Perfect Escape by Jennifer Brown

still trying to shake off his accusation that I didn’t have fun. I had yet to think of an example of something fun I’d done recently, and that was just depressing.
    “Just drive forever?”
    “No,” I answered, taking another sip of my soda. I picked up his and offered it to him again. Surprisingly, he took it. “We’re going to California.”
    He let out a bark of a laugh now. “California!” he repeated. “What the hell is in California?”
    I thought about it. I couldn’t answer him truthfully. I couldn’t tell him there were lots of things in California. My redemption, for instance. Distance, during which maybe the school, or Mom and Dad, or maybe even I would figure out what to do next about the mess I’d left behind. Or Grayson’s redemption, maybe. His cure from OCD, finally really putting to the test that cognitive behavioral therapy and exposure therapy crap all those docs had been talking about for years. The stuff that Mom wanted everyone else to do but couldn’t seem to make herself do.
    And I definitely couldn’t tell him truthfully what was really waiting for us in California: help.
    Zoe.
    So I told him the next best lie I could think of instead.
    “The Hayward Fault,” I said matter-of-factly.
    Grayson paused, his soda perched below his lips. He looked at me, stunned.
    The Hayward Fault was one of Grayson’s longest-running obsessions. His second-grade teacher talked about it in science one day—this 100-kilometer fault in the San Francisco Bay area that some people believe will cause a seven-plus magnitude earthquake any day. Most of the kids in his class blew it off as more boring junk to memorize, but it became Grayson’s world.
    He had nightmares. Would wake up sweating, screaming for Dad. Dad would run into Grayson’s room, only to hear, “The Hayward had the big one, Dad!”
    And when we’d go outside to play, Grayson always wanted to play Hayward Fault rescue. Zoe and I would pretend the ground had shaken us off the swing set and would lie buried under an overturned wagon or empty box and Grayson would flit about the yard, pretending to use superhuman strength to free us from our prisons.
    He used to tell us he wanted to see the fault for himself someday. A pilgrimage for the geologically devoted. He wanted to touch the ground, to see if he could detect any tremors from deep within the earth. He wanted to scoop upa handful of gravel and bring it home as a souvenir—more priceless than the snowflake obsidian Grandpa had brought him from New Zealand. It would be his most treasured piece of geology: pebbles from the fault that last rocked the earth in 1868 and would most certainly rock the earth again.
    But sitting on Hunka’s bench seat next to me, he didn’t say anything about the treasures of the Hayward. Instead, he silently lowered his soda into his lap and stared out the passenger-side window.
    “We’ll go to the… where was it again? The football stadium?”
    He cleared his throat. “Cal Memorial Stadium. At Berkeley.”
    I snapped my fingers and pointed at him. “Yeah. That’s the one. The fault is under it, right?”
    He nodded, numbly. “Directly. From…”
    “Goalpost to goalpost,” I said excitedly, having heard him say those very words so many times growing up. “See? I was paying attention. Cal Memorial Stadium, here we come! See, Gray? Fun! This will be fun!”
    My brother sat still, looking dazed. I was hoping for more excitement from him. Maybe it would come. Yeah, that was it. He just needed time. The excitement would come.
    “Gray,” I said softly. “This is important to me.”
    A long time passed before he moved again. I watched the highway roll by, every now and then glancing back atmy brother, who seemed to be mesmerized by something he saw out his window. But I knew what he saw wasn’t out the window at all. What he saw was something out of the past. Or future. Or maybe both.
    “Okay,” he said, very quietly. He gently placed his soda back