Page 51 of Electricity

I had dinner on the table by the time my mother woke up. She scratched herself like a bear coming out of hibernation and grabbed a beer on her way to the table. We were eating tuna casserole tonight and she helped herself to the cheesiest corner.

“I have tonight off. I think we should do something fun.”

Allie and I looked at one another. “Like…what?”

Hey beautiful.

My phone was in my pocket and after all the crass messages I’d gotten, Darius’s stuck out like a diamond.

Hey yourself

I texted back, while pretending to pay attention to the conversation at hand.

You’d better be using your thumbs.

I am

I lied.

“Can we go to the movies?” Allie asked, bouncing.

Things get better?

Yes and no.

You were supposed to let me know if they didn’t stop.

I didn’t want to bug you.

“Too expensive. We could rent one on the TV though. Jessie?”

I looked around. “Sure. Why not?”

“I want to pick!” Allie declared.

My mother made a face. “I don’t think so?—”

It wouldn’t be bugging.

I’m your sidekick, remember?

Heh. I do. What’re you up to tonight then?

Trying on tights?

And what if I was?

I’m out at highway 13. You?

“Mom. Mom. Mom—please. Please.” Allie was pressing her luck, since our mom appeared to be in a good mood.

Sitting at the dinner table. Listening to my sister attempt to get my mom to rent the latest Spongebob.

What’s on Highway 13?

Nothing, currently. Bruce was supposed to meet me here ten minutes ago.

Bruce. Ugh.

Why?

“Everyone else has already seen it but me, Mom. Pleeeeeasseee?”

You know why.

To sell him pot. I sighed.

“See? Jessie doesn’t want to see it, either,” my mother said, pointing to me. Allie looked at me like I’d betrayed her.

“No—I’ll watch whatever you two decide on,” I said, waving my fork between them.

My mom gave me a look for not taking the adult side. There was absolutely no winning tonight.

Have fun doing that then

I texted back to Darius slowly.

Always do

He texted back, cavalier.

“Maybe I can pick this time, and you all can pick next time?” Allie suggested.

“Maybe the person paying should get to pick all the times,” my mother said, a little stern. Allie folded in on herself a little, and I tried to think of something to defuse them both when I got a string of curse words in my phone—from Darius.

Shit shit shit shit shit.

I was texting back What???? when his next message came through.

The cops are here.

Oh my God.

If they search my car, Jessie?—

I pushed my chair away from the table and ran to the back of the trailer.

I slid into my mother’s room and reached under her bed for the laptop—it was where I’d left it. I grabbed it and ran for the bathroom and locked the door.

“Jessie?” Allie was already outside. “Are you okay?”

I sat on the toilet and opened the laptop. “Yeah! Just—upset to my stomach is all!” I reached over to run the water in the sink as the laptop booted. “Come on, come on, come on.”

It turned on—I felt it connect—and then I fell into the lightning place like I was on a water-slide of light.

Our net joined the router joined the cable joined the fiber, in bigger and bigger rings, becoming bigger than myself, feeling myself peel into ten, a hundred, a thousand different directions, fractals of connectivity, matching the marks on my back, spreading outwards searching for something, anything, that’d attract all the police in town.

Redson’s Bank. Where Sarah’s Dad worked.

I assaulted it. Everything on the inside was under lock and key—under shining walls I couldn’t get through—but it was nothing to flip all the external warning switches electronically.

I simultaneously hit the theft alarm, the fire alarm, and emailed an anonymous bomb threat.

I instantly heard-felt-saw the call to action go out to all the local police.

“Jessica?” My mother’s voice came through the door. “What’s going on?”

I closed the laptop and flushed the toilet as I opened up the cabinet under the sink and shoved the laptop back behind the extra rolls of toilet paper.

“I’m fine!” I promised as I stood, turning off the faucet and unlocking the door. My mother looked me up and down.

“You had better not be pregnant.”

The rest of dinner was incredibly awkward.

I didn’t know what was going on with Darius and I didn’t dare text him, I didn’t want his phone lighting up in an officer’s hand.

I’d done what I could—and I was pretty sure that everything I had done was illegal.

Sure enough, I saw a ‘mysterious system error’ being reported on the evening news, alongside a video of people running out of the bank building, drenched by sprinklers.

Then my mother changed the channel and Allie got her wish, the latest Spongebob came on.

I lay down on the floor in front of the TV and tried to pretend that everything was okay and that I wasn’t scared.

Halfway through the first act, I got another text that wasn’t obscene.

Hey.

Hey.

Is it really you?

I texted back, instantaneously. My heart thudded in my chest again.

It’s me.

What happened?

Just as I was regretting all my life choices and the cop was ten feet away, he got a call on his shoulder-radio. He told me to stay there, and then drove off.

Did you stay?

Hell no. I went home as fast as I could and cleaned up.

Everything.

I wondered how he’d done that—if he’d flushed it all, or taken it outside to quickly burn while praying he was downwind from everyone. I could hardly ask him via text though, not when he had a target on his back.

Good.

How did you….

Watch the news?

No.

I tried to figure out what I could safely claim.

I created a distraction.

Three fast texts, in quick succession:

You

Are

Awesome.

I flushed with satisfaction. My sister laughed at some antic on the screen and I faked a laugh too for her sake, then tried to ignore the heated way my mother was watching me.

But…

he texted, with a long line of periods after it, and it felt like the world was falling away from me again, despite the fact that I was laying on the floor, and the next series of texts he sent didn’t make it any better.

That was close.

I mean they set a trap for me, Jessie. They endangered my livelihood. There’s no way I can do that anymore. Ever again. When Mason said what he said at prom, I didn’t think it’d come to this so quickly.

It was all I could do not to bitterly laugh. I texted:

Welcome to my world,

Heh.

Now that I’m on their radar though—everything I’ve ever hoped for—all my dreams of saving up to go back home?—

I could’ve gone to jail.

They threatened everything.

I bit my lips not to cry out. I’d been getting nothing but threats for forty-eight hours. But I’d chosen that for myself. If Darius didn’t want to stand by my side, I couldn’t shame him into it. Tears started welling at the corners of my eyes and I couldn’t blink them away fast enough.

What are you saying?

I texted back, as my sister laughed in the background.

I don’t know yet.

I just need some time.

So much for being off pause.

Sure. I understand

I texted, even though I didn’t want to.

I’ll get a ride from Lacey tomorrow.

I waited the entire rest of the movie for him to text me back after that. He didn’t.