We ran down the dark drive, giggling quietly the whole way. There was a thrill and a headiness to it, to staging an escape, even a brief one. To doing something that was against the rules, not knowing if we’d get caught or what might happen if we did—but as Jazmyn had said, what could they do to us, anyway?
We flung ourselves into the car waiting at the end of the driveway and shouted “Go, go, go!” at the driver, as though we were making our getaway from a crime. The driver calmly put on his turn signal and looked both ways before slowly pulling out onto the road. He was obviously not feeling the thrill and the headiness that we were. He was just working.
“Where can I take you?” he asked politely.
“You can just drive,” Jazmyn said. “Anywhere is fine.”
His speed dropped even lower. “Where are you trying to go, though?” he asked.
“Nowhere,” Jazmyn replied.
“I can’t drive you if I don’t even know where you’re trying to go,” he pointed out. “Are you trying to go north or south? Can you give me an address to put into the GPS?”
“Oh, for Chrissakes,” Zeke muttered.
“You can take us to any open convenience store,” Kisha told the driver, her voice honey-sweet.
“There’s one at the Shell station that’s twenty-four hours,” the driver replied thoughtfully. “Is that okay? If not, I think there’s one at the Exxon station that might stay open this late, but you might want to give them a call to—”
“The Shell station sounds great,” Kisha said impatiently. “Let’s please go to the Shell station.”
I rolled down my window, letting the breeze of freedom roll through the car in waves. Officially we weren’t trapped at Revibe; we left the house every day for Redemption. But now, for the first time since we’d arrived, we were in control of where we were going. We could tell the driver we wanted to go to the Shell station or the Exxon station or even some other station if we felt like it. The choice was ours! Our destiny fit into our own hands!
When we reached the promised Shell station, Kisha asked the driver to wait outside for a moment while we picked up a few things.
“You know you have to pay by the minute,” the driver told her, his molasses-slow voice sounding concerned for her finances. “Even when you’re not in the car, you’re still getting charged.”
“Yup,” Kisha said, her sweetness by now wearing as thin as ribbon candy. “I know. We’ll only be a second.”
We ran inside, and it was just a crummy, poorly organized gas station convenience store at midnight, but from our excitement, you’d have thought we were on a shopping spree at Bergdorf’s. The tile floor was sticky in spots. One of the overhead fluorescent lights kept flickering. The freezer door didn’t seal shut, so unnecessary blasts of cold air kept emanating from the back of the store. “I love it here!” Jazmyn cried.
We galloped through every aisle, screeching back and forth about the treasures we found. “Cheetos!” Zeke said. “I am getting a bag of Cheetos! Look at this bag of Cheetos, everyone!”
“Make it two bags of Cheetos!” Kisha shrieked back.
I grabbed a bottle of Gatorade, in honor of Mackler. “I am going to score all the honeys with this Gatorade!” I yelled. This didn’t mean anything to anyone, but I was punchy.
Kisha laughed loudly. “You crazy!”
Jazmyn bought a king-size bag of Peanut M&M’s (“Like a king!” she informed us), and Zeke bought a disturbing number of Cheetos, and the two of them ran outside to wait with the car. I paid for my Gatorade and then got distracted reading gossip magazine covers while Kisha asked the cashier for a pack of Marlboros.
“Let me see your ID,” the cashier said.
Kisha pulled out her license and handed it over. The cashier reviewed it carefully, sucking on her teeth. She seemed to decide that everything was in order, because she turned around and pulled a pack of cigarettes off the wall behind her. She put it on the counter, then nodded toward Kisha’s bag and asked, “What’s that?”
“What’s what?” Kisha asked.
“That shiny thing you got in there.”
“This?” Kisha pulled it out. “A pack of gum.”
“You get that here?” the cashier asked.
“No, ma’am,” Kisha replied.
“’Cause if you got it here, you got to pay for it,” the woman told her.
“Yeah, obviously,” Kisha said.
“Don’t you sass me,” the cashier warned. “Now, you gonna look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t just take that gum?”
Kisha opened the pack to show her. “I got this weeks ago. See? I already chewed three pieces.”
