How It Feels to Fly(78)

“Of course.” She pauses, looking apologetic. “You know, though, that I’ll need to continue to monitor you at mealtimes, given what you told me this evening.”

“I understand.” I’m not exactly surprised. And if tomorrow goes well, it won’t matter. I stand up. “Thanks again. And, um, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

For what I’m planning to do.

“For the past couple days. For getting salad on you, for yelling at you, all that.”

“Apology accepted. I’m glad you and I are on speaking terms again.”

We probably won’t be, the next time I see her. If there is a next time. But even that thought can’t kill my relief. I said the hardest thing there was to say, and I’m still here. Not only that, I actually feel lighter.

I feel ready.





twenty-eight


WE TIPTOE ACROSS THE GRAVEL DRIVEWAY IN THE predawn darkness. The world feels hushed, like even if we weren’t trying to be stealthy, we’d feel compelled to keep it down. “What if someone hears you start the engine?” I whisper to Zoe.

“Then we’re screwed,” she whispers back.

I freeze. “What?”

“I was joking. Mostly.” She makes a face. “I don’t know, maybe Dr. Lancaster will think we’re the garbage truck or something.”

I’ve already moved on to my next worry. “And what if they send people looking for us?” We’ve reached the van we’re going to steal—I mean borrow—for the day. It has the Perform at Your Peak logo—a football player in the Heisman pose in one P, a pirouetting ballerina in the other—in bright blue on the side. “Our ride’s not subtle.”

“We don’t need subtle,” Zoe says. “We just need keys and a head start.” She looks at me, twirling the keys she took from Dr. Lancaster’s desk around her index finger. She’s got them on her new North Carolina State Wolfpack key chain. “You chickening out?”

“No way.” I’m going to my ballet intensive, and I’m going to convince them to let me audition again, and I’m going to get in. That’s all there is to it. I am taking control of my destiny. I brought my suitcase and everything. If they want me to start today, instead of next Monday, after Perform at Your Peak is over, I won’t even have to come back here for my things.

I stifle a yawn.

“Sooner we get on the road, sooner we can find a Starbucks,” Zoe says, opening the driver’s-side door.

The next few minutes are agonizing. We get into the van. Zoe adjusts the driver’s seat and puts the key in the ignition. “Here goes nothing,” she mumbles. She turns the key. The sound of the engine starting up is so loud against the morning silence. I brace myself for alarms. To see Dr. Lancaster or Yasmin or even campus security running toward us.

But no one comes.

Zoe inches down the gravel driveway. And again, it’s so loud. The crunching of gravel beneath our tires is an avalanche. When we kick up a rock, it hits the underside of the van with a sound like a gunshot.

But no one comes.

We make it to the main road. I look back. I can no longer see the house.

“You have the directions?” Zoe asks.

I show her my phone as the automated voice says, “In a quarter mile, turn left.”

Zoe grins. “Then away we go.”

I DON’T TRULY relax until we’ve been gone for an hour. Until the sun has come up, and we’ve gotten some coffee, and no one has chased us down.

Zoe turns on the radio. She finds a pop station and starts singing along with the latest Taylor Swift song, pounding a drumbeat on the steering wheel. When the song ends, she crows, “We did it, Thelma!”

“Thelma?”

“You wanna be Louise?”

Oh. Like the movie. “I don’t actually know which one is which. Never seen it.”

“Me neither. But don’t they go off on some big road trip?”

“I think so. I think they also drive off a cliff at the end. . . .”

“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

I still feel strange having this rapport with Zoe. If someone had told me two weeks ago that we’d be partners in crime—that we’d be bantering—I’d have laughed in their face.

She echoes my thoughts. “Who would’ve guessed, Barbs: you and me.”

I laugh. “Seriously.”

“Thanks for giving me a reason to jailbreak.”

“Are you kidding? Thank you. I couldn’t do this without you.”

“They’re gonna kill us,” Zoe says. But she doesn’t sound worried. If anything, her smile only gets bigger.

We’re quiet for a couple miles. Then, out of nowhere, she says, “Just tell me you’re not doing this because of Andrew.”

I take a sip of my coffee: black, the way he always made it for me. “I’m not doing this because of Andrew.”

“Try again, and say it like you mean it.” She gives me the side-eye.

“I’m not—” I sigh. “Okay, maybe it is a little because of him. But I’m not here because he, um—”

“Shot you down?” Zoe inserts helpfully.

Now it’s my turn to give her the side-eye. I’m not surprised that she knows. It’s only surprising that she waited this long to bring it up. “Yeah, that. But, um, before that happened, he made me feel—”