture. Actually, being tortured with Kyle might be preferable to trying to sleep in this car with him. At least then I wouldn’t be wondering how it would feel to be next to him, to watch his chest rise and fall.

I crane my neck to check the time on the dash—four thirty a.m.—instead of powering up my cell again. I’ve had enough phone trauma for tonight.

Lita was practically foaming at the mouth when I spoke to her. And by the end of our conversation, I’d managed to convince her that:

No, Kyle did not kidnap me.

No, Kyle and I were
definitely not
eloping.

Yes, this was all last minute, spur of the moment, unplanned, etc.

Yep, Zoë will tell Coach that I won’t be at practice this week. Coach won’t be thrilled, but she won’t punish me for it, either. She’ll give me the Responsibility Lecture when I get back and her eyes will go soft in that way they have since Ashlyn died. Adults never let it go. They hold on to things like a brand, with them all the time. I see it in the way teachers treat me, even months later. As if I’m wearing a Dead Girl’s #1 Best Friend T-shirt. Not that it’s a bad thing, people handling you more carefully because you’ve had a shit time of it. But it doesn’t make moving on any easier when someone’s pinning you in one place.

And finally, of course I would tell Jade that Lita said hi.

I wasn’t serious about that last one, obviously. Since the
drama threat level has been downgraded, Jade won’t ever know Zoë threw her name into this.

My blood is still humming with residual aggravation. Yesterday was supposed to be easy. I didn’t have to worry about my parents since they were somewhere in the middle of the Pacific, and my pretend illness would’ve kept me off the radar at home for at least a couple more days. Except less than twelve hours into the trip, Zoë crumbled. From now on, the less I tell her, the better.

It’s impossible to get comfortable, so I sit up to check over the backseat. The light from the lampposts ringing the lot is enough to show Kyle passed out like a pro, his head on the panda Pillow Pet. Arm is pressed to his bicep. After how he reacted to the email from Ethan’s mom, I’m relieved he’s taking this so well.

But there’s been an undercurrent rippling through me. Ever since he agreed to see the other recipients. Dread or bitterness or something else that stretches my skin taut. I’d thought seeing Ethan was like having Ashlyn nearby. Now I realize it wasn’t—not at all. She isn’t nearby. The only parts of her that are still alive on this planet are inside of Ethan and the other recipients. They’re here because she isn’t; they’re with their friends and families, and she’s not. I’ll never be with her again.

I inhale deeply, slowly breathe out.

I punch my cloud-print pillow, fluffing it up.

It’s the worst at night. When there aren’t daytime things to distract me, my thoughts always drift to Ashlyn. They creep in to catch me, drowsy and unguarded, but I chase them away before they gain any real ground.

Arm’s supersonic ears must sense me moving around because she picks up her head.

“Hey, kitty,” I whisper, carefully reaching over the seat to pet her with my pointer finger. “Some slumber party, right?”

She yawns and stands, her tiny body vibrating as she arches into a stretch. Without hesitating, she leaps onto Kyle’s chest and curls up. He jerks awake immediately, then blinks down at Arm and up at the roof, before bending his head to catch me. The near darkness and quiet make it painfully intimate when he gives me a groggy smile. It’s a moment before it registers I should smile, but Kyle has already fallen back to sleep. The whole sky could fall on the Xterra and I’d be okay with that.

Then my body temperature goes up a few degrees, and I consider smothering myself with my pillow.

UNLIKE ETHAN, FREDDIE Blackwell isn’t debuting at any local playhouses. But his email did mention the street where his new house is, so after a few minutes of Google stalking, it wasn’t too hard to find him. Now all we have to sort out is what to do when we get there.

At least we have time to work on a plan.

“Palm Springs is, like, seven hours from here. We could be there by dinnertime,” Kyle tells me, tearing at the corner of a sugar packet for his coffee.

Maybe it’s the sunlight coming in through the diner window, but Kyle looks
awake.
He’s zinging with a new energy this morning, excited to get the day started, despite the rumpled chic of wearing the clothes he slept in. We were both able to clean up
in the Home Depot bathroom, but the store was unfortunately lacking in a menswear department. So our first stop on the way to Palm Springs will be a seriously needed shopping mall.

It’s seven thirty and we’re at a diner that smells like coffee and bacon, and looks exactly like the diners everywhere else—chrome and vinyl, a long counter, and everything covered with a thin layer of maple syrup. It’s kind of nice. Cozy, even. Like this is any other Sunday morning and we’re having any other Sunday breakfast.

Except there’s nothing really any-other about being here alone with Kyle and a cat in a duffel bag, sitting at a table that overlooks the Sacramento River.

From the corner of my eye, I spot our waitress, Wendy, strolling back to our table. She’s probably around fifty years old, with her curly, dark hair tied back. Her bright red lipstick made me like her right away. “Ready to order?”

After Kyle asks for the eggs Benedict and bacon, and I settle on an egg-white omelet, Wendy takes our menus and examines us. “You know, we usually don’t see anyone under retirement age here this early.” She gestures to her left, where a large group of older men are seated at the counter, bent over newspapers.

“We haven’t been to bed yet,” I say. Kyle’s eyes narrow on me. He doesn’t want Wendy lingering because she might notice Arm, but I can’t help myself. “We’re celebrating.”

Wendy braces a hand on the booth, near my ear. “Oh, yeah?” She smiles, curious. “Celebrating what?”

I rest on my forearms, scooting forward, and point at Kyle. “My brother got into Harvard. Early decision.”

Which is so clearly not true. Aside from Kyle not having a “plan,” neither of us can even apply to college for months.

“Harvard!” she says to him, all giddy. Kyle, on the other hand, tosses her a queasy-looking smile while shifting to block the duffel beside him. He shoots me a discreet glare that could propel his knife across the table.

