Page 55 of Run Away With Me

We’d left the hotel without stopping at the front desk, not wanting to give any of the staff the chance to recognizeBrooke from last night. We’d paid in cash, anyway, so it wasn’t like they needed to process a credit card payment.

Finding Meredith’s apartment had taken slightly longer than we’d anticipated. Brooke kept driving in circles, trying to find somewhere that looked familiar, and I started regretting throwing away our phones. And not having a map.

Not that I knew how to read a map.

She’d eventually found the zoo and drove the couple of blocks to Meredith’s neighborhood. We parked the Mustang in a shady spot under a tree before we went to find the apartment block on foot.

‘Surprise,’ Brooke said, making a little jazz hands gesture.

‘Come in,’ Meredith replied.

On the front step of her apartment building, wearing a man’s shirt and black cycle shorts, and with her toenails painted neon orange, Meredith looked amazing – cooler even than Brooke, and I’d been holding Brooke up as ultimate girl goals. Meredith held the door open and gestured us both inside.

‘This is Jessie,’ Brooke said.

‘Hi.’ I gave a little wave.

Meredith’s apartment was tiny, which made sense because she was a college student, and she’d hung beads and fairy lights from the ceiling and covered the walls with brightly patterned fabrics. One sad, brown corduroy couch slumped in the corner, behind a low coffee table that was covered with baggies of weed.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ Meredith asked.

She took a seat on a huge beanbag, and I sat down next to Brooke on the couch, trying not to stare as I took in the apartment.

‘I needed some space,’ Brooke said, and Meredith rubbed her hands over her face and groaned. ‘I’m guessing you heard.’

‘Your dad called my dad a couple days ago,’ Meredith said. She sat upright and reached for a mug that looked like it was hand-made. By a six-year-old. Who only had a vague idea of what a coffee mug was supposed to look like.

‘Oh, good,’ Brooke muttered.

‘Your mom,’ Meredith said pointedly, ‘is hysterical, thinks you’ve been kidnapped, raped and/or murdered. Your dad, however, thinks you’re throwing a tantrum and will be home by the end of the week.’

She glanced at a calendar taped to the wall. ‘Which is tomorrow.’

‘I’m not going home tomorrow,’ Brooke replied firmly.

‘No, I guessed that. No one really thought you’d end up here. I think the only reason I was told was because my dad had to fulfill the insatiable Summer appetite for gossip.’

‘Did you really think I was dead?’ Brooke asked. She leaned forward, bracing her elbows on her knees.

Meredith shrugged. ‘I figured it was the most likely scenario.’ She tilted her head to the side. ‘Except, your car was gone, so there was always a possibility you hadn’t been stolen by human trafficking gangs or eaten by a bear.’

‘God, my family is so dramatic.’

‘Why are you here? Do you want a drink?’ Meredith pushed herself to her feet and took three steps to her left, which put her in a tiny space that might, if I was being generous, have been considered a kitchen.

‘Do you have any soda?’ Brooke asked.

‘Sure. Jessie?’

‘Anything. Thanks.’

Meredith brought over two cans of La Croix, set them on the coffee table and swept all the little baggies of weed into a basket.

‘I was hoping you could help us,’ Brooke said, clearly scoping out Meredith’s mood.

‘What do you need?’ she asked.

Brooke cracked the tab on her can. ‘Do you have a spare phone we could borrow? Both ours got stolen.’

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