Desert Crossing by Elise Broach

sweet saltiness of his lips, feel his chest pressed against me. I couldn’t think about anything else. When he finally pulled away, my mouth felt swollen, and it seemed as if my skin had been peeled back like a petal, leaving behind something raw and tingling and alive.
    Kit stood there staring at me.
    â€œWe can’t do this,” I said. I couldn’t look at him.
    â€œOkay,” he said.
    â€œIt’s too—”
    â€œYeah,” he said. “I know.”
    I started walking back to the truck.
    â€œLuce.”
    â€œLet’s just forget it, okay?” I tried to sound like I didn’t care. “Now we’re even.”
    I didn’t even like Kit. And now I’d kissed him twice. Well, more than twice.
    His mouth twitched. “Okay. Let’s forget it.”
    â€œFine.”
    â€œGreat.”
    We swung open the doors to the truck simultaneously. There was no way I could forget it.

19
    When we finally got back to Beth’s, she was kneeling on the floor of the living room, painting, and Jamie was stretched across the couch watching her. Not just watching her. Riveted. Like he couldn’t see anything else in the room. Kit and I made a lot of noise coming in. It wasn’t deliberate exactly, but we both must have been thinking the same thing—that we didn’t want to surprise them. We pushed the door open with a clatter, jangling keys and calling out, “Hey, we’re back,” in this loud, fake, sitcomish way. The dogs charged up to us, their nails scrabbling across the wooden floor. But Jamie never looked up.
    â€œYou were gone a long time,” Beth said.
    â€œYeah. We went east,” Kit said. “That place yesterday was a lot closer.”
    â€œThe police called,” she said after a minute.
    â€œOh yeah?” Kit glanced at me. “What did they want?”
    â€œThey’ve got the coroner’s preliminary report. They know the cause of death.” Beth sat back on her heels, looking at both of us, and Jamie suddenly stood, catapulting off the couch.
    â€œYeah, listen to this,” he said.
    â€œWhat?” I asked.
    â€œShe just died.”
    â€œHuh?” Kit said. “What do you mean?”
    â€œCongenital heart disease,” Beth said. “She had a heart attack. Incredibly rare for someone her age, but it happens. She died instantly, the police said.”
    â€œYou mean she wasn’t killed?” Kit asked. “Nobody did anything to her?”
    I turned to him. “Somebody left her there.”
    Beth nodded. “Yes. Somebody did that, and the police still don’t know who. They haven’t been able to find out anything about her.” She hesitated. “But the death itself, it looks like natural causes. So—” She lifted her paintbrush and held it absently in midair, looking at Jamie. “You can go anytime you want.”
    â€œWe can?” Kit said eagerly. “That’s great!” He checked his watch. “If we leave now, we can get to Phoenix by midnight.”
    We could go. It seemed impossible. We could just drive away, leaving all this behind. I thought of the bracelet, hidden in the pocket of my backpack. I thought of Jamie and Beth together last night, and of Kit kissing me.
    Part of me wanted so badly to leave. It had only been two days. We could get back on the road, have everything return to normal. It would be a relief, pure and simple, to sit in the hot back seat and listen to Kit and Jamie talk.
    But part of me didn’t. I felt a pit open in my stomach. It wasn’t finished. Nobody knew who she was, nobody knew what had happened to her. We were the ones who’d found her. We couldn’t just leave.
    â€œWe can’t just leave,” said Jamie.
    â€œWhat?” Kit looked at him. “Sure we can.”
    â€œNo,” I said. “I don’t want to.”
    Now Jamie looked at me, not understanding, but grateful. Beth