Free Take Me Tomorrow by Shannon A. Thompson

lecture had turned into a lesson. I hadn’t listened, and I would have to deal with the repercussions.
    I glared at my best friend. “ I’m not against him taking me,” I argued. I was against Broden helping him.
    Broden understood my tone. “I have to.”
    “You don’t have to do anything.”
    “I want to. ” Broden worsened the situation. “I’ll be there soon,” he stated to Noah. “Just get Sophia home.”
    Noah opened the door and waved his arm as if he were directing me into a carriage. “Let’s go, Sophie,” he teased, still using his stupid nickname.
    “Don’t call me that,” I said as I stomped past him.
    He returned my words with a chuckle, but his chuckle sealed the deal. Everything had changed, and there was nothing I could do about it.

 
     
    Ask What You Want
     
    We walked for an hour in silence, dipping in and out of the trees. We crossed one field before we darted across a parking lot , only to meet another field. I hadn’t even known the fields existed. They were tucked away between neighborhoods, mainly used for untouched backyards. As much as I hated to admit it, Noah knew what he was doing, and he knew Topeka better than I did. By the way he paused at intersections, I had to bet that he even knew other ways to walk around undetected. He was just picking the best one for his uniform’s green color. If it weren’t for the fact that he was wearing a uniform, we wouldn’t have had to hide the entire time, but I was trying not to think about it. If I did, I would be too tempted to ask questions, and questions would only lead me to frustrated half-truths, so I bit my tongue and followed.
    When we reached the edge of the tree line, he stuck his head out instead of me. He didn’t even ask for my help. In fact, he ignored it, and I ignored him. Noah was someone I wanted to hate but someone I had yet to gain the ability to hate. One second, he was an outlaw, and the next he morphed into the boy next door – quite literally. We didn’t just have the same friends. He lived on the same street as them at some point.
    The sound is what gained my attention. The rumbling of the road, the exhaust of an older engine, the squeak of a thrown off axis. I grabbed Noah’s shoulder before he could jump out in front of it. “Wait,” I hissed right as the vehicle drove by in a slow crawl. How he hadn’t heard it or seen the headlights was beyond me. When it passed, I let him go with a slight shove. “Be more careful.” My reputation was on the line, too.
    He glanced over as if that was a good enough of a thanks, but then , he started a conversation by asking, “Who trained you?”
    My dad did, but I wasn’t about to talk about illegal activities with him, even though he had clearly seen how I had borrowed a government Jeep. If we had been caught, it was a felony. It was only a ticket to the lumberyards because I was a minor.
    “My mom trained me,” he stuttered over the word “mom” as if he hadn’t said it in a long time. I understood the feeling.
    “Why are you telling me this?” I muttered as I marched out of the tree line to cross the street.
    When he caught up with me, he explained, “Because I know how painful it can be to know enough to ask what but not enough to ask why .”
    “Really?” The sarcasm in my voice was impossible to control. “Because it seems you know everything.”
    “Except that you were going to attack me,” he pointed out. “I didn’t even see that coming with tomo,” he chuckled like the entire incident was part of a comedy routine. He hadn’t been on tomo at the school, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t taken it beforehand.
    I had yet to put my knife away. When Broden handed it to me, I took it as a sign. He still didn’t want me to trust Noah, and I was mad at myself for even attempting to reason with the boy. “Don’t think I won’t do it again,” I threatened.
    “I hope you do.”
    I glared at him through the darkness, but I felt like I was