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But my thoughts were interrupted by a noise behind me.
“Did you hear that?” I asked Jo-Beth immediately.
“What?”
“The — some noise. I’m not sure what.”
She slung an arm around me and sighed, “Oh, you scaredy-cat.”
“I’m serious!”
Jo-Beth rolled her eyes but obliged, turning to look over our uni-shoulder. “Nothing there. Probably just a branch or some shit. When you get out of the city, regular noises sound louder because you don’t have the white noise of just daily life — no cars, no subways, nothing. Once the buzz of electricity is gone, you can hear everything else way more distinctly.”
“How do you know that?” I asked, skeptical of this reasoning.
“I used to camp.”
I shook my head, absolutely unable to picture Jo-Beth camping. “Were you any good at it?”
“No,” she admitted. “We had to leave early every time because I’d throw a fit.”
We both laughed at that, breaking some of the tension that was mounting in my breast. I could just see it now, young Jo-Beth stomping her foot on a pile of leaves and whining about the lack of plumbing…
Another noise, this time closer.
I whirled around, throwing Jo-Beth’s arm off me in the process.
“Okay, I know I heard something this time.”
“Girl, relax,” Jo-Beth insisted. “We’re gonna be at Carter’s in like literally two minutes.”
“I wish Carter had come with us.”
“Yeah, I know.”
The annoyance in her tone was ill-contained. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She averted her eyes, clearly embarrassed to have even brought it up.
“It’s just,” Jo-Beth sighed, “I thought we’d spend more time together, since we’re stuck here for four days. Not that I’m not happy you found a road trip romance, and of course, it’s nice to have a little alone time after three weeks together, but… still.”
“I thought you had to do schoolwork in the library. I didn’t have any to do.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, uncomfortable. “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry. Of course, I’m just — I think maybe it’s just that it’s less likely for me to find a random hookup in the middle of the country. The girls who like girls aren’t always so open about it in Back of Beyond, Kansas.”
Aw, shit. How had this not crossed my mind? Duh, she was feeling left out.
“Oh, Jo-Beth, no don’t apologize. I’m sorry,” I insisted, earnestly regretful. “It didn’t even occur to me that you might be feeling a little left out.”
“It’s okay, seriously.”
“No, no. Let’s spend some time together tomorrow, just you and me. How about that?”
“But I don’t wanna ruin your time with Carter,” she said. “That would be crappy of me.”
“You’re not. Besides, I need to remember that this is just temporary. This time next week, we’ll be in Bridgeport. I want to hang with my best friend tomorrow.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Obvi.”
We smiled, and the whole thing was over. I’d spend time with Jo-Beth tomorrow, and that would solve that. Internally, I was feeling a pinch of pain about having to be apart from Carter even a little during what would likely be our last day together, but oh well. Maybe it was for the best, this early separation. It’d make the final separation that much easier.
Besides, I wasn’t supposed to have any attachment to him, right? Not like this, the two of us, stood a chance in the real world. Better to bite the bullet than drag it out. I’d hang with my friend and it would all be okay.
And then I heard another noise behind us.
This time, instead of turning around, I just began to run.
“Wait, Phoebe, where are you going!” Jo-Beth called out, dashing into a sprint to keep up with me as I rounded a corner.
“I know I heard something!”
“Okay, but why the fuck are we running?”
That was a good point, and well taken, but thankfully, the athletic exertion was over in a moment — I’d crossed the final hundred feet to Carter’s house, bending over in his driveway and catching my breath.
Jo-Beth was right behind me, barely even winded. “What the hell was that?” she asked, not angry so much as deeply confused.
“There was something out there.”
“You’re being crazy.”
Despite all my efforts to avoid it, Carter’s story from earlier in the day swam through my mind — a woman, a fire, a jail sentence. Meghan.
Okay, Jo-Beth was correct. I was being not just crazy, but extremely crazy. Especially because Meghan had another, what, five years in prison? I mean, Carter was planning a whole thing involving Canada. What right had I to be this fucking paranoid?
None at all, is the answer. Besides, we were back at the house. Any danger that may have lurked on the open road — and let’s be honest, that probably meant some grasshoppers, maybe a particularly vicious tumbleweed — that was all in the past. We were safe.
“Can we go to bed now?” Jo-Beth asked.
I bounced up and down on the balls of my feet, trying to let anxiety out through my heels.
