LITMIR.BIZ

       1

      THE ONE THING Bree could never deal with was the still time in between adventures. Back in Reno, time had not been valuable, so its waste didn’t matter. But now, in her new life, every still moment was a suffocating one, a lost one. And no matter how badly she wanted to move, here she was, walking down the side of the highway in Kansas, kicking tufts of dried grass because there weren’t even any pebbles. She waited, bored, for the next car to stick her thumb out at.

      The strap on her duffel bag was cutting into her shoulder, so she shifted it over to the other side and examined the little tread marks it had left on her skin. She couldn’t tell if the redness was from the strap or from the sun beating down on her all day. The bag wasn’t heavy—she never packed much, simply because she had fallen in love with the idea of traveling light—so she assumed that the redness was from the sun. She unzipped the bag and pulled out one of the three shirts she owned, a once-fluorescent-green tank top, and draped it over her head to keep her face from burning.

      She sighed loudly and looked up at the sun as if it were to blame for the lack of cars. Here she was, light like dandelion fluff, ready for the wind to whisk her away, and nothing was happening.

      Finally, the glimmer of something silver headed her way. She stuck her thumb out and even leaned a little forward, in case cleavage was more easily spotted. She hoped it wasn’t a trucker. Truckers were sometimes friendly but too often creepy instead—they were the reason she’d learned to carry a steak knife with her.

      The sound of tires rushing against the pavement was as beautiful as any song she’d ever heard. She held her breath as the sedan came into view, but the car showed no signs of slowing, and within seconds the tires had whizzed past her.

      Bree cursed at the gust of wind that trailed in the car’s wake and had knocked her green tank top to the asphalt. She grumbled as she knelt down to pick up the shirt, so anxious to get going that she almost didn’t see the second car coming. She stood back up and stuck her thumb out again, and the car instantly slowed down, the brakes not quite screeching but chirping loudly enough to be heard through the music that was blasting from inside. The car was old and crummy, its red paint job aiming for brilliance but coming closer to dried blood. Even the hubcaps were dark red.

      Bree took a couple of steps toward the car and leaned over to look through the rolled-down passenger-side window. It surprised her to see that the driver was a girl more or less her age. She rarely saw other teens on the road, especially not on their own.

      “Where you headed?” the driver called out over the music, which she hadn’t bothered to turn down.

      “Anywhere,” Bree called back, exactly as she’d said over and over again, the perfect nomadic answer. She glanced at the interior of the car, taking in the iced coffee in the cup holder, the scattered receipts, the trash bag secured to the gearshift and stuffed to the brim with empty plastic bottles and junk-food wrappers. The inside of the car was red, too, but there it succeeded in its brilliance and looked almost new. The upholstery was red, the steering wheel was red, even the forgotten liquid in the Gatorade bottle on the floor was red.

      “Perfect,” the girl said, and she motioned with a nod for Bree to come in.

      She opened the door and climbed in, hoisting her duffel bag into the empty backseat of the car. She could feel her heart start to beat harder with the familiar sensation of adrenaline and motion. It was as if her heart was not simply pumping blood around her body but pounding the stillness out of her system.

      The driver seemed to consider the open road for a second, as if daring it to keep her from gunning her engine. “I’m Leila,” she said.

      “Bree.”

      Leila nodded and offered a smile. Then the car rolled forward, and the wind started rushing in through the open window, pulling loose strands free from Bree’s ponytail. They flapped stingingly against the back of her sunburned neck and danced wildly across her eyes, thick tresses that had nearly turned to dreads during her nine months of roaming.

      After a mile or so, when the song playing through the stereo system ended, Leila turned down the music and rolled up her window halfway. “So, what’s your story?”

      “I don’t have a story,” Bree said, still needing to more or less yell over the sound of the highway.

      “Everyone has a story,” Leila said, combing back her black tresses over her ear, only to have the wind uproot them. It made Bree feel somehow connected to the girl, how their hair danced.

      “Well, then, my story is...” She motioned to the highway. “You know. Here. Going. The road.”

      Leila looked over her shoulder, taking her eyes off the road long enough for Bree to get nervous. “Did you run away from home?”

      They passed a sign saying that they had fifty miles to go to reach Kansas City, and Bree gave a little nod. She closed her eyes, focusing on the feel of the wind on her skin. She didn’t blame Leila for asking, since Bree had wondered the same about others, but she still hated being asked. Mostly because no matter how much she dressed it up with the details of her departure, no matter how much life she’d soaked up since, the basic truth was simple: Yes, she had run away. As they did all too often during quiet moments, thoughts of Bree’s sister, Alexis, rushed in. She opened her eyes. “What about you?” She asked. “What’s your story?”

      “North,” Leila said, as if it explained everything.

      “That’s it? That’s not much of a story.”

      Leila turned to look at Bree, eyes green and full of so much life that Bree almost felt jealous of what they might have seen. “I have to go to Alaska. I’ve got a rare medical condition where I can’t be away from the magnetic poles for too long, or my body starts to decompose.”

      Bree shifted uncomfortably in her seat, tensing up. She wasn’t good at dealing with diseases. She’d dealt with her parents’ for long enough. Then Leila cracked a smile. Bree relaxed. “Shut up. I almost believed you.”

      Leila leaned in toward the steering wheel as her body shook with laughter. “Wow, I did not think that you’d fall for that. I’m not usually a good liar.” She controlled her laughter, then said, “No, I’m going to Alaska to see the Northern Lights. I want to take some pictures for my school portfolio.”

      Bree

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