See Jane Run by Hannah Jayne
To my father, because this is the book he wanted to read.
Thanks for making me take chances.
ONE
“No, Riley. No way.”
“But, Dad, you haven’t even heard—”
Riley Spencer’s father took a slurping sip from his coffee cup and looked over the rim at his daughter. “I said no. End of discussion.”
Riley blew out a sigh and crossed the kitchen, slamming the cupboard door after retrieving a coffee cup.
“I hope you’re pouring that for me,” her mother said, coming up over her shoulder and slipping the now-full cup out of Riley’s hands. “What’s going on?”
Riley fumed. “I can’t go on the school trip—the school trip to look at colleges—and now I can’t even drink a cup of coffee! It’s like you want to keep me here in this stupid little fortress forever!”
Riley’s parents were staring at her, her father in mid-sip with newspaper in one hand, her mother with a glint of a half-smile on her pale pink lips.
“Ry, we talked about this.”
“No,” Riley said, “we did not talk about this. You talked about this. And no one said I couldn’t drink coffee.”
Her father shrugged and went back to his paper. “Have a cup of coffee. Be five foot two for the rest of your life. See if I care.”
“We already had this discussion, hon. Your father and I said no.” Riley saw her mother’s eyes flash over the rim of her coffee cup. She gave a quick glance at her husband, and Riley knew she was shut out.
Her mother sighed. “It’s not like we do this for no reason, Ry.” She shook a single pill from the prescription bottle and held it in her palm. “There will be crowds and a lot of confusion. Dr. Morley said it would be best to ease into a new environment.”
Riley glared at the tiny pill before snatching it up and popping it into her mouth. “What’s the point of taking antianxiety medication if I never even have the opportunity to get anxious?” But even as she said the words, a tiny, singeing panic burned up the back of her neck. “It’s not like I have a panic attack every time I leave the house or anything.”
“Riley…”
She slumped, glaring through lowered lashes at each of her parents. She let out a low, dejected sigh before pushing around the cereal in her bowl.
“Well, I guess getting straight As doesn’t matter anymore anyway. If I can’t even go check out a university on a heavily chaperoned school-sponsored trip, there’s no reason to even apply to college. I mean, I don’t want to go to a school I’ve never even visited. Even if it is my beloved father’s alma mater. What if there are rapists and murderers surrounding the campus? I’d be caught totally off guard. I guess it’s going to be Crescent City Junior College after all. I hear they have a pretty decent math department. I think it was ranked eighty-fifth in America’s Best Junior Colleges. Eighty-fifth. That’s not bad, right?”
“Ry, we agreed that your dad and I would take you and Shelby to look at colleges over your spring break. What happened to that?”
Riley looked her mother full in the face and blinked. “I have a thirst for knowledge that can’t wait, Mom.”
A beat passed as her parents shared an is-she-serious look.
“Oh, come on!” Riley moaned.
“Ry, honey.” Her mother patted her hand. “We need to make sure you’re taken care of. We just like to know you’re safe.” She offered Riley a tight-lipped smile.
“I’ll be safe. You can call me every five minutes. You can shoot one of those pet tracker chips in the back of my neck!”
Her father cocked his head, but he didn’t look about to relent. Riley’s lower lip started to quiver. She hadn’t planned on pulling out the big guns until the situation got dire, but her eyes filled with tears on their own.
“Please, guys?”
Her mother let out a long sigh. “Your father and I will talk about it again.”
? ? ?
“‘Talk about it again’?” Shelby Webber snapped as she followed Riley up the stairs that afternoon. “That’s good, right?”
Riley gave her best friend a look.
“OK, it’s not a definite no.”
“Might as well be. How long does it take for them to talk about it? ‘Hey, Ry should go on her school trip. Oh, OK.’ Three seconds. Not an entire school day, which is like a lifetime in me-waiting-to-go-on-a-trip time.”
Riley dumped her backpack on the floor and flopped down onto her bed. “Face it, Shelb. I’m trapped. I’m never going to get out of here. You’ll go off to college, forget about me, and I’ll be here, under curfew, reporting back to my parents.”
Shelby’s lips quirked up in a half smile. “Drama queen, party of one?”
“Shut up.” Riley’s stone gray eyes went up to Shelby, who was biting her lip, looking nervous. “What?”
“It’s just—and I seriously hate to ask this, you know, because you’re not going and all, but…”