Walk Me Home Read Free Page B

sleeve.
    “More miles,” she says.
    “Right,” Jen says. “I know. More miles. How did I guess? Because it’s always more miles.”
    Jen leans over and kisses the horse on his nose before they walk on.
    The paint ambles the fence line with them, loose-kneed and confident, until he runs out of pasture.
    Jen waves sadly to him.
    “Bye, pretty.”
    “He’s not your boyfriend.”
    “Says you.”
    Jen gazes over her shoulder at him three more times before the road dips, obscuring their view. Then she looks one more time, as if it helps her remember.
    Half a mile later they pass a ranch house with a garden hose coiled on the side. No cars. No garage to hide a car. No one seems to be home.
    They drink their fill before moving on. It’s the first day they’ve been without a gas station bathroom for more than half a day. It scares Carly to be so far from a source of water. And a phone.
    They make it over the low mountains that same day. They crest the top and look down into the next valley. Carly expects to see more of the scant food, water, and shelter sources that have lined their path at intervals so far.
    What they see is more nothing.
    They stand on a sidewalk together, Carly marveling at how long it’s been since they’ve had a sidewalk to stand on. Carly appraises what thin opportunities this place has to offer. Gas station with tiny convenience store. Thrift shop. Ice cream stand. Hardware store. Native American blankets, Hopi and Navajo, both.
    “What town is this?” Jen asks.
    “I don’t know. I never saw a sign, did you?”
    “I don’t think so. But I was busy looking at those rocks. They’re pretty.”
    Beyond this stretch of highway imitating civilization, the landscape is made up of tumbled rocks, big and small, some forming tumbled rock mountains, others going it alone. All the same shade of ordinary rock brown.
    “What’s with you and rocks all of a sudden?”
    “I dunno.”
    “Maybe it’s too small a town to even have a name,” Carly says.
    “All towns have names.”
    “How would you know? You’re twelve.”
    Jen says nothing, and Carly knows she’s crossed a line. And then she knows she’s been crossing a line with Jen for days, being meaner than situations require. But she’s not sure she has the energy to fix it just yet. Or even knows how.
    There’s a rough bench on a dirt lot near the sidewalk, made with a plank on two cut tree stumps. They hobble over to it and slide off their packs. Carly eases herself down and unties her shoes, pulling one off.
    Jen flops on her back in the dirt and puts her feet up on the bench.
    “You’re lucky you’re not a redhead,” Carly tells her sister.
    “Don’t take your shoes off. Why is that lucky?”
    “I have to take them off. My feet are all swollen.”
    “You’ll never get them back on.”
    “I can’t help it. They’re killing me.”
    “Why is it unlucky to be a redhead?”
    “Because they burn so easy. They have that fair skin. Can’t take any sun at all. Like my friend Marissa. You didn’t know her. She was from my high school.”
    “Which one? New Mexico or California?”
    “California. We can buy more sunscreen.”
    “With what?”
    “I’ll get somebody to give us some money. I always do.”
    Jen has the back of one hand thrown across her eyes. Probably to shield them from the sun, but it makes her look dramatic. Like one of those old-time movie actresses depicting angst. Though angst was never Jen’s style.
    “Carly,” she says. “I’m hungry. I don’t care if I burn to a crisp. I don’t care if I burn till I blister. Do not waste…like…
four dollars
on sunscreen. You know how much food we could buy for
four dollars
? You want more miles—I need more
food
.”
    The holey soles of Jen’s sneakers keep calling Carly’s eyes back.
    She squeezes her eyes closed, and when she opens them, there’s the thrift store. Right in front of her. As if she’s been trying to conjure something, and now it’s arrived,