Don't Try to Find Me: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

if anyone suspects me, it could ruin everything.
    That’s a new one, having to worry about being too conspicuous. If I were a superhero, my name would be Ordinary Girl, and my superpower would be staying under the radar. It’s never been hard for me to go unnoticed.
    “I just met you,” I told Kyle. “Shouldn’t we leave some mystery?”
    He laughed. “Okay, woman of mystery. Just tell me this. How old are you?”
    “Eighteen. I’m taking a year off before I go to college.”
    “I’m eighteen, too.” His patter suddenly stopped, and he seemed less confident. Younger. I got this feeling he might be lying, too. So that’s us, two “eighteen”-year-olds on a bus.
    He’s sitting next to me, asleep against the window. I guess he’s my new friend. I’m traveling a lot farther than he is. I kind of wish I could spend a few days in Chicago—he makes it sound like a pretty cool place—but that’s not in my plan, or in my budget. I’ve got to make my cash last. No more asking my parents for $20 for a movie. I don’t have to ask them for anything ever again.
    I don’t have to think about them either. I wrote my dad off ages ago, so he can’t hurt me anymore. And my mom—I’m working on that one.
    Neither of them deserve to be in my head.
    I’VE NEVER GONE THIS long without showering before. I do what I can in the bus station bathrooms—brushing my teeth, washing my pits, putting on deodorant, I even tried this spray-in shampoo that’s like applying dandruff—but I’m a little nervous about what he’ll think when he sees me. When he smells me.
    I’m being strategically nervous. (Redirection, an old Dr. Michael trick.) Focus on how I smell so I don’t have to think about how he’ll look at me, or what we’ll say to each other, or how it’ll feel. I’ve onlylived two places in my life, and both of them were in California, and both were with my parents.
    But I know I can handle this. I repeat that over and over. It seems like the best Dr. Michael coping statement for the job. I wouldn’t have done this, choreographed every aspect over the past months, if I couldn’t handle it.
    Maybe I shouldn’t think about Dr. Michael anymore either. It’s not like I mattered to him. I only had one of him, and he had hundreds of me.
    Kyle and I both transferred buses in Dallas. We have an unspoken pact: I don’t question his story, and he doesn’t question mine. It turned out he was hitting on me, in the bus station. It’s kind of flattering, if you don’t consider the total lack of young female competition or Kyle’s cuteness deficit. I wouldn’t call him ugly, though. Especially since I did go ahead and hook up with him.
    It was something to pass the time, since I didn’t have my phone and couldn’t play any games. I have my music, and he leaned his head close, and we shared one of my earbuds. It was kind of sweet, something you’d do with your boyfriend. I haven’t had an official boyfriend yet, but when I do, that’s what it’ll be like. We’ll share things, like earbuds and music. Maybe that’s what’s waiting for me, when I reach my final destination.
    That makes it sound so ominous, doesn’t it? It’s not my FINAL final destination. But I’ll be off this bus, finally.
    My first hint that Kyle was a little into me (or that he was bored playing games on his phone) came when he asked if he could hear what I was listening to. For some annoying reason, I thought of my mom. What she’d say if she saw Kyle and me huddled up together. I bet she’d ask something like “What do you really know about this person?” She would try not to sound too afraid, though she would be. My mom is always so fearful and hoping somehow I won’t notice it. She’s white-knuckling her way through life. I don’t want to do that, and I won’t miss that about her.
    Scratch that. After what she did, I’m not going to miss ANYTHING about her. I bet she didn’t even know when it happened, the moment she lost me.