I turn to look at the ones she’s pointing to, and she runs her hand over the top of the stack. There are four full journals in the sand and another in her hand. Her eyes are wide, and the breeze from the sea lifts her hair from behind her ears, making it stick out from the side of her head and flutter in the wind. I reach out and tuck it back in and she doesn’t flinch, just stares at me from a few inches away.
“These are from when she was in high school and things got rough at home, I guess. I mean I haven’t read through all of them, and Ruth said my mom was a good daughter before she met my dad, but this says the opposite. My mom ran away and hitchhiked across a bunch of states before she met Patrick. That’s how they got together. She was on her way to a concert.” She smiles so big, and I can see her eyes start to water before she turns her head and tries to be discreet about wiping at them. She clears her throat and looks back across the water. “Anyway. She went from here to Tennessee according to these. But nothing mentions another guy. Plus, these are all dated at the time she met Patrick, and I wasn’t born for another fifteen years.”
“This was about finding out who your mom was, right? Not the guy.”
She doesn’t look at me, just messes with her bracelet again and nods. “Yeah. I wanted to know my mom. That’s all. And this is perfect. We can head back whenever you’re ready. I got what I needed.”
There’s something in the way that she says it that makes me hesitate. “Where did she go first?”
Audrey turns to me, her upper body angled at mine and her eyebrows drawn together, mouth pulled into a frown. “Not far. She spent the first night here, actually. On the beach. Sleeping under the stars. Complained about the sand lice and stuff in the morning.” She laughs and puts the book down in the sand. “Obviously, sleeping on the beach is illegal and you can get arrested for it, so it’s a good thing she didn’t try to do it now.”
I shrug. “Or we could. We could sleep here tonight. Then go where she went next.”
“You want to follow my mom’s trail? You don’t have to do that. That would be weird.”
“Why?” I reach out and stop her from touching the metal around her wrist, holding her fingers between mine. She goes still as we both look down at where we’re touching, and I glance up just as the sun slips beyond the horizon. “When you called that night and we went to the diner, you said you wanted to run away. Maybe it’s in your DNA. Maybe you need to. Just like your mom.”
“There’s a lot of stuff in my DNA. Doesn’t mean I should just go off and do whatever.” She snatches her hand away from mine and stands quickly, gathering up the books and reaches for her shoes. “It’s all nice in theory, but …”
I stand too and take a step back to watch her wage a war within herself as she weighs the options I’ve presented. “But, what? Come on. Run away with me, Audrey.”
Her stare is unwavering as she chews on her lip. “And Cline. Unless you plan to leave him here.”
It deflates the situation a little bit, but I don’t care. “And Cline. It’ll be fun. Let’s go where your mom went. We’ll start with tonight. Are you in?”
Her hand slips into mine, and it’s the only answer I need.
“We’re gonna get caught and go to jail and die.” Cline is whispering from the backseat like we’re on a stakeout.
“You can speak in a normal voice. We’re inside the car.” Audrey is pretending not to be nervous, but the waver in her voice belies her false bravado. “Also, that’s not how it works. You don’t just go to jail and die. If anything, it would be a holding cell and your mom would have to come bail you out. You’d pee in front of a few guys. Like on TV.”
“That’s how I would die. I’d hold my pee until it retracted back into my body and I died of sepsis.” Cline hisses the last s at her.
It’s nearly midnight, and we’ve seen a couple patrol cars ride by as well as a local with a flashlight looking for crap left on the beach. But I’m bound and determined to do this simply because it almost feels like we can’t stop now. I didn’t drive all the way to Alabama to get my dad’s old camping gear and then into North Carolina to steal books from an old lady’s house just to stop now.
We wait another fifteen minutes, and once we’re sure everything is clear, I make a motion with my fingers in the dark. Audrey leans over the console and slaps my hand.
“The hell are you doing? This isn’t some kind of Black Ops mission. Plus, the sleeping bags are in the back, so we have to open the car doors and stuff.”