Page 5 of The Getaway List
“I’m not dropping anything,” I protest.
“But this sounds impulsive. And that’s exactly what happens when you and Tom get together. You egg each other on, bring out the worst in each other.”
If she was looking for the weakest spot she could hit in me, she just hit it dead on. This version of myself that I’ve been scrambling to get back to—it’s not just that I lost her. It’s that my mom was actively trying to shake her off. It nearly stuns the words right out of me. I never thought I’d feel rejection this deeply or immediately, and least of all from my own mom. Especially not after I spent the back half of high school doing my best to play by her rules.
“That’s not the worst of me,” I manage to say. “That is me.”
“That’s you at your most reckless,” my mom says. “And I know how busy Vanessa is with work. Nobody is going to keep an eye on either of you. The last thing you need is to be at Tom’s in a city full of places just begging you to get in trouble at every turn.”
The understanding is hitting me in waves. Like I’ve been asleep for the longest time and I’m waking up too slow, all disjointed and confused. “Oh my god. You really did keep me from him.”
The wild thing is even though she may not have seen it, Tom has always been the more responsible of the two of us. The one who actually checked the time when we were off on our misadventures and lined his pockets with snacks like a soccer mom. And even if he weren’t, it’s not like we got up to anything all that bad. My mom’s talking like we both were just short of booking one-way tickets to juvie.
My mom’s voice softens. “I just don’t want you doing anything you regret.”
“Too late,” I say, my voice choked. “Because I regret every single minute I didn’t realize you were keeping us apart.”
It’s bigger than that, but I don’t even have the words to explain it to her. At least words that don’t sound like they’re coming out of some Netflix teenage soap opera. It’s not just that I’m hurt. I feel betrayed. Maybe my mom and I haven’t always seen eye to eye, but I thought we were always honest with each other. And yet all these missed chances I thought were beyond my control, all these years I ducked my head and just accepted the way things were—if I’d just pushed a little harder. Pressed against the glass. Challenged her even once, the way I would have when I was younger and braver and actually present in my own life, maybe I would have realized much sooner she was keeping this from me.
Maybe I would have realized a lot of things much sooner, and I wouldn’t feel so lost like I do right now.
My mom is idling outside of our apartment building—she’s late enough for her shift now that there’s no point in parking to let me out.
“When you’re older and things are more settled, you’ll see. This was for your own good,” she says, more to the windshield than to me.
I surprise myself then. I’m not asking anymore. I’m telling. “There’s a bus that leaves at four P.M.”
My mom closes her eyes and expels a long breath. “Riley.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, because I can’t help it. Because despite everything, I mean it. “But you owe me at least a weekend. You have to let me go.”
She opens her eyes again, shaking her head sharply. “Don’t do this.”
I’m so angry I could scream into my empty McFlurry cup, that I could slam this car door behind me like the Hulk, but I mean it. I’m going. And I don’t want to leave her on bad terms. It’s occurring to me even as I make the choice that it’s the first time I’m leaving her at all.
I linger in my seat. Despite everything I’m still waiting for her cue. “I’ll text you when I get there,” I finally say.
She doesn’t answer. Just leans her head into me for a brief moment and lets out a heavy, unreadable breath. I ease out of the car slower than I ever have, hovering at the open door. She glances over at me, seeming to ask, What are you waiting for?, and I realize it’s her permission. I may have skirted around it as a kid, even jumped rope with it occasionally, but I’ve never outright defied it before.
She isn’t going to give it, though. Now I finally have to decide something all for myself. The rush of it is thrilling and terrifying, my heart lighter than air, my stomach dropping like a stone. Like there’s so much chaos in me that it can only give way to an eerie calm. I take a breath, give myself a new permission all my own, and gently push the car door shut.
Chapter Two
When I get off the bus and stand in New York City for the first time, it’s just as chaotic and crowded and exciting as Tom said it would be. My eyes catch on just about everything, already bursting with curiosity about every hole-in-the-wall sandwich shop and harried dog walker and random cast-out piece of furniture on the streets, all the life-sized stories passing me by in a blink. I’m stunned. I’m overwhelmed. I want to chase it all down, touch every piece, make myself a part of it, too.
But I’m a girl on a mission, so I don’t stop for any of it just yet. The sun is just starting to set when I haul my duffel bag into the service entrance of Tom’s Upper West Side apartment building, ride the elevator up to the thirty-third floor, and knock on the door. Still, it doesn’t feel fully real until I hear his footsteps—solid and rhythmic and distinctly Tom, so much so that I’m already grinning wide enough to break my own face.
And then there he is and my first coherent thought is, What the fuck. Because it’s Tom, but it isn’t. It’s Tom with his light-brown eyes and those lips that always curl upward at the edges, Tom with that same little cowlick at the part of his brown hair, Tom with that inherent steadiness in his posture and warmth in his face. But it’s also Tom with a good five inches on me and shoulders all broad and his jaw and cheeks defined like someone took a sketch of him and slightly sharpened all the angles.
I blink, caught off guard not just by the eighteen-year-old version of Tom live and in color but by whatever the hell just fluttered under my ribs. This would be a deeply inconvenient time for any of my organs to go on the fritz.
But then Tom’s face splits into a smile, his eyes misting up, so unmistakably himself that all I can feel is a rush of warmth flood through me when he opens his mouth and says, “Riley.”
He says it with complete awe and a touch of amusement, the kind that makes me feel known. His voice is deeper. I knew this from when we used to talk on the phone or FaceTime every night, but those calls were rare in the past few months, and that voice is something else entirely paired with the rest of him. I wonder if I seem as changed to him as he does to me; wonder if it even matters, when it’s clear from the way we’re beaming at each other right now that for all the changes in the world, the recognition is still just as deep and immediate as it was when we saw each other last.
“Hi.” I have to adjust my neck up several notches to fully meet Tom’s gaze. Jesus. Last time I saw him I’m pretty sure I was the taller one. “I was in the neighborhood, so.”
Tom peers down at me, tilting his head. His eyes are clearer now, his smile still threatening to burst even as he tries to commit to whatever bit I just decided we’re playing. “You got shorter,” he tells me.
