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voice.
    Shandell squirmed in the passenger seat, not sure how to answer. It seemed the more she pushed Gary toward going back to Baltimore, the more obstinate he became. It was a side of him she’d never seen back home, but when their road trip had begun to unravel, so had their friendship. She opened the console, fished out his sunglasses, and handed them over.
    He took them without a thank-you. “I wish you could talk about something besides going home,” he said as the car swung on a curve. She wished he didn’t drive so fast. “It’s getting a little played out.”
    “But you’re the one who said—”
    “I don’t know what you think you’re going to find when you get back to Baltimore,” he said pointedly. “It’s not like a fairy’s going to wave a magic wand and get old Phil off the couch.”
    That hurt, maybe because she knew it was true. Since her stepfather had lost his job as a plumber, he seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper into the couch, a can or two of beer always on the end table beside him.
    She scraped back her blue-tinted black hair as she stared out the window at her own reflection in the side mirror. The round-eyed, button-nosed face in the reflection was pathetically childish for an eighteen-year-old. It didn’t help that she was petite, with the small body of a pixie. When would she begin to look her age?
    When will you begin to act your age?
    Maybe that was a better question. She had made a lot of mistakes in the past few days, and now she was beginning to see the consequences.
    Shandell stared at the cornfield beyond the window. She had never seen corn so young—short green stalks reaching up to the sun. So hopeful. Shandell wished she had that kind of hope in her heart. She wished someone would hire her stepfather and give him a reason to stop drinking. She wished that she was anywhere else but driving in Gary’s big boat of a car.
    Three days ago, when her mother had freaked out over a notice from the school that Shandell was failing math, Shandell had taken Gary up on his offer of a road trip. Maybe it wasn’t the best decision Shandell had ever made, but the prospect of escaping her sorry life for a visit to Gary’s sister had seemed like a great idea at the time.
    “Road trip!” Gary had shouted, pumping a fist in the air. In need of relief, Shandell had found his enthusiasm contagious.
    In the past six months, life at the Darby house had become unbearable for Shandell, who was expected to keep house and cook for Phil while Mom worked two jobs to make enough to keep up with the rent.
    Chelsea Darby’s plan for a stable, happy life had not worked out the way anyone had envisioned it. No one had anticipated that Phil would lose his job, and as if the loss of income weren’t enough, Phil had dwindled into a bitter, critical man when he turned to drinking to ease the pain. The shriveled core of a person who now sat on the couch in their living room barely resembled the kind, athletic man who had once told Shandell that he considered it an honor and a privilege to be her stepfather. Lately, Shandell had focused most of her energy on coming up with ways to stay away from home. That had led her to hang out in Ryan’s garage with her more low-key friends, like Lucia, Kylie, Ryan, and Gary. She’d passed many a lazy hour there talking and listening to music. “It’s your therapy,” her friends always told her when she felt nips of guilt over missing school to hang out. Ryan had some great music on his iPod, and his mother understood that the teens had nowhere else to go. With music and a Ping-Pong table, a deck of cards, and snacks that everyone picked up from the convenience store on the corner, hours passed easily in Ryan’s garage.
    School … that was another sore spot she didn’t want to think about. She was supposed to be graduating in June, but now there was probably no chance of that.
And it’s not my fault
, Shandell thought, frowning. Although Shandell loved