Free Lone Star by Paullina Simons

to UMaine, but did I mention this other place I applied to, three thousand miles away from Bangor, our whole wide country away? A Spanish city with beaches, warmth, no mountains, no snow. Like Barcelona, but in the States.
    â€œHave you applied for your passport yet?”
    Chloe snapped out of it. “How can I apply? They haven’t said I can go.”
    â€œTell them in a firm and convincing manner that you’re going and that’s all there is to it.”
    â€œYes, right, okay. Do you know what my mother’s been doing?” Chloe said. “Buying me books. Frommer’s Guide to Spain’s Coastal Cities . Fun Facts about Barcelona . To Barcelona with Love . DK Guide to Spain’s Most Beautiful Churches .”
    â€œThat’s nice. She’s being helpful.”
    â€œYou mean impossible. She says to me, see, honey, you don’t have to go anywhere, you can just read books about it.”
    â€œTrue, your mother is always advising me to read more,” Hannah said. “She says you can live other lives through books, experience travel, love, sorrow.”
    â€œShe’s buying me books so I can see Barcelona from the comfort of my recliner while she makes me éclairs and rum babas.”
    â€œYeah,” said Hannah. “You have it so tough.”
    Chloe drove. She didn’t want to say how much she envied Hannah her parents’ spectacular nonparticipation. Divorce did that—shifted priorities.
    â€œThey make unreasonable demands on me,” Chloe said.
    Hannah turned down Nirvana. “I wish somebody would make a demand on me.”
    Grandpa is making demands on you, Chloe wanted to say. How’s that going? “I thought you liked that they never asked you for things,” she said instead.
    â€œTurns out, I want to be asked for something.”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œAnything,” Hannah said. “Just to be asked.” She turned to Chloe. “Why are you so uptight? Look at the way your hands are clutching the wheel. Like you’re about to break it.”
    Chloe tried to relax, really she did.
    â€œI’m the one who should be tense,” said Hannah. “You have no idea how upset he’s going to get.”
    Chloe thought long and hard about her next question. “He’s generally in good health, right?” she asked. Like his heart?
    â€œOh, yes,” Hannah said. “Believe me, there’s nothing wrong with him.”
    â€œEw, so gross. Not what I meant. But okay.”
    â€œWhat’d you mean?”
    â€œNothing.”
    Hannah was looking too pretty for someone who was about to break up with a nonagenarian. Almost seemed mean. The poor fellow was going to be feeling like shit anyway, why rub it in his face, the youth, the slim feminine attractiveness, the long legs? Hannah even wore a skirt, as if headed to church. Linen skirt as short as the month of February. Navy blue sparkly ballet flats. A cream top. Face deceptively “unmade-up,” yet fully made-up. Eyes of course moist.
    Chloe couldn’t pay too much attention to Hannah’s appealing exterior while driving down a zigzaggy two-lane country road, but from a surreptitious corner of the eye, Hannah was looking delectable, not forlorn. “Hannah, why are you looking so pretty if you’re ending it with him?”
    She beamed. “He likes to look at me, that’s all.”
    â€œBut you want him to like to look at you less, don’t you?”
    Hannah didn’t reply, busy eating her fingers, twisting her knuckles.
    To everything there is a season. That was another one of her mother’s mottos. This was emphatically not the season for college confessions. This was a time for lovers. Chloe cleared her throat.
    â€œCan I ask you something about Blake?”
    â€œWhat about him?”
    â€œDo you like him?”
    â€œI love him, what are you talking about?”
    â€œWell, then, why . . .”
    Hannah