The urge to try to explain myself had been almost overwhelming. I longed to somehow justify my part in the crime, but I could tell by the hatred-filled look on his face that no matter what I said, Cade would never forgive me.
He shouldn’t forgive me, I realized as I parked my car in front of my apartment. What I had done had been inexcusable. My motive had been honorable, but the end hadn’t justified the means. I should have figured out another way to pay for Nana’s nursing home, especially because now I was probably facing significant jail time. Who would take care of Nana while I rotted away in prison?
I had tried to take the easy way out and failed miserably. My waitressing job at the diner barely provided enough funds to pay for my own apartment, so when Nana’s meager savings had dried up, I had been desperate for a way to make some quick cash. I didn’t want to burden my sweet Nana with the worry of where to find the money to pay for her facility, so I had taken matters into my own hands.
I had convinced myself that it was destiny when I overheard the men at one of my tables late last night preparing for the bank stickup. Had it really only been 24 hours ago? It felt like an eternity.
They had promised that no one would get hurt. They just needed a hostage to ensure their escape. It sounded like someone else’s voice when I volunteered to be their planted hostage. I tried to convince myself it was going to be an easy ten grand.
The deal was simple––I would pretend to be their hostage, they would let me go once they were in the clear, and I would walk away with enough cash to pay for Nana’s room and board for a year. During that year, I would find a job that would provide me with enough money to cover both of our living expenses.
Having a lump sum payment like that would solve all of my financial concerns and allow Nana to stay in the nursing home she liked. It seemed like the perfect solution to my problems, until I started feeling cold feet.
After the men left the diner, I changed my mind. I hadn’t thought through the true implications of being involved with a robbery. I had been too blinded by the idea of all that money to be rational. What if someone got hurt? Or killed?!? What if we got caught? What if they decided it was easier to kill me than give me $10,000? It simply wasn’t worth the risk. I wanted out.
As I tossed and turned in bed that night, the reality of the situation I had volunteered for overwhelmed me. I no longer wanted any part of the robbery. It wasn’t right. What had the bank or its employees ever done to deserve being robbed at gunpoint? I could answer that myself. They had done nothing at all to deserve this crime against them.
In the dazzling haze of dreaming about the security that all of that money would bring, I hadn’t considered how wrong it would be to have any part in this holdup. I wanted to back out, but I had no way to contact the criminals. It’s not like we had exchanged digits.
I woke up the next morning after a brief and fitful sleep having decided that I just wouldn’t go to the bank. If they didn’t see their hostage, maybe they wouldn’t go through with the robbery.
As much as I wanted that plan to be solid, I couldn’t keep the niggling fear at bay that they would go through with the robbery and simply take someone else as their hostage. Wouldn’t it then be my fault that person was grabbed? What if they hurt him or her? I wouldn’t be able to live with myself for chickening out.
Unable to stand the thought of an innocent person being taken hostage simply because I was too frightened to show up, I went to the bank. I paced out front for a long time trying to think of what to do.
I considered calling the police to give them an anonymous tip about an impending robbery, but that had been the robbers’ parting warning to me. As they walked out of the diner, the man that seemed to be the leader turned back to seethe through gritted teeth. “If you tell anyone about this, I won’t stop until I make you and yours pay.”
The frightening way he had said it made me believe him. He sounded like pure evil. If he had only been threatening me, I think I would have taken the chance and called the police. After all, he would likely spend some time in prison. I was fairly certain that he had some connections on the outside that would follow through on his threat, but I would have been willing to risk that to not have to go through with my part in this crime.
Since he had added ‘and yours’, I was concerned that he wouldn’t stop until he found and tortured Nana. I simply couldn’t live with that.
Trying to devise another plan as I paced outside the bank, I had almost decided to wave them down and try to stop them before they entered the financial institution. I tried to picture how that would go down. By the time I saw them, they would have their adrenalin pumping and would likely have their guns drawn. The chances of me being able to talk them out of the heist at that point were less than zero. If they made it that far, they were going in.
Not seeing another viable option, I entered the bank a few minutes before our appointed meeting time. I was silently praying that they might back out and not go through with the holdup.
I looked around at the people in the bank, while I waited. These people were parents and children and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and friends to others. They were real people, who did not deserve the traumatic experience that was about to happen to them.
Panic iced my veins as I tried not to think about what I knew was coming. Watching Cade and Cammie sign with each other was the only thing that took my mind off the impending robbery and my shameful part in it.
When the inevitable happened and the criminals stormed the bank, I froze. When they demanded that we get on the ground, my legs gave out from underneath me. The plan had been for me to remain standing so one of the guys could hold me at gunpoint, but when the time came, my legs refused to support me any longer.
It was only when they grabbed Cammie in their panicked need for a stand-in hostage that I found the strength to follow-through on what I had originally agreed to do.
If only I had really stepped in to take the place of the little girl, with no prior knowledge of the heist, I would be the hero that Cade had thought me to be for that brief section of time. We would have rescued each other and could be living out our happily ever after right now.
In reality, my ever after would be spent in prison. It was time to turn myself in.