Nobody but Us by Kristin Halbrook Read Free Book Online Page B

I was just like her, she’d say. She always made it sound like it was a good thing.
    “What do you remember about Nevada?” I ask Will. He extends his arm over the back of my seat and shrugs.
    “Not much. It’s hard to remember much about where I’ve lived. I don’t know. Bushes? And the mountains. It was northern Nevada, so not in the flat desert or nothing. There was snow in the winter.”
    “I think I could be happy never seeing snow ever again.” There’s a long season of snow in North Dakota. It’s not so bad when you’re let out to skate and play hockey. But it makes for a crappy six months of the year when you’re stuck inside all the time.
    “Yeah. Vegas probably don’t get snow.”
    “Probably not.”
    I kiss the inside of his elbow. And blush. It’s funny how some big moments, full of kissing and touching and everything, don’t make me embarrassed, but the little ones do.
    I’ve asked Will about all the places he’s lived before. He lists them off, one by one, as though he’s recounting someone else’s history. Nevada, then some time in California. At one point his grandma, his mom’s mom, tracked him down and took him to live with her in Colorado. That was one of his worst times. She liked to put her cigarettes out on anything that moved. The cat, the TV screen, Will. When she died, an uncle took Will to Nebraska and tried to make a man out of him by locking him out of the house at night, just because.
    Because you’re a man if you can fight off a coyote at the age of ten.
    His uncle’s wife, a decent woman, Will says, took him with her when she fled to North Dakota. They lived in a one-bedroom apartment for a few months. Will was by himself most of the time, since his aunt worked day and night, but after everything else, it was a blessing to be left alone.
    Then she met a guy who didn’t want kids around, and Will went to the state.
    I told Will once that I was grateful for the way my life was. At least I didn’t have to move all the time. At least I knew a couple of people, people who talked with me and ate lunch with me most days. I had Lindsay. Even Mrs. Hilliard, who remembered things about my mother I never knew and set aside books she thought I would like. The teller at the bank who didn’t care that I signed my dad’s name on his checks for him when I went to cash them. Will gave me a weird look when I said those things, like he couldn’t believe my experience had been better than his.
    But I never went hungry for days, waiting for my aunt to get home, and I don’t have a parade of little round scars on my forearms like he does.
    “Hey, how far is Vegas from California?”
    “I don’t know. Pretty close. Here, check the map.” He pulls the map book from under his seat and I set it across my lap, flipping pages till I get to Nevada. I press my finger against the dot that is Vegas and another against the border and bring them together. I check the scale and make an estimate.
    “Yeah, it’s really close. A couple of hours, maybe? Let’s go there sometime, okay?”
    “Definitely.”
    “I want to see the ocean. And the stars.”
    “They’re probably the same stars like everywhere else.”
    I laugh. “Not those stars. The ones on the sidewalk in Hollywood. And the place where actors have their handprints in the ground.”
    “I didn’t think you were into all that stuff.”
    “I’m not. But it’s Americana, right? I mean, we’re supposed to do things like that and take pictures and say we’ve been there. I want to say I’ve been there. I want to do it all. See the Statue of Liberty someday. Disneyland. Other countries. All of it.”
    “Okay, we’ll go. Some weekend after we get settled in. We’ll go to Hollywood. And the ocean, too. Promise.”
    “I’d like that.”
    I’ve never actually owned a swimsuit. I’ve never set foot in a pool, and I don’t know how to swim. I’d probably run screaming if I actually saw an ocean wave, but that doesn’t mean I