Walk Me Home Read Online Free PDF Page A

they’re wearing, and their jackets. Now Carly’s pack is lighter, and she wears it like a hat, the way Jen always does. To keep the setting sun out of her eyes.
    Half a mile down, Jen runs off the road a few yards to pick up a walking stick. She doesn’t say it has anything to do with coyotes. Then again, she doesn’t need to.
    It’s getting dark fast, and cold, so they walk off-road to a rock hill and find a space to tuck in. That way there’s only one side of them vulnerable to coyotes. And they can hold some of their heat in that small space.
    That’s where they sleep.
    Well, Jen sleeps. Carly stays awake most of the night, teeth chattering, stick at the ready. But so far as she can tell, there’s nothing awake out here in all this nothing. Except for her.
    She wonders if it’s possible to freeze to death out here. Probably not, but she can’t help worrying. This is the first night they haven’t found some kind of shelter, if only a dumpster. She wraps herself over Jen, just in case.
    Jen cries in her sleep through most of the night. Carly makes up her mind that she will never mention this. Like it never happened. Like she never saw. Because she would be humiliated if someone witnessed her crying in her sleep. And she wants to spare Jen the humiliation.
    Then it hits her that it might already have happened. And she would never know.

ARIZONA
    May 10
    “Bus station!” Jen shouts. “Score!”
    It’s after seven in the evening, and the sun is all but down. A bus station is the best thing that could have happened to them. In fact, a bus station’s the best thing that’s happened to them in a long time. Though neither has said so out loud, that one night out in the cold was something they don’t want to try again.
    Not that they can take a bus. Until Teddy answers the phone, there’s no money for any option but the one they’ve been using. Sometimes Carly wonders if walking is really the only way, or if it’s just the only way that doesn’t scare her too much, make her think they’ll be caught and handed over to child services. But she feels like she can’t rely on any new thinking, so they’ve just kept walking. It’s worked so far. Next call to Teddy will be the one. This will be over soon.
    They step up onto the wooden porch and read the sign on the door to see when’s closing time. Nine o’clock. That’s good. Earlier than some.
    “Wait here,” Carly says, knowing a few steps saved at the end of the day would have to feel good to Jen. “I’ll go inside and see what time a bus comes in.”
    “Maybe last bus already did.”
    “Then they’d close earlier.”
    She swings the wooden door open, and the arrivals and departures board is right there. She doesn’t even have to go inside to read it.
    “Eight thirty,” she says. “Last bus is at eight thirty.”
    Which still leaves a lot of logistics and problems. If there’s a crowd at eight thirty, even a small one, they can get lost in it. If not, this might or might not work. Like everything else in life lately, it’s hard to know until they try.
    At a little after eight, they go inside and wait by the gate, as if expecting someone. Then they get a break, and the only guy who seems to work here goes into a back room. Carly runs to the door and pushes it open, letting it swing shut again with a bang. As if they’ve gone outside.
    They slip into the tiny, two-stall ladies’ room and sit on the toilets, one in each stall. With their feet pulled up. For a long time.
    They can hear the bus come roaring in, but as far as they can hear, nobody gets off and comes through the station. All they hear is the man who works here punch the ladies’ room door open. Carly’s blood freezes, thinking maybe he comes in and cleans in here after hours. But his footsteps retreat, and the door swings closed again.
    Then they hear him lock up for the night. Probably a little early.
    It fills Carly with an exaggerated elation. As if they’ve just been locked