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‘I never went,’ Brooke said. ‘I would’ve hated it. Anyway, that’s where Meredith learned how to lift wallets and stuff. She said they used to practice in their bunks at night until they could all do it without anyone feeling it. And then when she came home, she taught us.’

‘Did you do it a lot?’

‘No, hardly ever. Julianne learned how to pick locks after reading Nancy Drew books, though. We all thought we were these super-badass middle-school girls.’

‘I would’ve been absolutely terrified of you. And the rest of your girl gang.’

‘Ha! Honestly, we thought we were so cool. But I never did much, apart from practicing with the rest of them. There’s plenty of places you can learn about it, if you want to. YouTube videos. That kind of thing,’ she said.

‘And now Meredith deals weed and gives her seventeen-year-old cousin a gun and burner phones and cash and fake IDs.’ I didn’t want to sound judgmental, but it still came out that way.

‘She wouldn’t think of it like that,’ Brooke said, shaking her head.

‘Like what?’

‘Like she’s doing anything illegal. Anyway, weed is legal in Colorado. But she’s looking out for me. Making sure I can protect myself.’

‘Do you think she’ll tell anyone she’s seen you?’ I asked. I hadn’t forgotten Meredith’s expression as we drove out of Denver.

‘Maybe.’ Brooke tipped her head to the side. ‘Probably not for a few more days, though. I expect she’ll call Julianne, tell her I stopped by, and say I’m heading toward New York. If Jules calls Mom and Dad, then …’

‘Would she do that?’ I demanded, suddenly worried.

Brooke shrugged. ‘I don’t know. She probably will, depending on how long I’m missing for.’

‘And what will Julianne do?’

‘Whatever she’s told,’ Brooke said softly, and even though her words weren’t hard or harsh, I stopped digging. There was clearly a bruise there and I didn’t want to poke it.

‘So, where exactly did you grow up?’ Brooke asked, neatly changing the subject, and I was happy to go along with it.

‘All over the place.’

‘Like, in Seattle, though?’

‘No.’ Now the cassettes were in an order I was happy with, I toed off my sneakers and put my feet up on the dash, tipping my face up to the sun.

‘All over the place between Washington, Idaho and Oregon. I was born in Portland, and my mom stayed there for a few years when I was little, but we started moving around a lot after my dad left. We never stayed anywhere more than a year or two.’

‘Oh, how come?’

This was another thing I felt like I needed to sanitize for Brooke’s sake.

Our families were obviously different – we’d established that ages ago – but I’d still been careful to only tell her things I didn’t mind her knowing.

These conversations were nice, though. I wanted her to know stuff about me … as long as it was the good parts.

‘My mom worked a lot.’ I paused, not really knowing where to go next, and Brooke stayed quiet.

She seemed to recognize that I needed space to figure out what I wanted to say.

‘We lived in a lot of shitty apartments, the type where the landlord doesn’t care if the carpet is stained or the hot water doesn’t work.

When my mom decided she was done with one place, we’d pack everything into the car and skip town. ’

‘So she didn’t have to pay the last month’s rent?’

The last couple months’ rent, if I was honest, but Brooke didn’t need to know that.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘We moved to Seattle when I was thirteen because I’d begged my mom to let us stay in one place for high school.’

‘And you ended up at St. Catherine’s? That’s some bad luck.’

I laughed, and the tension leaked out of my shoulders. ‘It could’ve been worse.’

I’d ended up at the same school as Brooke Summer. I couldn’t be mad about that.

Living in gross apartments all over three different states meant I knew families whose situations were far worse than mine and my mom’s, so I never really thought we were poor.

Not when I was a kid, anyway. It was only when we moved to Seattle, and I saw how some of the other kids from school lived, that it really hit me.

I never spoke to any of those kids about how I’d grown up. If anyone asked, I’d mumble something about moving around a lot, and they’d assume I was a military brat, and I was fine with that. I could keep a lid on that conversation by being awkward, and Brooke was happy to let me do it again now.

When it got dark, we stopped for the night in the middle of nowhere.

There was a time of night, I’d learned, when noise peaked in motels.

TVs weren’t on full blast but, even so, I could hear what our neighbors on either side were watching.

NBC to the left. Jeopardy! to the right.

The water clunked in the pipes while someone in the room above us took a shower, and the low hum of traffic in the distance was familiar, almost comforting.

The next morning, we got on the road early to head for Kansas City.

