Things We Didn't Say - By Kristina Riggle Page 0,54

that. A mother wheeling a stroller by gives us a long look.

“S-s-someone will hear you.”

Tiffany had told me all kinds of stories about how she was never allowed to go anywhere but school, the library, and church, and couldn’t even use the phone unless her dad was in the same room listening, and her only Internet access was taken away when he found out she was talking to me. She had to change her e-mail address and send me messages through Facebook and Gmail at the library when she was supposed to be studying. He took away her phone, too, when he found out she’d been sneaking calls to me.

She said she had actual bars on the windows, and a lock on the outside of her room that he threatened to use if she disobeyed.

This all sounded pretty bad.

And she talked about running away alone, and I didn’t want her to do that and get abducted and murdered. So she said I could come with her. At first I thought that was a bad idea, but then school every day was awful, and I had no friends at my old school anymore either, then Angel and my dad and Casey started fighting all the time. I couldn’t even breathe, it felt like. My stammer got worse, and some kids at EXA started mocking it.

Tiffany started talking about freedom, and it all sounded so . . . free.

But she also sent me a picture of a model instead of her face, and told me she was older than I think she really is.

“I’m hungry, anyway,” I tell her, stalling. “Let’s try to find something to eat.”

“With what?”

I sigh. I hadn’t wanted to do this, but I’m running out of options. “I’ve got my dad’s credit card.”

She lights up like fireworks. “You do! That’s great! Let’s go to T.G.I. Friday’s!”

I shake my head. “We can’t go anywhere where they have time to really look at the card and ask for ID and stuff. We should probably, like, walk to a convenience store and just buy some food where I can just swipe the card and scribble something on the paper. A gas station, someplace like that where they won’t care.”

She nods. “Okay, fine, a gas station. Then we’ll hitch. Really, it’ll be fine. My cousin used to do this all the time, my mom’s cousin I mean?” She says that last part in a rush because she’d already talked about not having cousins, back in our first days writing to each other. “He said a couple can get away with it, no problem.”

Outside the mall doors, through the blowing snow, I see the glowing sign of a gas station across the busy street.

“Well,” I tell her as we turn to walk into the storm. “I guess. But I think we should go someplace warmer than New York. Florida or something.”

“Oooooh!” she exclaims, skipping across rows of snow in the parking lot, raising her voice to be heard over the wind. “Disney World!”

Yeah, right. Hey, kid, you just ran away from home with no money and no car, where are you gonna go now?

Whatever, I’m freezing. Maybe hitching isn’t so bad, if we’re careful.

Chapter 22

Michael

Of course I’ll drive,” my father says when I tell him I want to go to Cleveland, if nothing else so that when the police find him, I’ll be halfway there. Yet I dare not brave these wintry roads in my little Honda.

“I was thinking I could just borrow your SUV.”

“Have you slept all night? Certainly not. Driving sleepless is like driving drunk. I’ll be over as soon as I can.”

“I can bring Casey, we’ll take turns driving.”

“I’m sure she didn’t sleep, either.”

I can’t refute this. Neither of us suggests I bring Mallory along. For one thing, she doesn’t have a license anymore.

“I will drive you,” my dad says, hanging up the phone before I have time to argue.

“I’m going to shovel the drive,” I announce to the house in general, though Jewel is reading in her room, Angel is upstairs on her phone, and Casey is on her computer downstairs forwarding Dylan’s picture to anyone and everyone she can think of.

I need air. Plus, I’d feel bad if Dad broke his neck on our front walk.

I sip in the cold outside. Mallory must have turned up the thermostat, because it’s gotten warmer than usual in there. I watch it carefully because heat costs a fortune and the house is old and drafty. That was one of our classic