The Chance You Won't Return by Annie Cardi

Author:Annie Cardi [Unknown]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

Chapter Twelve

Anindividual’slifeonthegroundorintheairmaydependonasplitsecond.

— Amelia Earhart

“What’s the legal parking distance from a traffic light?” Jim

was flipping through a copy of the DMV driving manual, which

Mr. Kane had lent me. “I don’t even remember that, which

shows that you just need to know all of this for one test.”

“All right, give me a minute,” I said. We were sprawled in

the backseat of my mom’s car, leaning against opposite doors

with our legs crowding the middle of the seat. We’d been

practicing actual driving for an hour — again around the back

roads. (This time, however, Jim had me drive most of the way

there. It was the first time I saw an oncoming car. When I saw

the headlights, I hit the brake even though the other car was

safely in its lane.) After doing the road practice, I suggested we

go over the manual, which meant we made out in the backseat

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for a while. It was like that first time behind the library — just

Jim, me, and the stars, everything exactly right. Finally we

agreed we should do at least a little studying before I had to be

home. Even with our shirts back on, it was kind of hard to con-

centrate on laws about distances and speeds. I kept remem-

bering the pressure of his lips against mine and how good he

looked without a shirt. “Ten feet?”

“ Close. Thirty.”

“Oh, come on, that’s way too much. Who needs all that

room to turn?”

Jim raised an eyebrow. “Have you seen your turns?”

“ Really funny.” I kicked his shin a little. “I don’t know

what you’re talking about. I’m an awesome driver. I take those

hairpin turns like a pro.”

“Sure, once you pass driver’s ed you’ll be ready for the

Indy 500.” He grinned. “ Maybe in class you should practice

going from 0 to 120 in under four seconds. Mr. Kane would

love that.”

I laughed. “I don’t think the driver’s ed Volvo could take it.”

“It’ll go out in a blaze of glory.” He flipped through the

manual. “All right, how about this one: What does a single bro-

ken line on the road mean?”

“You can pass cars, if there’s no traffic coming from the

opposite lane.” In the backseat, on the side of the road, it felt

like our own little world. I leaned against the door and the cool

glass of the window. “Give me another one,” I said.

Jim paged through the manual. “You know this pretty well.”

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“I already took the permit exam. You had to pass that to get

into driver’s ed.”

“I failed it my first time — the permit exam. By three

points.”

I tugged at a loose thread on my shirt. “How about that time

you drove into a house?”

Jim reached back and rubbed his head. “Yeah, how about

that?” He paused, and I wasn’t sure if I had gone too far. I was

about to tell him never mind, but he said, “So Will McNamee

and I’ve been friends since first grade — even our parents are

friends. Barbecues in the summer, trips to D.C., that kind of

thing. He’s the one who always knows who’s having a party,

so I’d go out a

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