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Setting my backpack on the floor at my feet, I let my knees splay to either side I’ve rolled h crease Thenot to look at et what I'm after

"If you didn't do it for me,” I ask, “then who'd you do it for?"

"An old friend” He turns the fan systeaze flickers to h

Noe're in business

I unzip e of beef jerky He shakes his head when I offer hiroceries So nice, that I couldn’t pass up the chance to expedite round beef, or when I said he didn’t have to pay for roceries I’d already slipped a bunch of food and supplies into ot there The pile on the counter was just a decoy to frustrate the clerk so she’d be glad to get rid of me

For the record, I don’t like stealing But sometimes you have to do what’s necessary to survive I just happen to be really good at it For that, I can thank my ex-boyfriend, Brody

The nice man’s truck smells like stale coffee and new leather, and the lack of dust and stains ht be new That, or he’s one of those anal types who likes to keep their cars spotless But judging by his messy hair and five o’clock shadow, I don’t think that’s the case

When I first saw his like tering pines, messy blond hair, and a chiseled jaw, he looked like no one I’d ever seen in real life Dressed in khakis and a pale, blue button-down, he could’ve been any corporate stooge, but soavehis hands dirty, I thought I bet his bosses don’t even realize they’ve let a lumberjack into the boardroom

From thehostage It was alaze held the power to reach insidethem out one by one—here’s the time you took fifty bucks from your ling drugs across the state border And who can forget the day your boyfriend conned you into staging a robbery at the bank you worked for?

The same day he shot your father

I had just graduated froh school a feeeks before it happened Une at ht constantly about everything, fro hos, but I didn’t tell her that; h My dad stuck up for ed, supposedly But I was tired of being treated like a problem child

I wanted towith his cousin in a one-bedrooot a job as a bank teller at a branch nearwas barely enough to cover a third of what landlords in our area were asking for Then Brody got the idea that we should just rob the bank, since I knehere all the ca it would take for the cops to reach us

I didn’t want to do it, and I told him so

Brody said we’d be stupid not to take advantage of a golden opportunity Once we had the money, we could move anywhere, he’d said Anyway, he reed to him, which meant I had to do whatever he said That’s hoith us He tried to get me to call hiht Not for Brody Considering what happened next, I’rateful the title never stuck

Theof the robbery, my hands shook so bad, I spilled a quart of milk all over th