Read Don't You Trust Me? for Free Online

program does not advocate withholding food!”
    I made my face crumple with dismay and covered my mouth with my hands. “Oh no! Oh, I am so sorry—I didn’t mean to say that! I promised my parents— Please forget I ever said anything.” I shook my head and made earnest eye contact. “It’s not true. My parents didn’t withhold food from me, honest they didn’t.”
    Auntie X and Brooke looked at me doubtfully. Then they looked at each other. When their gazes shifted back to me again, there was concern and sympathy in their eyes.
    â€œI see ,” said Auntie X.
    â€œGee whiz ,” said Brooke.
    Wow. I was so good at this.

    By the time Auntie X had departed for work and Brooke and I had cleared our plates (there was a cook in the kitchen, but “We try to help Mrs. Barnes out as much as we can,” explained Little Miss Goody Two-Shoes Brooke), I was beginning to believe my own story. I could almost remember the dreadful weeks before I was sent away, locked in my room on a steady diet of water and Wheat Thins. Who could blame me for not wanting to see or speak to parents who would do an awful thing like that? Would it be possible to spin out these cushy lodgings for my final two years of high school with no one the wiser? Then Janelle’s parents would be the ones coughing up the money for my college tuition, insteadof my semi-impoverished real parents. Serve them right too, the child abusers!
    I found myself sincerely hoping that Janelle and Ashton would find true happiness together. Because if she went running home to Mommy and Daddy, everybody might subsequently get to wondering who I was.
    I had great faith in my ability to improvise on the spur of the moment, but trying to explain the existence of two Janelles, one on each side of the continent, might be hard even for me. However, no need to fuss over it now. My immediate future was rosy.

    It had clouded up and looked like rain, so Brooke didn’t want the top down. Irritating, as with the top up the ride wasn’t half as much fun. I pointed out a number of patches of blue overhead, but the stubborn girl refused to reconsider, claiming that rain would damage her leather upholstery.
    She wasn’t quite as chatty as she had been yesterday on the way back from the airport. She seemed to be thinking. I didn’t mind. I sat and watched the scenery go by.
    â€œI heard your mom and dad confiscated your cell phone,” she said at last. “That must be awful. I can’t imagine living without my phone.”
    I opened my mouth to ask her what she was talking about, and then realized that yeah, Janelle’s parentsprobably had taken her cell away to keep her from contacting Ashton—in fact, she’d even told me so. It was therefore going to be necessary to hide my own miserable little phone—the cheapest model my tightfisted parents could find.
    I thought about this. Actually, I probably should get rid of it. Couldn’t they track your location through your cell, even if it didn’t have a GPS? New Beginnings had for sure already informed my family that I hadn’t arrived, and they’d know by now that my plane ticket hadn’t been used. I wanted them to think I had left LAX on foot or by car and was therefore still in California. If my cell showed that I was suddenly in New York . . .
    â€œI suppose I could get one of those pay-as-you-go phones,” I said. “You know, like, from Walmart?”
    â€œYou could,” admitted Brooke. “I—I won’t mention it to my parents, if you’d rather I didn’t,” she offered. I had to stifle a laugh; that was a generous offer from a prissy-pants like Brooke.
    â€œOnly,” she said, darting a little look at me, “maybe it would be better if you didn’t call your boyfriend, since your parents don’t want you to?”
    â€œI wasn’t planning to call Ashton,” I said,