No Exit by Taylor Adams 2

Darby scooted her chair out and stood up on quivering
knees. Ed and Ashley glanced up at her. This was her chance,
her thirty-second window to sneak outside and confirm the
unthinkable. Her phone in her hand, she moved to the front
door, her lungs swelling with held breath — but on the way
she surprised herself. She did something utterly illogical.
She approached the second carafe, labeled COCO, and
quickly refilled her eight-ounce Styrofoam cup. She didn’t
even like hot chocolate.
But kids do. Right?
She heard a urinal flush. Lars was coming back.
Hurrying now, she sipped the warm drink while she
crossed back to the front doorway, and tugged the door open,
aware that Ashley was still watching her. “Yo, Darbs, where
are you going?”
Darbs. She hadn’t been called that since fifth grade.
“Trying again to get a cell signal. My mom’s got
pancreatic cancer and she’s in a hospital in Provo.” Without
giving Ashley time to respond, she stepped outside into the
howling storm, flinching against a wall of bone-chilling air,
and recalled an offhand little saying she’d heard once from her
mother: The easiest lies to tell are the true ones.