It Comes In Waves by Erika Marks

Author:Erika Marks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2014-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

15

Not since she’d come down with mono in sixth grade and been quarantined inside her home for a week had Claire felt so abhorrent. After Lizzie’s escape—what else could she call it?—Claire had slunk back up to her room, peeled off her shoes, and raided the minibar with vengeful speed. After they’d cast her as the lead in The Old Woman and the Sea, the least the network could do was buy her a twelve-dollar tin of cashews, a five-dollar bag of peanut M&Ms, and three tiny bottles of Kahlúa, which did nothing but make her sleepy and collapse on the bed. Three hours later, she’d barely moved. A few times the rhythm of the surf blew in through the opened balcony door and lulled her into short sleeps, just long enough to leave her feeling disoriented when she woke. Now it was almost five and the fact that she’d been without a decent meal all day was finally causing her stomach to sound the alarm. She rose drowsily, considering her possibilities for food, but the thought of leaving the safety of her room made all prospects unappetizing.

Where could she go? Her flight didn’t leave until noon the next day.

It was hard to believe—this town she’d once called home, this town she’d planned to live out her whole life in—and she couldn’t think of a single place to go within its borders.

She dragged herself to the sliders and stared out at the swath of blue sky beyond her balcony. Maybe she didn’t need a destination so much as a direction.

Shoving her feet into her sandals, she grabbed her phone, her room key, and a twenty-dollar bill. Bare bones for bared bones, she thought as she opened the door and shut it behind her.

What did it matter where she went?

• • •

She started walking down the one road that had never led her wrong: the road she took in, the road she took out. It seemed that during all of her life in Folly, Ashley Avenue had been her compass. She scanned the houses as she passed, wanting to lose herself in the study, but her mind continued to flash with thoughts of Lizzie. Claire touched the pocket of her denim skirt where she’d stashed her phone, wanting to check it, wanting to send another text.

She was almost to Eighth Street when she sensed a car slowing beside her to match her pace. She glanced over and recognized the driver of the navy blue truck at once.

“Hitchhikers usually hold out their thumb,” Gus Gallagher called through the open passenger window.

“I’m not hitchhiking,” Claire said, turning her gaze back to the road and hastening her march.

“You are now. Get in. I’ll give you a lift.”

She rolled her lips together, her eyes still fixed firmly ahead. “I’d rather walk.”

He leaned over. “Look, if you don’t get in, I’ll just keep following you at five miles an hour and pretty soon the traffic will build up behind me and there’ll be horns and flipped birds and who knows what else.

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