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‘That makes sense. Have you ever been to Salt Lake?’

Brooke shook her head. ‘No. My cousin Meredith came here once to check out one of the colleges. God only knows why.’

‘Did she get in?’ I asked, suddenly panicked. I didn’t want anyone to know where we were, and if Brooke called her cousin, we could have the police breathing down our necks in no time.

‘No, she went to Denver in the end. Do you want to go to college?’

What was I supposed to tell her? That no college in the country – in theworld– would accept me after everything that had happened. The feeling of having no way out was crushing, and I pushed it down to deal with later.

‘I guess it depends on whether I get in anywhere,’ I said vaguely.

Brooke glanced at me, frowning. ‘I thought you get good grades.’

‘I do. Most of the time. I’m not an academic genius, though. And I’d need a decent scholarship to be able to afford it.’

‘You’re smart,’ Brooke said with a confidence I was sure I’d never feel. ‘You’ll get an academic scholarship.’

‘Maybe,’ I said, because I couldn’t bear to think that far ahead.

If I was honest with myself, I couldn’t think much past tomorrow.

5

Fast Car– Tracy Chapman

I was watching the cars whizzing past on the I-15 outside Salt Lake from my vantage point in the Mustang parked by our latest motel. Brooke had been driving for almost six hours before we stopped for the night, and I could tell she was tired. She got irritable when she was tired – not obnoxiously so, but the tension made her eyebrows pinch together in a frustrated frown.

I still couldn’t believe I was here with her.

Brooke.

Brooke Summer.

The girl I’d had a crush on for almost ayear. The girl who used to make my stomach flutter when she smiled at me in school, and now got irritable with me when her blood sugar dropped.

Whenever I offered to drive, she shot me down, so there wasn’t much I could do about that. I had my driver’s license, but that didn’t seem to matter to her. To be fair, if I owned a vintage Mustang, I wouldn’t let other people drive it, either.

‘All good?’ I asked as Brooke got back into the car. She handed me the fake ID she’d been using to check into the motels – since we were both seventeen and some places were funny about that – and I slipped it back into the glove box for safekeeping.

‘Yeah. We’re on the second floor at the back.’

‘Perfect.’

The afternoon was hot, hotter still now that we weren’t whizzing down the highway with the top down. Brooke parked in the shade of some tall trees and worked to get the roof back on and secured while I grabbed our bags.

We headed for the stairs, since last night we’d found a dead rat in the elevator and Brooke had turned very green at the sight of it. I’d had to calm her down for a solid twenty minutes before she’d agreed to stay in that motel. This one seemed nicer, but I still wasn’t taking any chances.

‘We’re two-ten,’ Brooke said from behind me. ‘Should be just down here.’

The room was dim, with heavy blackout curtains and weird floral wallpaper. The dresser was dark wood and held a TV that wassuper3D. It was probably older than me.

‘Ugh.’

‘I know,’ Brooke said. ‘But it was cheap, Mouse.’

‘Yeah, it’s fine. It’s only for tonight.’

‘You want to order pizza?’ she asked, holding up a leaflet that had been left on the desk.