1. Mallory #2
I’d be starting my senior semester at Elmwood Public. I stopped counting the number of schools I’d attended. There was a short stint when Mom homeschooled me, but after a semester, we both decided it was better that I attended school.
It was hard to imagine being at a school long enough to have friends, let alone graduate. I used to envy all those girls who had close relationships, having grown up together since kindergarten. That was never in the cards for me. It was easier for me to be alone. I had my online friends.
My mom, on the other hand, was a damn social butterfly wherever we were. You would think, given her extracurricular activities, she would keep a low profile. Nope. Not the case.
We stopped at a gas station for fuel and snacks.
I watched as Mom strutted across the parking lot, every guy in the vicinity eyeing her.
She loved the attention. A slight curve touched her lips, and her hips swayed a tad more, emphasizing her hourglass figure.
Her jean shorts were tight, and her pale-yellow tube top had tiny white flowers.
She looked like she walked out of a beach vacation ad, not a woman fleeing her latest crime scene.
She’d paired her outfit with strappy heels, accentuating her long tan legs.
Men never saw her coming. They saw the smile, the curves, the way she laughed like she was inviting them into a secret.
At least she came back with a bag full of our road trip essentials and not a body.
She dropped the bag into my lap after sliding behind the wheel, and I took a quick peek inside.
Sodas. Twizzlers. Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. Beef jerky.
And an assortment of dark chocolate bars.
She knew they were my favorite. It had to be dark chocolate.
“Look what I found,” she said with a bright smile. We had the same shade of black hair. Hers was tied into a slick ponytail where mine was loose, long, and wild. She handed over a postcard for me to look at, her dazzling, deep blue eyes dancing.
Oddly, I’d inherited only one of Mom’s blue eyes. I had what they called heterochromia. My eyes were different colors. The other one was hazel, most likely my father’s color. With my unique eyes, I glanced at the postcard. It was a landscape view with the text Elmwood printed across it.
“Looks perfect,” she said as I continued to stare at the picture. “I have a good feeling about this place, Malibu. This is where our journey ends.”
“And if we hate it?” I asked, playing devil’s advocate. Mom was the optimist. I was the pessimist. Someone had to keep their feet on the ground.
She steered the car out of the gas station and back on the road. “If Elmwood sucks, there are a million other cities for us to try. We’ll find one that fits us.”
I dug into the bag of goodies, reaching for the Cheetos as she started the car, her ponytail falling over her slim, bare shoulder.
“You sure you don’t want me to drive?” I offered, licking Cheetos dust from my fingers.
We’d already been in the car for nearly thirty hours and had been switching off and on since we left, Mom doing the bulk of the drive in the middle of the night while I slept.
She reached for a bottled soda and took a swig. “It’s going to get dark soon, and besides, we’re close.”
I cranked the window down farther and tilted my face toward the swiftly setting sun, letting the wind whip my dark hair into a tangled mess I’d regret later. The warmth soaked into my skin, and I closed my eyes against the brightness.
God, I’d missed seasons.
Texas had been one endless, suffocating summer. Flat highways that stretched forever, heat that made the asphalt shimmer like water, and air so thick you could choke on it. No change. No relief. Just sun and dust.
But the East Coast summer had texture. The air tasted different. Cooler at the edges, like fall was already lurking in the shadows, waiting to sink its claws in. I wanted that. Wanted winter to come with teeth and snow and mornings where your breath fogged in front of your face.
I wanted to stay somewhere long enough to see the seasons change.
Mom glanced over at me, sunglasses sliding down her nose. “You know,” she said, her voice casual in that way that meant she was about to say something wildly inappropriate, “most moms teach their daughters how to bake cookies.”
I kept my eyes shut, but I couldn’t stop the smile. “You taught me how to wrap a body.”
“And you’re excellent at it. Gifted, even. Hospital corners and everything.”
I snorted, opening my eyes to look at her. “Totally putting that on my college applications. ‘Special skills: body disposal, bleach-stain removal, and lying to authority figures with a straight face.’”
She laughed, throwing her head back, the corners of her eyes crinkling and making her look younger than thirty-three. “You’d get into Harvard with an essay like that. They love unique perspectives.”
“Pretty sure that’s not what they mean by ‘diverse life experience.’”
“Their loss.”
The highway stretched ahead, asphalt disappearing into dusk. The GPS on the dashboard showed two more hours, but neither of us looked at it. We never did during this part. The in-between. The liminal space where we weren’t running anymore but hadn’t arrived yet.