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I laughed, and Brooke grinned.

‘Forget him,’ she said decisively.

I wasn’t convinced, but I’d go along with her, for now. ‘Doyouthink someone’s looking for us?’ I asked.

Brooke shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I think someone is looking for you,’I said, pushing away thoughts of my own issues.

‘No,’ she replied quickly.

‘Why not?’

‘I left a note.’

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and laid back in my nice patch of grass. ‘Oh, that’s all right, then,’ I said, letting a little sarcasm creep in. ‘You left anote.’

Brooke frowned. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Have you ever done this? Run off and just left a note?’

‘No.’

‘Then they’ll be looking for you,’ I said, stretching my arms over my head.

‘Why will they be looking for me and not you? I’m almost eighteen. I can do what I want.’ She sounded annoyed.

‘Because people care about you, Brooke, and they don’t care about me.’

‘I’m sure that’s not true, Mouse. Your mom and your friends will wonder where you are.’

‘I don’t have friends,’ I said simply, because it was true.

‘Have you ever run away before?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘And I didn’t leave a note.’

‘What happened?’

‘I got a flag on my file to say I’m a flight risk.’

‘That’s it?’ she said incredulously.

‘Yeah.’

‘Jesus Christ.’

I put my palms down on the grass, then moved my arms back and forth like I was making a snow angel. The movement sent the smell of grass and pine into the air, and I took deep, greedy lungfuls of it.

A white butterfly danced by, a few yards away from me, and I watched it for a long moment. I was twelve the first time I ran away, and I didn’t get far – I was picked up by mall security when my mom told the cops that was where I sometimes hung out. I couldn’t remember exactly why I’d run off that first time. It had probably been some stupidargument, and I was feeling too boxed in, too smothered and suffocated, and I had decided to just go.

Since then, I’d taken off a few more times, never getting very far on my own. If Brooke hadn’t picked me up, I probably wouldn’t have made it far this time, either. I owed her so much. Without her, I’d almost certainly be rotting in a jail cell back in Seattle.

‘Do you want someone to be looking for you?’ I asked.

‘No,’ Brooke said quickly. ‘No. I want …this.’

I nodded. ‘Me too. This is better than I thought it was going to be.’