Page 2 of This Might Hurt

JUDE

I rap my knuckles against the solid oak door twice, then slap it, like the stomp-stomp-clap at the beginning of “We Will Rock You”. No one answers the secret code, so I do it again.

The third time, Mom opens her door down the hall and leans out in the goofy silk nightcap that’s supposed to make her hair look younger. “What on earth are you doing, Jude? You’re going to wake the whole neighborhood.”

“Sorry.” I couldn’t possibly sound less sorry.

She watches me sidle toward my room, then shakes her head and disappears.

As soon as she’s gone, I run back to Lena’s door, throw it open, and slip inside.

The constantly shifting light of a pink lava lamp ripples over the walls, highlighting her favorite posters ranging from K-Pop bands to historical female scientists.

The small lump of blankets shaped like my sister doesn’t move as I nudge the door shut behind me. “You’re not asleep, fart face.”

After a long pause, she rolls onto her back and crosses her arms at the ceiling. “Snot sucker. I’m never talking to you again.”

“I know I did a bad thing,” I offer solemnly, even though I’m still unclear on what important tweenage rule I broke. “I came to say sorry.”

Her eyebrows pull into a frown as she watches me connect my phone to the Bluetooth speaker on her desk without asking for permission to touch her stuff. I think she’ll forgive me this one time.

“You don’t get it,” she whimpers, twisting onto her front and burying her face in her pillow. “You told Gracie and Quinn I got my jeans from the thrift store instead of American Eagle. You’re so clueless. I can’t wait until you go to college and I don’t have to look at your stinky face anymore.”

I want to laugh, but I can tell from her voice that she’s been crying. When people hear that we were born six years apart, they expect us to fight all the time. In reality, we can’t stand to see each other sad for longer than an hour. “I’ll never do it again, butt nugget.”

She pulls the collar of her sleep shirt up over her head so she looks like a giant purple tie-dye turtle. “You’ll just do something worse next time. I can’t believe Mom makes you drive us to the mall. You’re such a big, mean…”

When the opening notes of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” burst out of the speaker, she thrashes free of the shirt and gawks tearfully at me, her blonde hair frizzing in every direction.

I spread my bare toes in her thick rug, prop my fists on my hips, and start popping my ass back and forth like the nice tutorial lady on YouTube showed me.

Her bright gold-brown eyes, so much like mine, go wide.

I keep tripping on her charging cords and sketchbooks as I shimmy around, watching her toothy grin widen one moment at a time, that fucking sunrise I live for every day.

When I get to the part where I have to do an awkward splits and stand up all sexy with my ass out, she squeals and collapses on her side, giggling hysterically with her hand clamped over her mouth so Mom doesn’t hear.

My face hurts from trying not to crack up. The way she pounds her heels against the mattress in pure delight gets me through to the final pose, where I cock my head and raise my eyebrows at her with a flourish.

“Oh my GOD.” Scrabbling through the pillows for her phone, she holds it up like a camera. “Again! Again!” she chirps demandingly, wild with glee. “Everyone’s gonna die when they see this.”

And even though she’s already forgiven me, I do the whole dance over again, just as good, so she and her annoying little friends can laugh at me forever.

“‘Cause if you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it, woah-oh—fuck.” I squint at my cracked fingernail, then stick it in my mouth to suck away the blood as I keep humming. This can’t be the right way to unload a gun—clawing live rounds out of the magazine one at a time back into the ammo box—but it’s all I have time for.

I pop the last two bullets out with my thumb and shove the ammo into my backpack. I loaded the gun last night when I had to sleep in a terrifying rest stop bathroom, but I should just throw this shit away. What the hell am I going to do with a loaded gun? Shoot someone? That’s fucking insane.

A little kid shrieks at the front of the building, and another one starts to cry loudly.

“I bought that for you both to share,” some guy pleads.

Three car doors slam, followed by the weak engine of that red minivan I scouted a few minutes ago fading away to nothing.

If I close my eyes, I can picture the service station parking lot; all that’s left is the snazzy little BMW by the dumpster.

It makes me antsy to go in without knowing where the owner is, but I’m out of time and there’s no such thing as perfect.

Rolling down my black knit ski mask, I sling my backpack on my shoulder and pick up the empty Glock.

As I circle the building, I double-check the camera dangling upside down from the roof by one frayed cable.

