Free The Way Back to You by Michelle Andreani

gruff.
    “Kyle. Hi.”
    “Is everything okay?”
    “Yeah.” I slide onto my desk chair. “Everything okay with you?”
    “I guess.”
    Complete awkward silence, just like in Target, but this time I can hear him breathing. “I was wondering if you were busy tomorrow.”
    “Um . . .”
    “There’s this play I really want to see”—I grimace at Zoë, who is nodding supportively—I should’ve come up with a better pitch than this—“but it’s not exactly local, and there’s no way my car can make it. And since you said you wanted to get out of here for a bit, I thought you could do me a favor. By driving. And I’ll pay for gas and stuff, obviously.”
    Oh God. Drowning is probably less painful.
    My mouth goes completely dry as I wait for Kyle’s questions: Why should I? What play? Where is it? Why would I go anywhere with you? How long will we be gone? Why would I do you a favor? Why why why?
    Because I owe you this much , I tell him, but not out loud.
    I brace myself as he takes another breath. And then he says, “I’m in.”

Kyle
    E ver since the bizarre phone call I got last night, the same four words have been running on repeat through my brain:
    What
    Am
    I
    Doing?
    It’s ten hours later, and I still don’t have an answer. Not one that makes sense.
    Fresh snow fell overnight and it’s still below freezing outside, and yet when I turn down Cloudy’s street, she’s waiting on the sidewalk. She asked me to pick her up at “eight thirtyish,” and it’s 8:34 a.m. You can’t get any more “ish” of eight thirty, so she must be impatient to get on the road. Either that, or she hoped keeping me off her porch would also make me forget she yelled at me last time I was here: “Get over yourself! Not everything is your problem to fix!”
    As if I’ll ever forget that .
    Bundled up in her sky-blue coat, Cloudy is holding a largegift basket. She has a duffel bag slung over one shoulder and a bulky pink cloud-print pillow tucked under her other arm. I park by the curb, and as I rush to meet her, the words “Sorry I’m late” come out of my mouth—even though I’m not. (Late, that is. The sorry part remains to be seen.)
    I carefully take the basket from her. Most often, when we make eye contact, she frowns and glances elsewhere in a hurry, but this time, her expression is filled with so much I’m-happy-to-see-you, I’m the one who has to look away as I fumble the basket and almost drop it onto the snow.
    “You’re not late,” she says, tucking back a few rusty blond strands that already came loose from her bun. “I did promise to drop off that tool of bribery at Lita Tamsin’s this morning so she can add the finishing touches before tonight’s fund-raiser. But I’ve padded in extra time, and we’ll get to Sacramento before the play at six o’clock no matter what.”
    “Okay, sounds good.”
    Truly, I have no idea why Cloudy wants to see a play all the way in Sacramento or why, out of the blue, she’s decided I’m the person who should go with her, but I’m not going to question it right now. Leaving this frigid weather behind for a day and (much more importantly) showing my dad exactly what it looks like when I get out of the house is too good to pass up. A break from Matty would be considered a bonus, too, but he won’t be bugging me until later anyway. Every Saturday morning by this time, he’s heading up to Mount Bachelor to snowboard all day. I haven’t heard from him since he left my house last night, so he obviously got a ride from someone else.
    I open the back door and set Cloudy’s gift basket on the seat. But when I turn to take the rest of her stuff, she’s already made her way to the rear of the vehicle and is lifting the hatch.
    “Oh!” she says.
    I join her. Side by side, we stare down at my kitten, who’s lying on top of the panda pillow and is surrounded by a disposable litter box, fuzzy toys, and bowls of water and food that I’m hoping won’t spill. The