The Safest Lies by Megan Miranda Page B

hadn’t told me that part. I’m the lightest is what he’d said. Least chance of making the car fall.
    Even from here, I could see the heat rising on Ryan’s face. God, heroic much? Emma and Holly were whispering beside me, and I swear one of them audibly sighed.
    The mayor pinned something to his jacket, shook his hand, and everyone applauded.
    Everyone stood, and Ryan disappeared. I shifted to the side, stood on my toes—the room was all noise and activity again.
    Emma turned to her friends. “You should invite Ryan,” I heard her saying, probably to Holly.
    “To my house?” Holly responded.
    “Yes. Tell him we’ll be there, no adults, heroes welcome.”
    I turned away, needing air and space and home again.
    “Excuse me.” I bumped into a woman with a badge clipped to her blazer and a notepad in her hand. She was smiling, big and bright, like I was exactly what she was looking for. “Kelsey, right? I thought I saw you come in.”

    I strained to see the front of the room again, and I caught a glimpse of Ryan trying to push through the crowd, heading this way—maybe to see Holly, who was still talking to Emma.
    Holly shook my resolve, and my confidence. I didn’t know, after all, what had happened at the party after the hospital. I didn’t know if Holly was his girlfriend, and I was just someone he could talk to about that night. If everything about that moment in the car shone brighter than it should, took on more meaning. Near-death experiences bonding people together—that was a thing, right? But it didn’t mean anything, unless I stayed there, stuck in that terrifying moment.
    The woman beside me kept pressing—her hand on my arm now, like walls closing in. “It’s so great that you came,” she added. “Wonderful for you to show your support. Can I get a quick picture?” She jutted her head toward Ryan, who had just broken through the group in the middle, and was shaking free of the latest person who stopped him to shake his hand. “Of the two of you together? The readers would love that.”
    “You’ve got the wrong person,” I said, backpedaling out the double doors. This was all a mistake. I should’ve sent him a message first. Let him know I was coming. Let him tell me about Holly first. I should’ve worn something different, arrived a little earlier. Convinced Annika to come with me so I wouldn’t feel this blind rush of terror—because I’d learned in high school, after years of being homeschooled, that loneliness was something felt more powerfully in a crowd.

    I fumbled for Annika’s keys in my purse—heard footsteps behind me and started running. My hands shook as I turned the key in the ignition, and I peeled out of the parking lot. But I couldn’t slow my heart. I couldn’t shake the nerves. And I couldn’t shake the headlights, always just a curve behind.

T he headlights were gone by the time I pulled into Annika’s driveway. Nobody came out at the sound of the car on the gravel. Amazing, that people could come and go so freely, without someone keeping tabs on them. I left the keys in the visor like she’d asked and started walking back up the road, arms folded across my stomach in the dark. I didn’t want to go through the back, hopping the wall, where my mom was much more likely to notice.
    The mountains were darker against the moonlit sky—the world, shadows on shadows.
    I stayed on the roads, striding quickly in the gap between the streetlights, but I stopped when I turned onto my drive. A car with its engine running. A car was here.
    There were no other houses on this part of the street. It was too late for a delivery. If it was Jan, my mom would probably knock on my door, and I’d be found out. I moved faster, keeping to the bushes, trying to work out how to slip through the gate and climb through the window with neither of them noticing.

    The engine turned off, and I froze. I eased my body slowly around the corner, until I could see the car. A green Jeep,