“Yale, too, but”—I wave my hand—“everyone knows that place barely counts.”

Wendy laughs. And while Kyle scratches his head, the distress in his expression shifts to challenge.

“My
sister’s
being modest,” he says to Wendy. “Sitting right there? Miss Teen Royal Galaxy Cheerleader.”

What a dick.

I choke, unable to stop the grin that breaks across my face. When I notice Wendy eyeing me, a cheerleader with a title, I nod. “My Herkie is
out of this world
.”

Wendy tilts her head. “I’m not sure what any of that means, but I better get those orders in. Don’t want to keep my most talented customers waiting,” she says with a knock on the tabletop.

“It’s a cheer stunt,” I call to her back, then shrug at Kyle. “My Liberties are even better.”

“You’re out of control,” he says on an exhale.

“Come on, Wendy bought it.” I take a sip of coffee, flattening my grin. “She might give us extra home fries now.”

“Only in your mind could I get into Harvard.”

“No kidding. ‘Miss Teen Royal Galaxy Cheerleader’? No Ivy Leaguer would ever quote Jacob Tamsin.”

Kyle absently scratches at the light stubble across his jaw.
“What was that all about, anyway? He said something about you winning a cheer award?”

“It’s not an award. It’s just an interview in this cheer magazine.”

“
Just
an interview?” he laughs. “You’re aware they don’t give those out to everyone, right?”

“They might as well. It’s stupid.”

He dips his head. “Is it the same magazine Ashlyn’s article was in? The one she wrote about you two?”

“Um, yeah,” I say, tracing the scalloped edge of my paper place mat. “I think so.”

I know so. Last year,
Cheer Insider
put out a call for stories about cheering with your best friend, and Ashlyn had been all over it. She’d submitted a short essay about how we’d been competing and cheering together since we were kids—with nothing but glowing things about me, she promised. It was a hideous coincidence that they published it the same month she died. When I saw the issue on Ashlyn’s desk, most likely placed there by her mom after it came in the mail, I tucked it into a drawer without ever flipping it open.

“She was going to display it,” Kyle says, smiling again. “She had the frame all picked out.”

I shake my head. “She must be so pissed she never got to use it.”

Kyle pauses at that, then says, “Her mom stopped by my house one day to give me a copy. I was really glad to read it . . . you know, after. Weren’t you?”

The coffee and cream have congealed in my stomach. “Totally.”

“I read it more times than I could count at first. The way she wrote it was like listening to her talk. Like she was reading it out loud. I could even hear the weird way she pronounced ‘family.’ Faaamily,” he says, drawing out the
A
s like a sheep would. “Where did she get that from?”

Thank God Wendy shows up with the food.

It gives me a moment to avoid saying anything else. There’s this openness about Kyle that makes you want to talk. Except when I open my mouth around him, what usually comes out is pointless, or babbling, or abrasive.

Right now I want to say a lot. About how I haven’t read Ashlyn’s essay. How reading about
us
, in that way, in her own words, would be getting my hopes up; because spending too much time in the past would make the reality of her being gone unbearable. And I’d tell him that I can’t face doing my own interview for the same reasons. How I’m not sure I fit with the other girls anymore, and how sometimes it feels majorly fucked up to be dancing and clapping to the same four songs as if Ashlyn isn’t dead.

But no one needs to know all that.

Instead, I say, “Anyway, the magazine thing: not a big deal.”

“Really? It sounds like one. It makes
you
sound like one, and from what I remember, you kind of are.” Suddenly very focused on cutting his bacon into perfect tiny squares, the corner of his mouth quirks up. “Not that it’s Harvard or anything.”

I smile a little, too, watching him drop the small pieces of meat into the duffel bag for Arm. And I let his praise sink in, a buzzing that charges me up more than my coffee.

MY PHONE VIBRATES as soon as Wendy drops the check off.

I press my forehead into the table and groan. “I bet you gas money that’s Zoë.”

Kyle pitches forward to glance at the screen. “‘Did you know parts of Sacramento are underground?’” he recites, deadpan. “‘They had to raise the streets after a flood in the 1800s.’ Exclamation point.”

I laugh. “My sister loves her fun facts.”

She’s been texting them to me every hour, and I’m hoping my parents will be too obsessed with their part of our phone bill to realize I was texting back from a different state.

Did you know the Sacramento Zoo opened in 1927?

Guess what, Sacramento is one of the most haunted cities in the country.

Sacramento’s the Camellia Capital of the World!

It’s really my own fault for leaving her alone with too much time on her hands.

We’re counting out our cash when my phone starts up
again
, shaking and trilling, all attention-seeking—an actual phone call this time.

My fingernails dig into the vinyl seat. I’m not sure anymore that unexpected phone calls ever happen for good reasons.

Maybe it’s Zoë and it’s something urgent. Something
else
urgent.

Could she have spoken to my parents—and caved like she did with Lita?

Could Mom, who always knows who the killer is—and tells you—before the movie’s halfway done, have coaxed the truth out of her? Maybe Mom’s the one calling. To vocally murder me.

“Do you mind checking?” I ask Kyle, the words rushing out as the ringing goes on and on.

He reaches for it calmly. I guess he
can
be calm. He doesn’t have to cover his ass for so many people, what with him only having one parent, who apparently doesn’t care where he goes.

God, he is so lucky.

“Jade?” he says.

I huff out a relieved breath. It’s not Mom. Mom still believes I’m in Bend, and it’s just Jade calling.

Jade, who I’m supposedly visiting right now.

The call finally goes to voice mail and, after a few seconds, a blip announcing a new message cuts through the diner.

“Oh, no,” I mumble.

Kyle furrows his brow. “Isn’t she—?”

“Our cover story,” I say before he can finish the thought.