Read Online Perfect Escape by Jennifer Brown - Free Book Online
Authors: Jennifer Brown
Tags: General, Family, Juvenile Fiction, Social Issues, Siblings, Juvenile Fiction / Family - Siblings, Adolescence, Depression & Mental Illness, Juvenile Fiction / Juvenile Fiction - Social Issues - Adolescence, Social Themes, Juvenile Fiction / Social Issues - Depression & Mental Illness
Ads: Link
you treat him like some sort of danger? I thought you and Rob were better people than that!” and Zoe’s mom was sitting with her back to our house, but I could see the faces of the other moms looking uncomfortable around the patio table.
It went on for months, the feud between our families, until finally Zoe’s family gave in and moved out. But even after they were gone, the grudge had affected Mom so much that she went into a deep depression and had to get medication. Even after three years, Mom still didn’t trust other parents. She was polite but separate.
In a lot of ways, Dad was all Mom had. Dad and Grayson and me. But given the grief Grayson had always broughther, and the grief I was about to bring her, we were little consolation.
Mom paused over the phone. “No, no. It’s fine. And your brother is at Brock’s?” Her voice had gotten much calmer. Mom still loved Brock, even if he couldn’t help my brother with a pair of elbow-length dishwashing gloves anymore.
I started to relax.
See? Everything is going to be fine. Great. By the time they get the call from the school, I’ll be too far away for them to make me come home. And by the time I actually do come home, Grayson will be normal, and things will look so much better to all of us. We’ll all be so happy to have a normal family, we won’t even care about the damage I’ve done at school.
“Yeah,” I said. “I saw Gray walking when I was leaving school, so I picked him up and took him to Brock’s. I figured it would be good for him. I can’t believe he forgot to call you. I reminded him, like, a billion times.”
“I’ll call him,” she said. “I’m glad he’s seeing Brock again. That’ll be good for him. Did he seem relaxed to you at all, Kendra?”
“Sure, Mom,” I lied, and then I felt really, really horrible for all the lies. Mom wanted nothing more than for Grayson to be happy. And she was always trying so hard to make him that way, even though Dr. Sellerman, Dr. Houston, Dr. Fantaglio, and especially Dr. St. James had all warned her about enabling his OCD. Poor Mom couldn’t deny him. “He seemed really happy to see Brock. When Ileft, they were playing some video game. Blowing up zombies or something.” I tried not to think about Grayson counting the rocks at the bottom of Newman Quarry a couple hours before, or about him crying, telling me to just drive, and saying he wished he could run away from it all. Mom would want to know those things. Mom would
need
to know them.
I promised her I would call the next day and told her I loved her, then hung up and turned my phone off completely.
There was no turning back now.
I got into Hunka, shutting the door as softly as I possibly could, and pulled out of the gas station parking lot. I turned the vents to blow hot air onto my fingers as they were wrapped around the steering wheel. The headlights carved little tunnels out of the extreme dark of the Kansas highway. Grayson snored steadily, the glove box door tapping against his leg.
I opened my soda and the bag of jerky and headed west, imagining all my lies dropped unceremoniously on the ground by the gas pump. This was going to be a new beginning, where none of that old stuff would matter anymore.
All that mattered was what was ahead of us.
Even if I wasn’t certain what exactly that was.
Or how I’d know it when I found it.
Or if any of this would work at all.
I couldn’t think about those things. I took a deep breath, popped a piece of jerky into my mouth, and focused on the highway ahead.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
To understand how I got into the mess I got into, you first have to understand what it’s like to be born under the shadow of a sibling’s extreme failed potential.
Grayson was everything to Mom and Dad. Their first, a boy, just as they’d hoped for. He was sweet and cuddly and rough-and-tumble and smart and what they saw as the culmination of everything good about themselves. Of course, this was back when they
It went on for months, the feud between our families, until finally Zoe’s family gave in and moved out. But even after they were gone, the grudge had affected Mom so much that she went into a deep depression and had to get medication. Even after three years, Mom still didn’t trust other parents. She was polite but separate.
In a lot of ways, Dad was all Mom had. Dad and Grayson and me. But given the grief Grayson had always broughther, and the grief I was about to bring her, we were little consolation.
Mom paused over the phone. “No, no. It’s fine. And your brother is at Brock’s?” Her voice had gotten much calmer. Mom still loved Brock, even if he couldn’t help my brother with a pair of elbow-length dishwashing gloves anymore.
I started to relax.
See? Everything is going to be fine. Great. By the time they get the call from the school, I’ll be too far away for them to make me come home. And by the time I actually do come home, Grayson will be normal, and things will look so much better to all of us. We’ll all be so happy to have a normal family, we won’t even care about the damage I’ve done at school.
“Yeah,” I said. “I saw Gray walking when I was leaving school, so I picked him up and took him to Brock’s. I figured it would be good for him. I can’t believe he forgot to call you. I reminded him, like, a billion times.”
“I’ll call him,” she said. “I’m glad he’s seeing Brock again. That’ll be good for him. Did he seem relaxed to you at all, Kendra?”
“Sure, Mom,” I lied, and then I felt really, really horrible for all the lies. Mom wanted nothing more than for Grayson to be happy. And she was always trying so hard to make him that way, even though Dr. Sellerman, Dr. Houston, Dr. Fantaglio, and especially Dr. St. James had all warned her about enabling his OCD. Poor Mom couldn’t deny him. “He seemed really happy to see Brock. When Ileft, they were playing some video game. Blowing up zombies or something.” I tried not to think about Grayson counting the rocks at the bottom of Newman Quarry a couple hours before, or about him crying, telling me to just drive, and saying he wished he could run away from it all. Mom would want to know those things. Mom would
need
to know them.
I promised her I would call the next day and told her I loved her, then hung up and turned my phone off completely.
There was no turning back now.
I got into Hunka, shutting the door as softly as I possibly could, and pulled out of the gas station parking lot. I turned the vents to blow hot air onto my fingers as they were wrapped around the steering wheel. The headlights carved little tunnels out of the extreme dark of the Kansas highway. Grayson snored steadily, the glove box door tapping against his leg.
I opened my soda and the bag of jerky and headed west, imagining all my lies dropped unceremoniously on the ground by the gas pump. This was going to be a new beginning, where none of that old stuff would matter anymore.
All that mattered was what was ahead of us.
Even if I wasn’t certain what exactly that was.
Or how I’d know it when I found it.
Or if any of this would work at all.
I couldn’t think about those things. I took a deep breath, popped a piece of jerky into my mouth, and focused on the highway ahead.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
To understand how I got into the mess I got into, you first have to understand what it’s like to be born under the shadow of a sibling’s extreme failed potential.
Grayson was everything to Mom and Dad. Their first, a boy, just as they’d hoped for. He was sweet and cuddly and rough-and-tumble and smart and what they saw as the culmination of everything good about themselves. Of course, this was back when they
Similar Books
