Shift by Jennifer Bradbury Read Free Book Online Page B

hers to raise. Plus, Mom cried at everything. Mormon commercials, makeover shows, birthday cards.
    What shocked me was that Win had tears in his eyes as well.
    Win and I approached our bikes. He looked at his appraisingly. “Let’s see what this old pony can do!” He threw a leg over the top tube and mounted up.
    I hugged my mom again, gave my dad a nod, and hopped onto my bike. Win was waiting on me, riding his brakes so he barely inched forward on the downhill. A second later we were rolling down the driveway side by side.
    “Did you pack the sandwiches I made you?” Mom shouted down as we neared the road.
    I looked back at her, my helmet blocking part of my vision. I could see only her arm, held out to us as we slipped away from her. “Got ’em, Mom. Thanks.”
    “Watch out for roadkill, travelers,” my dad shouted.
    “And we’ll try to avoid becoming roadkill,” I joked. My mom immediately started crying harder.
    “I hear sun-dried possum is quite the delicacy,” Win said.
    We reached the bottom of the driveway and tapped the hand brakes lightly. The bikes, each loaded with about forty pounds’ worth of gear, took a little longer to slow on the incline.
    “Make sure you look both ways,” Win said. “Your mommy’s still watching.”
    I laughed, released the brakes, and cranked hard on my pedal, merging onto the sycamore-lined road.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    The sub I’d wolfed down in the commons sat heavy in my stomach as I raced across campus to my one o’clock: English 102. I ducked into the computer lab on the first floor of Skiles Hall. That morning I’d already endured a chemistry class and a physics lecture, both professors apparently intent on scaring the crap out of us. But I was glad for the distraction. It saved me from replaying the conversations with Ward and my folks in my head like I had been doing all weekend. Obsessing about these discussions inevitably led to me obsessively worrying about Win. Ward’s suggestion that something had happened to him sent my mind through all sorts of scenarios. It wasn’t likely Win had been hit by a truck or anything. Somebody would have called. Win had hisdriver’s license on him, and if he’d been hit it would have been just a matter of time before they found his ID. But it also didn’t make sense that he hadn’t contacted home. Or at least me. Somewhere in my mind a voice told me that Win would have called me at least. It wasn’t necessarily Win’s nature to think about the other guy, but at some point I figured he’d realize that he’d probably left a bit of a mess back here and would at least let me know he was okay.
    But any logic I tried to project onto Win seemed to bounce right off him. And when I thought back to the final moments of our ride together on that pass in the Cascades, nothing made sense. I could easily imagine him tangled up with his bike at the bottom of one of those steep curves we rode. I could imagine him ending up there by accident, or even on purpose. The latter possibility freaked me out most of all. I’m sure people with less to worry about had done themselves in. But I could also picture him riding south down the Washington coast, a beach to his right and a crosswind trying to push him into traffic.
    Still, I held out some hope that he’d contact me, which was why I’d been obsessively checking my e-mail since Ward left on Thursday afternoon. If I knew Win like I thought I did, he’d probably duck into a public library and send off some smart-ass message. And when I thought of that, and the fact that he was probably out there having fun while I dealt with this mess and the life I was supposed to be living, it really started to piss me off.
    I’d been alternating between bouts of fear and rage like this. And everybody kept telling me how much fun I was going to have in college, how much freedom I’d have. I was starting to believe that I’d used up my lifetime quota of both on the trip thissummer. Starting to wonder