I bet the security system in this place has been out for so long that everyone’s forgotten about fixing it.

When I reach the front, I pause and study the exit ramp from the interstate as it shimmers in the blistering heat.

Earlier, I used my phone stopwatch to calculate that it takes two minutes to get from the highway to the gas pumps—the minimum time I have to finish before some random guy wanders in looking for a slushie.

Okay.

Closing my eyes, I count my fast but steady heartbeats. One, two, three, four. I reach out into the dark. This time, I find the last day I saw her—nurses pushing us out of the way, bleach searing my nose, her eyes wide with terror in her torn-up face. I love you.

A sluggish cover of “Country Roads” drifts out as I nudge the stiff glass door partway open and crane my neck to see inside. Nothing except a thin man with a gray beard sitting on a stool behind the counter, staring at nothing.

I’ve been so fucking hot all day, but the air conditioning in here instantly gives me goosebumps.

I pause between a cardboard display of sunflower seeds and a rack of Twinkies and wait a little awkwardly for him to look at me.

After a few seconds, he starts to turn his head.

“Can I—” When his eyes catch on the gun and the ski mask, they go huge and his whole body freezes up.

“Hi.” I gesture with the Glock, since pointing it at him seems over the top. “I need you to open the register and put all the cash in a plastic bag. You have those, right? They’re not banned here? Paper would be okay too.”

He stares at me with his mouth open, his craggy face pale. I raise my eyebrows and waggle the gun, because we can’t really move on until he answers. The vintage Gulf Gasoline clock on the wall counts the seconds with a soft ticking.

“We, um—Yeah, we have bags,” he stammers. He seems unsure whether he’s scared, annoyed, or just confused. I get it, but I can’t let him swing all over the place. We need to focus.

He raises his hands as I walk up to the counter and tap my pistol on that little card that tells you what birthday is old enough to buy alcohol. This one is like six years out of date. “Put the cash in a bag. Then you’re gonna open the safe for me, slowly, so I can see your hands.”

“I don’t have the safe code,” he protests uneasily as he pokes keys on the register with one hand and keeps the other in the air. The drawer flies open, but from this angle I can’t see how full it is. “We empty it every morning, so there’s nothing in it right now.”

I tilt my head at him. “Liar.”

He starts aggressively shoveling cash out of the drawer and stuffing it in a thin plastic bag with Thank you for coming!

on the side over a red smiley face. “I guess you should shoot me then,” he snaps.

His hands are shaking, and I can see huge sweat stains in the armpits of his yellow polo. “That’ll definitely help me remember.”

When I snort, he looks at me like I’m crazy. It’s just a relief to see someone besides me doing such pointless, desperate things that don’t matter. “Do you think Big Oil is gonna give you an award at your funeral?”

I didn’t mean to scare him that much, but he cowers back against the wall and almost drops the bag. “Please—”

Based on the relentless clock over his head, my safe window of time has come and gone.

But flailing around in a panic never gets anything done faster.

I knock on the counter. “Stay with me, man. Put your phone and wallet in the bag, and set it here. Throw in a couple of packs of Luckies, too. Then give me your keys.”

By the time I figure out which key locks the supply closet behind him, I can tell he’s shifting from scared to mad. That’s my fault. I make a mental note for next time that I need to be more decisive and finish this shit fast, before they get a chance to think.

I rectify my mistake by leveling the barrel at his chest as I hop over the counter and crowd him toward the closet door.

“Get in. Hurry up.” There’s no way he’ll be in here longer than an hour, but I throw in a bag of nuts and a plastic water bottle he was keeping behind the register before I slam the door.

Setting the gun down, I wrestle with the unruly bundle of keys.

Why does any person need twenty-four fucking keys to anything?

And a rabbit’s foot, which clearly didn’t work for him, and a tag that says I Love Wyoming, which has to be a lie because no one loves Wyoming.

By the time I get the door locked, my adrenaline and frustration at his stupid keychains are running so hot that I can’t breathe properly.

I yank off the ski mask and shove it in my pocket, gasping in relief as the cool air soothes my cheeks.

Country Roads is already stuck in my head like a hamster on a wheel as I spin around.

I freeze. “Fuck.”

Very, very slowly, I pick up the gun. The black composite grip is disgustingly warm and sweaty now.