Page 24 of Escaping Our Reality

“Twenty-one.”

He must be in the same year of school as Carrie. She’s only twenty, but she’s always one of the youngest in her class because her birthday isn’t until June. “So, you’re a junior in college?”

“No, this is my last semester at the two-year community college.”

I chew my lip, thinking of the math in my head.

His raspy chuckle stirs that lustful feeling low in my stomach. “Hell, Lulu, don’t overthink it. I didn’t fail a grade. I took a year off after high school to save money.”

“Save money for what?”

He opens his mouth and then shuts it. He was going to make a smartass comment about me coming from money. I know he was. “Tuition and books and this computer.”

“What about student loans?”

“I refuse to take student loans. I don’t wanna start my life indebted for an education, an education I have to have because of some unwritten bullshit law that book experience is more valuable than real-life experience. Every job requires training. Book smarts don’t account for much in my opinion.”

Is that code for someone who has struggled in school? Someone who has made bad grades? That’s surprising; Ry strikes me as a very intelligent person.

“You worked at the garage to save money?”

“I did. I started working there part time in high school. Harlan and my grandpa were best friends.”

I study the shadow of his face. He’s so damn good-looking, he drives me insane. “So, how often do you work?”

“My classes are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, nine a.m. to two p.m. I work after that, and I work all day on Tuesday and Thursday. Sometimes, I work on Saturday morning before Harlan’s grandson comes over.” He rubs his fingers across his lips, watching me, studying me. “What about you? Do you have a job?”

“Of course, I do. It’s a little thing calledfinding my sister.”

He rolls his head back, eyeing the moon hanging in the sky. “Way to make a guy feel like an asshole.”

Sometimes I really am a bitch. I try to hide my smile by biting the end of my ink pen.

He closes his laptop and sets it down beside him, staring at the fire. “So, tell me, what is the latest on Carrie?”

My mood swings to the opposite end of the spectrum, pulling me down into a deep hole of melancholy. I stack my book and notebook beside me on the side table and straighten my back. “Nothing. No new leads have come in. That’s why I started looking at things, looking at the gas station. I noticed Carrie was driving all the way across the county to go to that gas station. She was using the ATM inside the store. Which didn’t make sense because she used her credit card every place she went. And she was buying that certain drink, which was just weird—that blackberry sweet tea. So, I decided to stake it out. I confronted her ex-boyfriend and he finally told me that she was using drugs. And pushing them, like you called it.”

All of a sudden, I realize I described my sister in the past tense. Guilt shrouds my heart and I wonder if I should correct myself.

“Stake it out? You realize how that makes you sound, right?” he asks, interrupting my disturbing thought.

I square my shoulders and grip the armrests of the chair. “How does it make me sound, Ry?”

“Like a Nancy Drew vigilante.”

“And what would you do if it were your brother?”

“You havemet my brother, right?”

I keep my comments to myself. It’s one thing to speak ill of your own sibling, but a completely different thing to have someone else speak ill of them.

“No new leads?” he asks when I don’t say anything. “All of the news stories haven’t produced anything?”

“In the beginning they did. But I’ve learned more in the past couple of days than I have in the past six months. We really got lucky with the news coverage, but even the major news outlets are starting to lose interest. And they are tiring of my parents’ antics and attitudes. At least we got what we did.” I snort. “Another benefit of being a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl—a white girl—who looks like a super model.” Sad, but true. I wish every missing person got the kind of media attention Carrie did—no matter what they look like and no matter how much money they have in the bank.

He nods, agreeing. “Carrie is very beautiful.”

And there you have it… Now, I’m jealous again of my kind, loving, older sister. My missing sister. No wonder he kissed her. He stopped because she was under the influence. What if she hadn’t been? Would Ry have had sex with her? With my sister?

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