Golden by Jessi Kirby Read Free Book Online Page B

again. Takes a deep breath. “Come on. Say yes. You owe it to yourself and me to do this before you leave.”
    â€œIt’s not much of a plan—”
    â€œIt’s a wide open plan. With room for possibilities. We can figure out the rest as we go.”
    I look at her, my best friend, and think of how, just like Shane with Julianna, a lot of who I am right now I owe to Kat. She’s the one who pushes me out of my comfort zone when I let her, who forces me to do things I wouldn’t have the guts to do when I don’t, and who is always asking me herown version of the question Mr. Kinney put on the board for Julianna and her class. The same one I’d asked myself this morning.
    â€œMaybe,” I say finally. “But we’d have to figure out an actual plan first. Like with money, and a schedule, and maps.”
    Kat grins triumphantly. “Which is where you come in. That’s the lame but necessary stuff you’re good at, so it’s perfect.”

    We spend the rest of the afternoon holed up in Kat’s bedroom, planning our last-ditch senior trip, which I still don’t really see us taking. I search every beach we can make it to and back from in two days. She looks through magazines and picks out scandalous clothes and tiny bikinis for us to bring. I compare motel prices at every one of the beaches I find, and she plans how we’ll get the boys to come along, and where we can all get fake IDs. By the time I get home, our plan has us leaving the day the rest of the senior class ditches to go float the river south of town and driving up the coast to San Francisco for a night out before we come back home the next day and my mom has not the slightest clue that I was out of town. Seizing the day. Sure.
    When I walk through my door and stomp the snow off my boots, the same quiet from before greets me. It’s past five, when she said she’d be home, but Mom is still gone at her shop, or maybe having a drink with Lucy, who’s her grown-up version of Kat, and who’s going through a nasty divorce for the third time around. I turn up the thermostat, slide out of my coat, and think maybe Kat was right. Maybemy mom wouldn’t notice at all if I left for a day, or even two. Except the scholarship reception is so close I know she’ll be in hyper-preparation mode, which would be the biggest problem to get around. I’d have to have my speech written, practiced, and in the bag for her to even consider letting me stay at Kat’s the weekend before.
    In the kitchen the roast in the Crock-Pot looks overdone and unappetizing, so I settle on my second bowl of cereal today, this one eaten standing in the kitchen. I eat fast, because I don’t have any time to waste. I need to get started tonight, for sure. No more putting it off. I repeat this to myself all the way up the stairs to my room. But once I change, and light my candles, and settle in, it’s not with my own words.
    May 23

    Shane and I skipped seventh period today and drove out of town, down to the creek where we could tangle ourselves together under the sun and sky and forget the rest of the world existed. “I miss you,” he whispered into my neck. I watched the aspen leaves dance above me in the breeze that kissed as much of my bare skin as he did, and then I closed my eyes and answered back without any words. After, we lay there for a long time, watching the clouds drift by, listening to the sound of the trees, and feeling the freedom of being just us together.
    I’ve missed him too. Lately it seems like I’ve been fighting the pull of everyone else for him. His friends, who have this sudden renewed need to hang out every weekend at the same parties we’ve been going to since freshman year. He can’t tell them no, so we go, but a night spent watching them play quarters isn’t really time together. Then there’s baseball, which he loves, and watching him play is fine,