Free Taking Flight by Siera Maley

who I was with. For those few seconds, I was in Caitlyn’s car, and we were on our way to the beach, the sun in our eyes and the wind in our hair. No responsibilities, no one forcing us to do anything we didn’t want to do. No five months of farm work in a small town across the country. No David Marshall or his family.
    Cammie turned on the radio and I opened my eyes, looking over at the dial even as she turned the volume up on a country song I didn’t recognize. I wondered if she’d forgotten I didn’t like country music.
    I looked to her, next. Strands of her blonde hair whipped back and forth in the wind coming in through her window, and she had both hands on the steering wheel while a pair of sunglasses covered her eyes. The sun was bright and shining directly onto us, and I could see a few freckles on her face that I’d been too preoccupied to notice yesterday.
    She glanced at me, and I looked out my window hastily, wondering if I’d been watching her long enough to have crossed over into staring territory. I heard her turn the music down a moment later.
    “So did you leave anyone special back home?” she asked, catching me completely off-guard. I shocked myself by thinking of Caitlyn first, before I finally pulled myself together enough to reply.
    “Um… define ‘special’,” I said, trying to avoid answering without having time to think it through first. Cammie had taken my lack of religious beliefs better than expected, but lesbianism was an entirely different issue. I wanted to choose my words carefully.
    She laughed at my response and gave me a knowing look. “Oh. Okay.”
    I waited for her to say more, but it seemed our conversation was over for her. “Wait, what does that mean?”
    She smiled through a shrug. “I don’t know; I guess… it makes sense that you’d be the type to not settle down with anyone.”
    “Why? I’m a ‘type’ now?” I asked, more than a little offended.
    “I didn’t mean it like that, of course. It’s just…” she hesitated, and then glanced to me knowingly. “I mean, c’mon. You’re really pretty. I’m sure guys are really into you, right?”
    I stared back at her, completely baffled at where she was going with this. “So what if they are?” I deflected, and she laughed again.
    “So you’re totally that girl! I bet you hate commitment, don’t you? You’re like the bad girl who doesn’t care what anyone thinks but happens to be popular anyway, yet is way too rebellious to have a serious relationship with any of the guys who fall over themselves trying to get with her. Like… like a female version of Justin from A Lifetime of Karma .”
    “What is it with you and Ryan Hansen?” I asked, scoffing to hide how disappointed I was. She was so, so off. “You have posters all over your walls. He just writes dumb, cheesy love stories.”
    “Every teenage girl enjoys a good love story,” she argued. “And anyway, you didn’t tell me if I was right or not.”
    I turned and rolled the window up, tired of trying to talk over the wind. Cammie, seeing what I’d done, mimicked the action and then shot me an expectant look as we pulled up to one of Collinsville’s few red lights.
    “Well?”
    I was silent for a while. The red light turned green, and Scott’s truck lurched forward. I looked at Cammie again. “How about you tell me whether or not you think you were right when it’s been long enough that we actually feel like we know each other?”
    She looked amused by the idea, but nodded nonetheless. “That sounds fair. Are we turning this into a bet?”
    “It wouldn’t work as a bet,” I said. “It’s totally subjective on your part. All you’d have to do is say you still think you’re right, even if you didn’t, and you’d win.”
    “I wouldn’t do that.” She pulled into the parking lot of our destination: a local burger joint she’d recommended. The car slowed to a halt and we unbuckled our seatbelts. Cammie turned in her seat to face