“Everything about you. And your brother.” There was no point holding back. She deserved to know exactly the danger I’d put them in.
“There were things in those letters I’ve never told anyone. Things my own family doesn’t know.”
I couldn’t meet her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Sharon.”
“I have to tell Peter.” She dropped her chin to her chest. “He’s going to hate me.”
I squirmed. “This is my fault, not yours.”
“He’d never hate you. Besides, it’s not your fault, either—it’s your aunt’s.”
“I’m so sorry.” I felt sick to my stomach. “I’ll talk to him.”
“No, don’t.” She shook her head. “This is on me. I’ll do it. But…why do you think your aunt called me?”
“Well.” I swallowed. “She’s trying to figure out if I’m here, and I can think of two possible reasons for that. Either she wants to convince me to come back home—which isn’t likely, since then it would’ve been my parents who called—or she knows I have her check register.”
“Oh, my gosh. I forgot all about the check register.”
“It’s still there.” I pointed toward where I’d left my purse on the floor.
“How would she know you have it?”
“Well, I used that desk more than any other volunteer, and…” I bit my cheek. “I’m so sorry, Sharon.”
“It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not. She wouldn’t know anything about you, or your brother, if it weren’t for me. Once she realized I’d taken that stupid thing, she probably tore apart the whole house looking for it. With the radio show finally starting, she’s probably trying to make sure no one’s going to find out what they did to get there. And I guess my family didn’t mind my running away, or they’d have searched the house earlier, looking for evidence of where I went.”
I shrugged, as though none of this bothered me, but from the crease that formed between Sharon’s eyebrows, I don’t think she bought it.
“What’ll she do?” Sharon wrapped her arms around herself even tighter. “Come looking for you?”
“God, I hope not. Nothing you said would’ve made her think I was here, right?”
“No! Of course not.”
“Then we’re probably safe for now. It’s a long trip when all she’s got is a hunch.” I sat back against the dresser, pinching the bridge of my nose between my fingers. I’d forgotten how exhausting it was, being terrified. “Is there any food up here?”
Sharon lifted a box of Lorna Doones. “I was starving, too.”
We devoured the cookies. Sharon hunched forward on her bed at first, but after a while she climbed down to sit next to me on the floor.
She still looked worried. I reassured her again, and again after that, that I didn’t think my aunt was going to show up on her doorstep, but the crease between her eyebrows never went away. I wondered if something else might be bothering her, too.
As she bent over to shake the last few cookies out of the box, I studied the outline of her face in the dim light. For months, I’d wondered what would happen if Sharon and I ever met in person. I’d built up a dozen scenarios for it in my head. Now it was reality, and it was as simple as sitting on a worn rug, talking to the girl who’d once existed for me solely in the form of ripped-out notebook pages.
“What else is wrong?” I asked her after a quiet moment, wiping a cookie crumb off my lower lip.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Did you go out with Kevin tonight, like you said in the letter?”
She glanced at me, then darted her eyes back to the floor. We were sitting side by side against the dresser, and suddenly it struck me exactly how little space there was between us.