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“You’re the unreasonable one.” I glance from the scrapes and bruises on her arms to the cast on her leg. “You can’t travel like that.”

Her shoulders deflate, and she nods. “So we wait.”

“Until when? Next summer when you’ve accumulated enough vacation time at your new job? Four years from now, if and when I finally graduate college? There’s never going to be a perfect time. Maybe . . .” A sliver of guilt works its way under my skin, and my mouth goes dry as I fumble for the right words. “Maybe it’s my turn.”

Jeanie’s attention snaps back to me, and the used Band-Aid flutters to the floor. “Your turn?”

“To be first. You’ve always been first. Born first. Graduated first.” Read her diary first. “You didn’t have to share her with anyone for the first two years of your life. The only time I got to do that was when she was dying. You read her diary. You already know everything there is to know about her. Give me a chance to have her all to myself for a little while. To say goodbye to her the way she wanted us to.” Tears blur my vision as my gaze locks on hers. “Please let me do this.”

The silence stretches between us while I wait for her to say something. Anything.

“Jeanie?”

A single tear streaks down her face, and she roughly swipes it away with the back of her unblemished hand. “Fine. You win. Go.”

“Really?” I hold her gaze, waiting for her to change her mind, to put up another compelling argument.

She sighs. “I still think you’re crazy for doing this alone. But if you’re determined to risk your life, I can’t stop you.”

“No.” I give her a watery smile. “You can’t.”

As if she knows how close I am to bursting into tears, she switches gears. “What about your muscle-head boyfriend? What does Damian think about you going on a road trip by yourself?”

I almost forgot about Damian. If I tell him now, he’ll only try to stop me. Maybe I’ll text him when I get to Cleveland. Then again, maybe I won’t.

I shrug. “It doesn’t matter. He can’t stop me any more than you can.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” She grips her crutches so hard her knuckles whiten. “How will you eat? Where will you stay? You don’t have any money.”

“I have money.” Several years’ worth of birthday and Christmas money in the bank, courtesy of Dad’s guilt. “And a credit card.”

“And no job to pay it back.”

I sear her with a glare. “Stop trying to talk me out of going.”

Defeated, Jeanie lets her crutches fall and then flops onto my bed. “I hate this. Really, really hate this.”

“Grandma Lola was only seventeen when she ran away to be a freaking groupie. I think I can handle a two-week road trip.”

“That was the seventies.”

“Exactly.” I chuckle. “The most dangerous serial killers of all time wandered the earth back then.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s safe now.” The vein in Jeanie’s neck pulses. “You could get raped. Or kidnapped by sex traffickers. Or come face-to-face with a serial killer no one’s heard of yet.”

“Oh my God, stop. Have a little faith in me. I’m not a kid anymore, Jeanie. I’ll be careful. I won’t talk to strangers. I won’t drink anything I don’t open myself. I’m not gonna get kidnapped, killed, or raped.”

Grandma Lola pokes her head into my room, spinning a pair of shiny, black-and-white-striped Lycra undies from her pointer finger. “Not if you have these.”

“Magical underwear?” I snicker, eyeing what looks like a hybrid between shapewear boy shorts and a Victorian swimsuit.

“No.” She laughs and tosses them to me.

I catch them in midair, surprised at how heavy they are. “What are they?”

“They’re anti-rape pants.”

“Oh, great!” Jeanie fights her way out of my mattress like an upended turtle, rocking back and forth for momentum before launching herself to her good foot. “She’ll just get murdered. That’s so much better.”