“New Haven,”  she said.  “I’m giving notes on a tech rehearsal for a friend today, and staying to watch the dress on Sunday.”

“And how long is Dad going to be gone?” I asked, as my father picked up his suitcase and Beckett’s duffel and headed for the car my parents used.

“He’ll be back Sunday night too,” my mom said as she rummaged in her purse, coming up with her sunglasses and pushing them through her hair like a headband.

“Wait,” I said, as I watched my dad shut the back of his car and yell at my brother to get a move on, feeling like things were moving far too quickly. “So you guys are leaving me for the weekend?”

“Did you want to come?” my mother asked, brightening. “I’m sure you could sleep on the couch.”

“Or you could come to Cooperstown,” my dad called cheerfully, walking away from his car and back to the house. “It’s the birthplace of baseball, you know.”

“No, thanks,” I said, looking between the two cars. It wasn’t so much that my parents were leaving me; it was that they were leaving me with no transportation. “But what am I supposed to do about getting around?”

My mom raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t think it’d be a problem for the weekend,” she said. “I thought that Frank or Dawn could drive you if you needed to go somewhere. There’s food in the fridge, so you shouldn’t need to go out for that.”

“But—” I started, feeling panicky. I realized that if I’d confided in either of my parents, they would have known that Frank and Dawn weren’t options at the moment, but that didn’t change the fact that I was going to be stranded.

“If you really need to go somewhere, there’s money in the conch for a taxi,” my dad said, maybe seeing something of what I was feeling in my expression. “But if you’re not comfortable staying alone . . .”

“No, no,” I said quickly, trying to get in front of this before I found myself being hauled along to a baseball museum or stuck in some drafty theater watching lighting cues change. I made myself smile at them. “I’ll be fine.”

My parents headed out shortly after that, both of them trying to beat the traffic that they were convinced would grow exponentially by the hour. I watched my mother, driving my car, make the right turn out of the driveway, her hand waving out the window at me, then I walked back and sat down on the front steps in the sudden silence of the driveway, thinking.

All I had wanted to do, ever since I saw Laney Alden’s address on my phone, was get in my car and drive down there. It would be a longer trip than I’d ever taken before, but it wasn’t undoable.

I pulled up the address again and called the number listed. It rang and rang, then a cheerful-sounding woman came on the machine, telling me I’d reached the Alden residence, asking me to please leave a message after the tone. I hung up before the beep, not even that disappointed. I hadn’t really expected to get Sloane—if she wasn’t answering her cell, she probably wasn’t answering her aunt’s landline.

I stared down at the address. I had finally found her and now I couldn’t even go? I had known my parents weren’t going to be thrilled with the idea of me driving down to South Carolina. Since they were gone, though, they’d given me a two-day window in which to do this. Unfortunately, they’d also taken away my means of transportation. In a well-ordered universe, you would have been able to rent a car at seventeen. But . . .

Just like that, a possible solution occurred to me. It was so scary, and so potentially awkward that it really seemed like it should have been number fourteen on Sloane’s list. I pulled out my phone and looked at the time. I had no idea if he was still running. But if he was, the timing would work out.

I stood up and walked down the porch steps. I was still in my flip-flops, and I kicked them off. I left them at the end of the driveway, took a breath, and started to run.

I reached his house and sat down at the end of his driveway to wait for him. If he was still running, he’d be coming home around now.

The birds were out in full force, and it was already really hot out, which didn’t seem like a good sign, considering how early it still was. I felt the warm breeze blow my hair forward, over my face, not sure what I was more scared of—that he would show up, or that he wouldn’t.

I heard the sound before I saw him, the sound of sneakers hitting pavement at a steady pace. And then there he was, coming around the curve of the road, headphones in and iPod strapped to his arm. He was staying far over to the inside of the road, like he was leaving room for me. I had a flash of pride as I took in his pace and the fact that he didn’t even look winded, realizing that he probably wouldn’t have been doing that well without me, without all our mornings together. I wondered what he was listening to, if it was a mix I knew.

He saw me, and even from twenty feet away, I saw his expression of surprise as he slowed to a jog, then a walk, pulling his earbuds out. It felt like my legs were shaking, but I made myself stand up, not letting myself look away from him, even though this became harder the closer he got. This was the most familiar Frank to me, the Frank I’d spent my summer running next to, trading stories and songs, pushing each other on. I felt a pang of missing him twist my stomach as I looked at his hair brushed back from his forehead, at his left shoelace that was threatening to come untied. We stood there, by the side of the road, just looking at each other.

“Hi,” I finally said, making myself speak, feeling like I should start since I was the one who’d shown up unannounced in his driveway.

“Hey,” Frank said. His voice was cautious, and he seemed to be looking at me closely, searching my face like he was looking for an answer—to what, though, I had no idea. He broke eye contact and looked at the ground, and at my feet.

“It’s, um, that barefoot running trend I keep hearing about,” I said, and Frank gave me a half smile. “I found Sloane,” I said, all in a rush, to stop myself from saying anything else to him, things I really shouldn’t. “She’s living down in South Carolina.”

“Oh,” Frank said, and I could tell that this wasn’t what he’d expected me to say. He nodded. “That’s good, right?”

“I need to go there,” I said, still speaking fast, like I might be able to rush past whether this was actually a good idea or not. “I want to find her. But my parents are gone for the weekend and they took both of the cars.” Frank just looked at me, waiting for me to go on, and I knew I probably wasn’t making much sense. I took a breath before asking, realizing that he very probably would say no, and then not only would I not be going to find Sloane, but I would have made a fool of myself to boot. But I was standing barefoot in his driveway to ask him this—there was nothing to do but say it. “Would you be willing to drive me? I’d ask to borrow your car, but I can’t drive a stick shift.”