The cashier scoffed, as if to say, Any thief knows the trick of doing away with three squares of gum in order to make herself seem innocent.
Kisha put down some bills on the counter to pay for her cigarettes, but the cashier did not immediately take them. She muttered something under her breath, and I couldn’t quite make it out, but it sounded like she’d said, “Oh, I know your type.”
Kisha clearly heard this too, because she replied hotly, “Excuse me? My type? What the hell do you mean, type?”
The cashier pursed her lips and shook her head. “All I’m saying is, we got security cameras everywhere. So if you took that gum, we gonna know it.”
“I didn’t take anything from here, you stupid cow!” Kisha snarled.
Everything froze for a moment. Even the fluorescent light seemed to pause in its flickering as we all took in what Kisha had said. Both her face and the cashier’s wore matching expressions of horror. What was the cashier going to do?
But then I saw a change in Kisha’s eyes. It took her just a moment, but I could practically see her going through the Revibe process. And before the cashier could get in another word, Kisha began her Repentance.
“I’m so sorry,” she told the woman, her tone once again as sweet as syrup. “That was completely out of line. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“You shouldn’t’ve,” the cashier agreed. “I could—”
“I feel terrible,” Kisha plowed on. “I’m a horrible person, and I really regret that you had to suffer because of that. I was wrong, and I’m sorry. And…” I saw her throat muscles working as she swallowed, then managed to spit out, “I’d like to give you an extra two dollars to cover the cost of the gum.”
She threw down two more one-dollar bills.
“That’s a good girl,” the cashier said.
And Kisha walked stiffly out of the store.
I ran after her. “What the hell was that about?” I demanded once we were both outside.
“Nothing,” she said. “That bitch thought I stole a pack of gum.”
“But you didn’t,” I pointed out.
“Yup.”
“So why did you apologize? She should be apologizing to you for being rude and patronizing and—”
“Well, she wasn’t going to do that, was she?” Kisha snapped.
“She didn’t accuse Zeke or Jazmyn or me of stealing anything.”
“I know that,” Kisha said. “God. I hate that woman.”
“Why did—”
“Shut up, Winter,” Kisha barked. “Do you get questioned about stealing shit? I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Get in the goddamn car.”
I shut up.
We got in the car. Kisha slammed her door.
Zeke and Jazmyn were still delighting in our daring escape from Revibe and our brief encounter with the real world. As the car pulled away and got back on the road, they were chattering over each other about how badass we were. “And,” Zeke said triumphantly, “check out what I grabbed while the lady there wasn’t looking.” He moved his sweater aside to show off the six-pack of beer nestled inside of it.
We all stared at it. “You just took that,” I said, to make sure.
“Hell yeah.”
“And the cashier didn’t even notice.”
“Did not bat one single eyelash,” he confirmed, flashing a winning smile of shining white teeth.
“Well,” I said, “screw you, Zeke.” He looked offended, and Jazmyn gasped, but Kisha gave me a very tiny, very tired smile.
Zeke started protesting, but I tuned him out. I leaned my head against the window, and I thought about Kisha and the way that cashier had treated her—treated her, and not the other three of us, because of how she looked.
And I thought about Abe and the way the rest of the group had been talking about him earlier—or not talking about him—because of how he looked.
And I thought about the way people went through life like they had a full handle on everyone else’s deal. How they could know one side of you and be so convinced that there were no more sides to see. Jason was dangerous, Jazmyn was a slut, Emerson was a bimbo, Mackler was a clown, I was evil incarnate, and that was that. Everyone knew.
That girl Jessie, back at the teen shelter, had said, “When I don’t know someone’s deal, I just try to be nice to them.” How had she managed to figure that out when somehow it seemed to elude the rest of us?
To the majority of the world, you are nobody in particular. They will see the color of your skin, or your weight, or your username, or your GPA, or how much money your parents make, and they will look no further. They will explain you immediately, and they will never forgive you.
I thought about all of this as we drove down the Pacific Coast Highway, along the ocean, and back to Revibe. I thought about all the things we don’t say and don’t do because we know that some people wouldn’t like them.
And I thought: I don’t want to shut up.