The sun blazed as it rose, the haze of early morning quickly burning away to reveal a deep-blue sky and a heat in the air I knew wouldn’t fade until much later in the day.

By early afternoon, we passed the sign welcoming us to Missouri, and in the passenger seat of the Mustang, it felt like we were flying.

I glanced over at Brooke. She was already looking at me, not the road.

‘Don’t say it.’

I opened my mouth.

‘Don’t fucking say it, Jessie,’ she said, but I could tell she was trying not to laugh.

I widened my eyes and put my hands on my cheeks. ‘I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto!’

‘I hate you so much.’

‘I don’t think you do,’ I sang.

Brooke held her laughter for as long as possible, but my hysterical giggles eventually set her off.

‘You’re such a fucking dope.’

‘So, what’s the plan?’ I asked once we had finally calmed down.

‘We should find somewhere to stay tonight,’ Brooke said. ‘If you can get online on your phone, could you scope out somewhere that isn’t too …’

‘Gross?’ I suggested, making her laugh again.

‘Yeah. That would be good.’

‘Do you want to go into the city again?’

Brooke hesitated, and I watched her carefully as she stretched in her seat, elegantly twisting her back from side to side. She’d left her hair loose today, so the dark waves curled over the edge of her T-shirt, and I liked watching her push it back behind her ear.

‘You can say yes,’ I said.

‘I kinda do.’ She sounded almost guilty.

‘I don’t mind. We’re more likely to find a not-gross motel in the city.’

‘That’s true. It would be good to get out for a couple hours and walk around, you know? Get some exercise.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I get it. Let me see what I can find.’

The 3G connection out here was terrible, so it took me forever to find the not-gross motel that had a decent parking lot out back and was walking distance to somewhere we could go eat.

This was the longest drive we’d done in one day, and I kept switching out cassettes, purposefully picking the ones that Brooke liked to sing along to.

After a few days on the road, I’d started singing along with her, and now we had moved on to figuring out harmonies between us. Singing was cathartic.

When we finally arrived in Kansas City, I was hot and tired from the long drive.

‘We need to do laundry,’ Brooke groaned, hauling her bag onto one of the beds. This room had two queens, made up with crisp white sheets. A part of me wished there was a reason to share just one.

‘I’m sure this place has a laundry room somewhere.’

‘I’ll go find it,’ she offered, leaving with a handful of dollar bills to exchange for quarters, and one of the phones tucked into her back pocket.

I used the time while Brooke was gone to do a quick inventory rundown.

We probably needed to replenish the snacks we kept in the trunk, but I was starting to get sick of gas station food.

And I never thought I’d say that. I’d lived off junk for years, while my mom was too busy with work to feed me home-cooked meals, and it had never occurred to me to resent her for that.

Right now, though, I was ready for a piece of broccoli and a potato that hadn’t been fried.

The motel room had a large window looking out over the walkway and parking lot, and I threw the curtains open to let in more of the natural light.

We’d checked in earlier than usual, which gave us a few more hours to get stuff done than those days when we crawled into a room just before midnight and collapsed into bed.

The parking lot was fairly empty, with a few trucks dotted around and a couple of larger vans. Brooke’s Mustang stood out, but it stood out everywhere. There wasn’t much we could do about that. She drove a beautifully restored vintage car – people noticed it.

I set my trashy romance novel on the nightstand and plugged my phone in to charge, then flopped onto the bed to check out what cable channels this motel had.

A few minutes later, the door clicked open again and Brooke walked in, turning a roll of quarters over between her fingers.

‘You hungry?’ she asked.

‘Not yet. I will be soon. But before you say anything, I really, really don’t want to eat pizza for dinner.’

Brooke snorted and flopped onto the second bed. ‘We don’t have to get pizza.’

‘Or Chinese food, or sandwiches, or …’

‘What do you want to eat, Jessie?’ she asked emphatically.

‘Something green.’

‘God, you sound like Meredith.’

That made me laugh. ‘There are worse things to be.’

‘Than a hippie, pottery-making vegan?’

‘Definitely.’

Brooke closed her eyes, and I watched her for a few moments. Her hands were resting on her stomach and she breathed slowly, like she was purposefully trying to relax.

I looked at her differently now. I knew she’d noticed me looking, and she was either tolerating it because she wanted to stay friends, or she genuinely didn’t mind. A few times I’d caught her looking at me, but I’d convinced myself it didn’t mean anything.