Perfect Escape Read Free Page A

one.
    And I’d stayed on the curb and felt sorry for myself, staring at Zoe’s photo and sniffling, repeating under my breath,
I won’t forget you, Zo. Never say never.
    My phone buzzed again, jarring me out of my memory, but this time it kept buzzing—not a text but an incoming call. I groaned and set the laptop next to my pillow, then got up and grabbed the phone off my dresser. Shani and her guy problems.
    But when I looked, the caller ID displayed a number I didn’t recognize. “Hello?”
    “Kendra? It’s Bryn.”
    I paused. Why would Bryn Mallom be calling me? Other than in Advanced Calculus class, we never talked. Ever. Bryn was one of those girls you talked to only when you absolutely had to. Her arms were always bug-bitten and her clothes dirty and out of style. She was chunky, and she was always in trouble for something. When we were growing up, the boys called her Bryn Bubblebutt, and Ryan Addleson once made her cry when he told the class that his dad had arrested her mom for drunk driving the night before. Probably being picked on didn’t do wonders for her personality, but on top of being an easy target, Bryn was kind of a bitch, so people didn’t feel very bad when they were mean to her. And almost all of us avoided talking to her at all costs.
    But lately I’d had reasons to talk to Bryn. And they weren’t good reasons.
    “I got your number from Shani,” she said. “We need to talk.”
    I squeezed my eyes shut and massaged the bridge of my nose with two fingers. I’d have to remember to thank Shani for sharing my number with the most obnoxious girl on earth. “Um, I’m kind of in the middle of something, Bryn,” I said. “Can we talk in calc tom—”
    “It’s important,” she said. “It’s about the calc final.”
    “What about it?” I asked, thinking,
I should never have started talking to Bryn in the first place. That’s where I went wrong. Nothing good ever comes from hanging out with Bryn Mallom.
“We’ve still got three weeks.”
    “I heard Mrs. Reading talking to Mr. Floodsay about it today when I was picking up my tardy slip. They know.”
    My heart thrummed, one time, hard, in my chest. I swallowed, but it felt like a wad of peanut butter was lodged in my throat. I swallowed again, my mind reeling for something to say, and could almost instantly feel cold sweat prick up across the backs of my shoulders. My eyes landed on my laptop screen, which was still pulled up to my e-mail account.
No new messages.
    “Hello? Are you there?”
    “Yeah,” I said at last. “I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about, Bryn.”
    “Uh, yeah, actually, there is,
Ken
dra. Mr. Floodsay said something about searching lockers tomorrow, starting withChub’s. I don’t know about you, but I find that kinda worrisome.”
    “So?” Bryn’s sarcastic voice was really rubbing me the wrong way. “Chub’s not dumb. I seriously doubt he’s leaving evidence in his locker.” Coming out of my mouth, the words sounded so sure, but in my mind I was freaking out. The truth was Chub was just dumb enough to totally leave evidence in his locker.
    “I hope you’re right,” she said, then sighed, her breath barreling into the phone. “But you’re probably not. They’re going to figure it out. And when they do, we’re all in really big trouble. Especially you.”

CHAPTER
FOUR
    After my conversation with Bryn, I went downstairs to feel out what Mom knew. Surely if the school had figured something out, they would have called Mom immediately, so if I went downstairs and she was happily making a Welcome Home, Grayson dinner, I’d know Bryn was just being her typical dramatic self and I was safe. If I went downstairs and Mom was canceling my college savings account, I’d know the shit had, as they say, hit the fan. And hard.
    She was doing neither. Instead, she was sitting on the couch cross-legged, a book open in her lap and earphones clamped down over her head. She smiled and waved at me with her