What I had loved most about the farm—what was my comfort, my solace, my companions this last year alone—had been the stars in the big sky.

I had seen eclipses, a comet, too many shooting stars to count. I went outside whenever I had had a fight with Mama, or Lobo had gotten violent again. Whenever I had grown tired of the lies: the smell on my clothes; having to check my hair for stems; having to keep my coat in a sealed garbage bag outside the front door to try to keep the scent off; the money buried in the yard, everything in cash, always in cash, cash only—and where did it all go? Not to me and Mama. To plants and fertilizer and soil and pest sprays. To guns. To breaking even. To drinks and other drugs. To Lobo. We had money buried in the yard like squirrels, and yet, my coat was safety-pinned together. I had reduced lunch at school until I graduated.

Whenever I felt as if I couldn’t breathe, like this secret life was strangling me, I went outside, even in the dead of winter—or what we called winter then. I went to the back porch Lobo had built out of railroad ties and wood he never treated, wood that was going to rot, and I looked up. I breathed in the sky. I felt my lungs opening in the air. I stared.

So many more stars than I could see in town. They steadied me, even as I saw that they were not steady. If I sat out on the porch long enough, I had learned, I would see a shooting star. It was only a matter of timing, of luck. Stars fell all the time. I don’t remember what my wishes were. Just for my life to be different, to be my own.

And now it was.

I saw no stars from the bed of the truck. Only white. White skies coming down. White skies endlessly. The snow clouds blocked everything, all the stars, even the moon’s dull beat.

I looked back at the men. They were watching, waiting for me. It was the first time I realized they would do this. They would do this a lot. “We’re leaving,” I told them. “We’re leaving as soon as possible.”

“We?” Grayson said. He looked hopeful and worried, his body hunched as he stood by the bed of the truck, favoring his good leg.

I didn’t want to drive to California alone. I had been alone for so long.

“Why do you want to go to California with me?” I asked him.

“Wil,” he said. “Why not?”

Dance looked at Grayson, then at me. “Where are you going?”

“California. Arcata. Wherever that is. My mama is there. I can drop you off at home, or at the hospital, if you think you need to go there and get checked out.”