No matter how many times Max had bought vape products from the gas station across from the parkway on-ramp, his stomach still got fluttery on the way there. When he U-locked his bike wheel to its frame by the side of the building, his fingertips tingled with nervous energy.
The little store was empty except for the South Asian–looking middle-aged guy who perched on the tall stool behind the register whenever he wasn’t out pumping gas. Before approaching the counter, Max selected a protein bar. It always felt more legit to buy at least one non-vape item, too.
He put the bar down on the rubber mat beside the cash register.
The guy slid off his stool. “Three.”
“Can I, uh, get a Juul, too?”
“What flavor?”
“Not the pods—the device.”
The guy turned to the shelf behind him, selected one of the thin white boxes, and set it down next to the protein bar.
“Thirty-three.”
Ouch!
Max suspected he was getting price-gouged. But considering that he was underage, it seemed unwise to try to haggle. He handed over his birthday fifty.
“Got smaller?”
Max shook his head. “Sorry.”
The guy pulled out the register drawer and counted Max’s change.
Mission accomplished.
He stuck the protein bar in his back pocket and went outside. As he walked to his bike, he set to work on the Juul box’s sealing sticker, picking at it with a fingernail until it yielded. Then he slid out the plastic tray and extracted the device.
Even before he inserted the pod he’d brought along, a sense of well-being settled over him. All his nervousness was gone. So was the brain itch of nicotine deprivation that had started to plague him over the past hour. Anticipating the hit was almost as pleasurable as the hit itself.
But the battery light wasn’t going on.
The Juul didn’t work.
It was brand-new.
And it doesn’t work?
WHAT THE FU—
No. Wait. It just needs charging.
Max stilled the panic rising in his gut with the memory of his first Juul purchase a year ago. It hadn’t worked out of the box that time, either. All he had to do was go home and charge it, and everything would be fine.
He was two blocks away from the gas station when the flaw in that logic revealed itself: as long as the power was out, he couldn’t charge the Juul. For the rest of the long uphill ride home, only the slim hope that he might be able to animate the device with a portable phone charger—assuming he could find one back at home—kept him from either screaming at the top of his lungs or bursting into tears.
Life was just not fair at all.