Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Relief was a blast of sunlight across her skin. “Of course! Thank you!”
“But you’ll need to earn this free time you’re getting. We’ll have a list for you when you come home.”
Ren nodded, elated. “Absolutely.”
“No leaving campus, nothing we wouldn’t approve of.”
“Of course, ma’am. I understand.”
Steve’s voice came closer, like he was leaning toward the phone. “We’re letting you do this one time, Ren. You get one free ticket, that’s it.”
A spike of panic stabbed through her, but she swallowed past it. “Tell him I understand and am so grateful.” Wincing, she lowered her voice again. “I’ll see you in a week and a half.”
Her mother gave a reluctant “All right, then.”
“I love you, Gloria!” Ren said, waiting to hear it back. “Hello?”
Her mother had already hung up.
Ren sat in silence for a long moment, trying to find relief in all of it but mostly feeling sick to her stomach. Gloria hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary, but Ren felt the distance yawning between them already anyway, and she hated it. For better or worse, they were all Ren had in the world…even if what she was doing secretly widened that distance even more.
Pushing out of her little cave, she stepped out of the tub, hung up the towel, and walked across the bathroom floor. Hesitating at the threshold, she listened. Still quiet. With a calming breath, she gently turned the knob and swung open the door. Dread slithered, slimy and cold, into her veins. There, standing on the other side of the threshold waiting for her, was Fitz.
“Before we go one more mile today,” he said, “you’d better tell me what the hell is going on.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
FITZ
Fitz stood and walked past her into the bathroom. “How much did you hear?” she said behind him.
“Enough.” He ran water over his toothbrush and jabbed it into his cheek, brushing vigorously. “I was right, wasn’t I? No one has any idea where you are.”
She grabbed her own toothbrush. “I told you yesterday, this is none of your business.”
“Who goes off on a twenty-three-hundred-mile road trip without telling anyone?”
“Does anyone know where you are?” she fired back, and, yeah, she had him there. Other than telling Mary and confirming with the HR team at Fellows, Wing, and Greenleaf, he’d left town without making much noise.
“It’s different,” he told her.
“How?”
“I’m a guy, for one.”
Her eyes went wide. “Oho, well in that case, you big, invincible—”
“I don’t mean it like that,” he cut in, bending to spit and rinse. “I mean, there are fifty podcasts a week about missing women that start just like this.”
“I’m not missing, Fitz. I’m with you,” she said, searching his face. “And I know you well enough already to know you’re not going to let anything happen to me.”
He threw down the hand towel he’d used to wipe his face. “I don’t want that responsibility. Don’t you get it? I don’t want to be responsible for your well-being, I never asked for that.”
“Then just give me a ride and stop worrying about it!”
“How can I do that?” he asked, seething. “I don’t even know what your plans are once we get to Nashville.”
“I’m taking a bus to Atlanta.”
Fitz went lightheaded with disbelief. “What? What are you doing in Atlanta?”
“It. Is. Not. Your. Business.”
“But you’re planning to go back to school eventually, aren’t you?”
“Of course!”
“Of cour—?” He cut off, incredulous. “Sweden, nothing about your plan is obvious.”
She threw up her hands. “It doesn’t need to be!”
Fitz erupted. “I don’t want to be the last person who saw you alive if you don’t show up at school again!”
This last sentence reverberated off the bathroom tile, and they found themselves in a staring match. Ren’s jaw ticked, nostrils flaring, and the baser part of him liked seeing her worked up, the intense emotions behind her happy Golden Girl image. Tearing his eyes away, he sent a frustrated hand into his hair. “Tell me what’s got you running across the country with no money and no safety net or I’m not driving you one more mile.”
She exhaled a long, hard breath. “Fine,” she said, at last. “But I need food first. I can’t do drama on an empty stomach.”
They dressed and packed up in tense silence, then trudged across the blustery parking lot to a brick building labeled only MARKET. Inside, a long line was visible through the foggy glass windows, but what they could smell just from the sidewalk promised it’d be worth the wait. Fitz held the door for Ren, who ducked inside with her shabby backpack, and he couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy. Ren was beautiful and brilliant, with her hair up in two braided buns and lips as naturally red as the raspberries leaking from the jelly doughnuts behind the glass, but anyone looking would see poverty and innocence all over her. It stuck to her like gum on a shoe.