Outside, Laney’s already inside the car. I can’t run while carrying steaming coffee, and she has the keys in the ignition by the time I manage to climb into the passenger seat. She doesn’t even wait for me to buckle in before peeling out of the parking lot, tires screeching.
“Gah!” I yelp as a bit of hot coffee sloshes over the cup and lands on my hand. “Will you stop for a second? Jesus!”
We pass another block or so before she bothers to slow down. She white-knuckles the steering wheel, staring straight ahead and ignoring me.
“Who was that?” I demand. “Why are you—”
“Just give me a minute, okay? Please.”
I fall silent. I’ve never seen her like this before. So shaken up. It’s really freaking me out.
Laney calms down enough to take a sip of her latte, then hits the turn signal and pulls into an empty parking lot. She shuts the car off, tosses the keys on top of the dashboard and slumps against the seat, head rolling back. I stare at her and wait.
“That was Kyle,” she finally says.
“I gathered that much.” I take a long drink of my mocha, watching her.
“We had sex.”
I almost do a spit-take. Laney looks over at me as I choke and cough, wiping the coffee and whipped cream off my chin.
“You—what?” I’m still sputtering. “When?”
“Almost a week ago. He was behind me in line at the gas station, and we just started talking… .”
“So that’s your prerequisite for sex now? Standing behind you in line at the Gas-N-Go?”
It comes out harsher than I intend, but between the scalding coffee on my tongue and this little revelation, I’m more than a little off my game. Call me a prude, but this whole casual sex thing is so weird to me. I can’t imagine sleeping with some guy I’ve only known for a few hours. I know Laney tends to be … more forward than I am, and it’s not unheard of for her to mess around with guys she hasn’t known that long, but a random hookup like this? Really?
Laney gives me an offended look. “God, Harper, no! It’s more complicated than that.” She sets her coffee down in the cup holder and exhales loudly. “It was right after … after June, and I was really upset, I wasn’t even thinking. We talked a little, and he invited me to this party. And I got, like, seriously wasted. I don’t even know how it happened. Next thing I know …”
I study her for a long moment. “Laney. Did he—”
“No!” she says quickly. She hesitates. “It’s not like he assaulted me, okay? I didn’t exactly say no.”
“But did you say yes?”
“Yeah. I mean. I think so. Maybe. I must’ve, right?” Her eyes glisten wetly. “It was so stupid. I’m so stupid.”
The look on her face guts me. I should’ve been there. I’m the one who watches her back, the same way she watches mine. I wouldn’t have let this happen.
“You’re not stupid,” I tell her. I take a deep breath, trying to gather my thoughts. This is way too much to absorb in one sitting. “Look. Laney. It’s not your fault that that Kyle guy is a sleaze. You could’ve told me earlier. I would’ve—”
“Would’ve what?” she says sharply. She shrugs and lowers her eyes to her coffee cup. “It happened. Whatever. It’s over now, and it’s not like I’m going to do it again. I thought about telling you. I was going to, but with—well, everything—” She swallows hard. “It seemed kind of unimportant. You have enough to deal with right now.”
Laney’s not the blushing virgin type; she had sex for the first time with short-stint boyfriend Dustin Matthews after sophomore year homecoming and spared me no detail in recounting the event. And from the stories she’s shared, I know it wasn’t her last time hooking up, either. Every time I looked remotely scandalized by her tales, she’d roll her eyes and say, “Sex is, like, not even a big deal, trust me,” which maybe was true for those who were having it—not that I would know—but in my experience was a huge deal for those who weren’t.
By the time we’ve finished our coffee, Laney seems to be feeling more like herself again. She slides on her oversize pink-tinted sunglasses and grabs the keys.
“We should get going,” she says, and goes to start up the Gremlin.
Except it doesn’t start.
The engine revs like a skipping record, then putters out. She curses and twists the keys again. This time the engine barely makes a noise at all. So she tries again.
And again.
“So I think we’re stuck,” she says to me, five minutes later when the engine has failed to start.
“Yeah, looks like.”
She groans. “Today sucks.”
“Do I need to call my mom?” I think about the inebriated state I found her in the other morning. “I think she might be busy… .” Aunt Helen would probably come out, but the last thing I want to do is ask her for a favor.
Laney waves one hand. “No, it’s cool. I’ll call mine. I’m sure she’ll be so pleased to tear herself away from Days of Our Lives in order to help out her only daughter.”
She digs into her purse and whips out her cell phone. First she calls for a tow, and then she calls her mother. The towing guys come out first. We stand next to the curb as they hook the car up to the truck.
“Long live the Gremlin,” Laney says somberly, pouring what little is left of her latte onto the pavement in commemoration as the mechanic’s truck tows her piece of junk out of the lot. She lowers herself onto the curb and I sit down next to her, kicking at a stray pebble.
“Maybe it’s just the battery?” I say hopefully. “Or the water pump. It could be the water pump.”
“Whatever it is, there’s, like, no way I can afford to fix it,” she says. “I can barely manage to keep the tank filled these days. Even if I could swing it, it would wipe out all the money that could get us to California.”
The idea of running away to California is like a silver strand of hope, this tiny, fragile thread tying me to the world, giving me a reason to have been left behind by June. Giving me a purpose. And now that thread is thinning with every passing moment, worn down by the brutal scrape of reality grating away at it, bit by bit. It was probably a stupid idea in the first place. And an increasingly impossible one.
But then I think of June’s postcard, her words, that perfect, idyllic beach, and something in me resurges, clings to that thread even more tightly. I’m not letting this go without a fight.
“Besides,” Laney says, “the repairs will probably cost as much as the stupid piece of crap is worth.”
“Can’t your dad pay for it?” I ask.
“You know how he is—for a guy who makes as much money as he does, he’s a total tightwad.”
“But you get an allowance, right?” I press. “Don’t you have some of it saved?”
Laney looks at me incredulously. “Harper. I’m spending four dollars a day on sugared caffeine. What do you think?” She rolls her eyes. “And willing though my mom may be to update my wardrobe, no way will she help me out with this. Let’s face it. It’s a lost cause.”
I’m not ready to give up yet. “There are other ways of getting to California,” I point out.
“Like what? By plane? I think they’re going to say something when your carry-on is a freaking urn.”
Laney’s uncharacteristically reasoned logic