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“Oh, and that’s Emily. She’s my sister,” Ethan said as Emily looked up at me with the biggest bluest eyes that I’ve ever seen. I’m pretty sure she could see right through me.
“I’m twelve,” she said before I could ask. “I’m older than I look.”
We were walking toward the baggage claim, past a nativity scene where all of the wise men were dressed like cowboys, when the boy’s mom looked at me and asked, “So, is this your first trip to Oklahoma?”
Oklahoma.
Middle of the country. Middle of nowhere. Approximately a thousand miles from New York, another thousand from LA. It was … perfect.
“First time,” I said.
There was a long pause while everyone waited for me to do something. I felt like an animal at the zoo, an exhibit called Icelandic Girl in the Wild. But I wasn’t an Icelandic girl. And I couldn’t let them know that.
“It’s nice to meet you all,” I tried.
“My goodness,” Aunt Mary started, “Ethan said your English was good, but it’s perfect. Just perfect.”
“I watch a lot of American TV,” I said, and they all nodded as if that made sense.
“Okay, let’s get your bags.” Clint clapped his hands together.
“Oh, I don’t—” But before I could finish, a huge suitcase came around the conveyor belt, a giant sticker of the Icelandic flag plastered to the side. “I guess that’s mine.”
Clint went to grab the old-fashioned suitcase, lifting the giant thing as if it weighed nothing at all. I had to wonder how long Hulda was expected to stay.
But that didn’t matter. I wasn’t Hulda.
* * *
“So … Hulda?” Ethan asked, and it took an embarrassingly long time to realize he was talking to me.
“Yes, Evan?” I asked.
“Ethan,” he whispered. “My name is Ethan. You might want to remember that since you just flew halfway around the world because you are so in love with me.” I studied his profile in the dim light of the backseat of his parents’ SUV as it pulled away from the airport. His jaw was strong, and he kept his gaze straight ahead, as if trying to stare down the horizon. “You’re never going to get away with this, you know? Pretending to be Hulda.”
“Hulda is fine,” I told him. “I didn’t gag her and shove her in a closet if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Oh, I know. She called to tell me that she didn’t get on the plane. She asked me to look out for you, and that is the only reason I’m going along with this crazy stunt. Hulda is a good person. You did her a favor, so I’m doing you a favor because…” He trailed off, then looked at me anew. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“No.”
“Because if you are … if there’s something about you that brings trouble to my family—”
“I’m not in any trouble.”
“Because girls always trade plane tickets with strangers in airports. They’re always flying off to meet some stranger’s boyfriend.”
“That’s fu
“What’s your point?”
“We all have secrets.”
He turned and stared straight ahead again. “I went on a foreign-exchange trip to Iceland last summer.”
“And…”
The corners of Ethan’s mouth turned up in something not quite resembling a smile. “What happens in Iceland stays in Iceland.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
He glanced back at me. “So, what’s in it for you?”
“I didn’t want to go to New York.”
“What’s in New York?”
Aunt Mary was leaning between the front seats, talking to Ethan’s mother and father. Emily was wearing headphones—I could hear faint traces of music as she closed her eyes, fading in and out of sleep. Ethan and I were alone in the last row, but the SUV was too quiet. Someone might overhear. Get suspicious. Find out.
I swore right then that no one would ever find out.
“I needed to get away, okay? I saw my chance, and I took it. I’ll be out of your hair, and you can start mending your broken heart or whatever just as soon as we stop. I will disappear, and you will never have to see me again.”
I expected him to protest, to complain that I was putting him in an impossible position. I didn’t expect him to actually say, “You can’t just run away.”
But I was not in the mood to hear what I couldn’t do. The list had been too extensive for too long.
You can’t eat that.
You can’t go there.
You can’t be this.
Ethan didn’t know that I was in that SUV-bound-to-nowhere because I had solemnly sworn to never let anyone tell me what I could or could not do ever again, so I leaned closer. “Watch me.”
But he only laughed. “No. You don’t understand. I know my father, and there is no way this vehicle stops until we get home.”
“So I’ll split as soon as we get there.”
But that must have been hilarious, because Ethan just laughed harder.
“What’s so fu
* * *
In case you were wondering, by “soon” Ethan meant four hours later.
That’s how long I sat squeezed into the backseat, listening to Hulda’s fake boyfriend snore. He kept his cap pulled low over his eyes, so I sat alone in the dark vehicle, staring out over the lights of the towns in the distance and the red glow of the taillights of the trucks that passed us by.
When Clint finally pulled off the interstate and onto a small highway I thought we must be almost there, but it was another hour before we turned onto a narrow gravel road that wound and curved through the darkness. The lights of the city were long gone. There were only stars. Millions of stars. Honestly, it was like we were the only people on earth when Clint stopped beside a small white house with a wraparound porch and said, “We’re here.”
“This is your house?” I asked Ethan as we crawled out of the backseat.
“No.” Ethan yawned, and I realized it must be after midnight. “Aunt Mary lives here. We’re next door.”
I turned to look, but saw only dark hills beneath that blanket of stars—a moon so large that it felt like I could touch it.
“With next door being…”
“About a half mile on the other side of that ridge.” Ethan pointed to the darkness.
A cold wind blew my hair into my face, jolting me awake. I watched as Clint carried Hulda’s huge suitcase up the stairs and through a door that opened without a key. That’s when I realized I was literally in a place where people didn’t lock their doors at night and the distance to the nearest neighbor was measured in miles.
If all I wanted was to go away then I’d done it. But Aunt Mary was beaming at me. Ethan’s parents were giving me hugs and wishing me good night. And Ethan kept looking at me as if he expected me to bolt off into the darkness at any moment.
I had to congratulate myself on finding the perfect place to hide.
It was a shame I couldn’t stay.
* * *
“You got everything you need, sweetie?”
Aunt Mary knocked on the bedroom door and it swung open. If she thought it was weird that I was still sitting on the bed with my backpack on my lap, she didn’t say so.
“Do you need some help unpacking?” She pointed to Hulda’s huge suitcase, but I shook my head.
“No, thank you.”
“That’s okay.” She crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe. “You’ve got five months to settle in.”
Five months. A whole semester. I tried to imagine living in a tiny white farmhouse in the middle of nowhere for almost half a year. I had one bar on my cell phone (I’d checked before removing the battery again), and there was no cable TV. Could a person even live like this? Then I thought about the unlocked door, the big Christmas tree, and the handmade stocking already hanging on the mantel, the name Hulda sewn on in green sequins. And I knew that, for some people, the answer was absolutely yes.