Free Let's Get Lost by Adi Alsaid

curb, so that he and Leila had their backs to each other, like an old married couple moving to opposite sides of the bed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    He stood up, slamming the door behind him. He meant to storm into his house, but his legs were weak, and he leaned back against Leila’s car, his gaze on his front door, the rolled-up newspaper lying on the welcome mat, its pages crumpled from its collision against the side of the house. A few moments passed, Hudson taking deep breaths to steady himself, his legs refusing to move. Then he heard the rubber smacking of Leila’s flip-flops stepping toward him.
    He couldn’t tell exactly what he felt when he saw that she was crying. Whether he wanted to comfort her and wipe her eyes dry or whether he wanted her to keep crying, each tear proof that he was not the only one at fault. There was another part of him that may have even been a bit proud that she cared enough about him to be crying. How could all those things exist inside him at the same time and not tear him into shreds, reduce him to a pile of rubble on the sidewalk?
    â€œOkay, okay. I messed everything up,” she said, standing right in front of him. “What can I do to fix this?”
    â€œThere’s nothing you can do,” he said, his voice calmer than he’d expected. It reminded him of his dad’s voice. “Maybe you should just go.”
    A light breeze picked up, sending a waft of fresh-smelling air their way. Hudson realized that the two of them probably smelled of the river, of the ground they’d slept on, of yesterday. For how long would the smell or the sound of the river bring Leila to mind?
    Her eyes were red, redder than they should have been, since only a couple of tears had slipped out and dripped wet streaks down her cheeks. Or maybe they were red from straining to keep the tears in. She took a breath, the air rushing into her lungs sounding thin and sharp, on the verge of whistling. “Okay,” she said. “I will.”
    She threw her arms around him, too quickly for him to try to stop her. He could feel her tears dripping onto his neck. The breeze blew again and cooled the wet spots on his neck. It felt as if they might freeze.
    Without another word, she kissed his cheek and then moved him aside to get into her car. The engine sounded good when it came to life—healthy, ready for her trip. He watched her struggle with the seat belt, then put the car into drive, glancing back at him and forcing a crooked, broken smile. Then the sun caught the window, and he couldn’t see inside anymore, which was just as well, since she was already headed down the road.
    The girl responsible for the best night of his life was gone, headed vaguely north—who knew exactly where. He stood out there on the curb for a few minutes, watching his block, the familiar driveways basking in the light of the morning sun. Hudson lingered there, as if waiting for something else to happen. Then he turned to his house, determined to put her out of his mind.
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Bree
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1
    THE ONE THING Bree could never deal with was the still time in between adventures. Back in Reno, time had not been valuable, so its waste didn’t matter. But now, in her new life, every still moment was a suffocating one, a lost one. And no matter how badly she wanted to move, here she was, walking down the side of the highway in Kansas, kicking tufts of dried grass because there weren’t even any pebbles. She waited, bored, for the next car to stick her thumb out at.
    The strap on her duffel bag was cutting into her shoulder, so she shifted it over to the other side and examined the little tread marks it had left on her skin. She couldn’t tell if the redness was from the strap or from the sun beating down on her all day. The bag wasn’t heavy—she never packed much, simply because she had fallen in love with the idea of traveling