April Henry - The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die

At the Dollar Store, Ty buys two ugly pairs of men’s mesh track pants, one for me and one for him. Back at the library, we go into the men’s bathroom—me a little nervously, but it’s empty—wearing jeans and come out wearing track pants. No one looks at us twice. As we walk outside, we stuff our jeans into my backpack, which already holds the framed photo and the gun.

Our next stop is Bend’s Fast Fitness. The floor-to-ceiling windows facing the street show rows of ellipticals, bikes, and stairclimbers. But there are no windows in the back, which overlooks a nearly full parking lot. After making sure no one is watching, we hide our skateboards and the backpack under a bush. Ty’s worried about losing the skateboards, especially the one that belongs to James. Me? I don’t like letting the framed picture of my family out of my sight. That and Dillow’s gun.

We go back around the corner and inside, where Ty approaches the front desk. He’s still wearing his baseball cap and I’ve got my hoodie pulled up. I can’t see any cameras, but we don’t want to take any chances.

“Two day passes, please.” He pays six bucks cash. I know he doesn’t have much left. We decided it was better to have no money than to leave a trail with an ATM card, so he paid cash for our ugly pants, too.

The workout room has the cardio equipment we saw from outside, plus free weights and a dozen weight machines. A large, wooden honeycomb of open cubbies stands against the far wall. Most of the squares are filled: a jacket in one, a water bottle in another, a sweater and two magazines in the next. From here, it’s hard to tell if any cubby also has a set of keys. But we only need one.

“Once we get inside,” Ty had told me, “I’ll need you to cause a scene. Something that will get everyone in the gym looking at you for at least thirty seconds.”

At first, I considered faking a seizure, but someone might have called 9-1-1. So we came up with Plan B. I go over to the free weights, pick up some ten-pounders, and start doing biceps curls. I cut my eyes sideways at Ty, who’s next to the cubbies. He nods.

I let one of the weights slide from my fingers. The idea was to just miss and fake it, but instead it glances off my little toe.

I scream. “Ow!” Don’t act. Be. I take all the fear and pain I’ve felt in the last twenty-four hours and channel it until I can’t tell where the past leaves off and the present begins. “Ow!” I stretch it out until it’s practically a yodel. Every eye is on me. Even the people on the treadmills watching TV, and the people climbing to nowhere with white earbuds sunk into their ears—even they have turned to watch. I’m hopping around on one foot, yelling, “I think it’s broken! It hurts so bad!” The tears that run down my face are real. As I’m hopping around, I bump into another man doing biceps curls, throwing him off balance. Swearing, he staggers backward.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ty pushing open the door in the back.

“I’m a doctor,” a woman in a pink tracksuit says as she hurries up to me. She has a long, horsey face and kind eyes. “Let me see.”

I hadn’t planned on this. I snap back to me, to the real me who doesn’t have a broken toe. “I think I’m okay.”

“Just take off your shoe and sock and let me see. You could have a crush injury.”

Better do it fast and get it over with. I sit down on a weight bench and pull off my sock and shoe. Around me, people are rolling their eyes at each other.

Her hands are cool on my foot. She presses and prods my little toe, which is tender, but certainly not scream-worthy. “If it’s a fracture, it’s a minor one. We don’t normally cast the metatarsals anyway. You should put ice on it and then rest. If it still hurts tomorrow or if it really swells, ask your parents to take you for an X-ray.” She lifts her head to look at me, at my black hair as short as fur and the faint traces of bruises on my jaw, and her brow creases. “Are you okay?”

A male attendant bustles over with a plastic bag of ice. “Do you need me to call your parents?”

What I need is to get out of here.

I grab the bag of ice. “It’s already feeling better.” As I pull on my sock and shoe, I turn to the doctor, wishing I could tell her everything. Wishing an adult could be in charge. “Thank you.” And then I leave as fast as I can.

Once I’m outside the building, I hurry around the corner, limping a little. Ty is walking fast between two rows of cars. The backpack is slung over one shoulder and the boards are under his arm. In his right hand, he holds a black plastic triangle, car keys dangling underneath. He’s clicking the buttons on the fob. And then he’s answered by a flash of taillights. It’s a maroon Subaru Outback station wagon.

“Quick! Get in,” he says as he yanks open the driver’s-side door handle. “Let’s get out of here before somebody realizes their keys are missing.”

I open the passenger door and lean in. In the back there’s a dark blue car seat, empty except for a green juice box and a stuffed Paddington Bear wearing a yellow slicker and rain hat. Ty tosses the backpack and skateboards next to the car seat.

“Maybe we shouldn’t.” We’re really going to screw up someone’s life.

Ty is already starting the car. “We have to.”

A man dressed in a suit, a gym bag over his shoulder, rounds the corner. When he sees us, his mouth falls open and he just stands there for a second. Then he breaks into a run.

I jump inside and Ty throws the car into reverse.

We accelerate past the Subaru’s owner. His fist bangs on the side of the car, but then he’s gone and Ty is taking a corner so fast I have to brace myself against the dash.

It’s way too late, but now I definitely wish we had found another way.

“See if you can squeeze between the seats and get down in the back,” Ty says, never taking his eyes off the road. He accelerates around a red pickup.

“Why?” But even as I ask the question, I’m already trying to wiggle into the back seat. I turn sideways, but it’s such a tight squeeze between the front seats and then around the car seat that my track pants nearly get left behind. Finally I make it, banging my hip on the car seat in the process. One more bruise to add to the collection. I plop into the space behind the passenger seat.

“They’re looking for two people, not one. And by ‘they,’ I mean both the bad guys and that guy whose car we just stole.” Ty’s head keeps turning as he scans the road behind and before us, threading between cars. But he’s slowed down so that he’s going close to the speed of traffic, probably worried that someone on a cell phone will call 9-1-1 about a speeding car. “We just got lucky this is a Subaru. Unofficial state car of Oregon. We’ll blend right in.”

In order to lie down, I need to move the car seat, which is attached with complicated hooks and latches. But there’s no thought required—my fingers automatically know what to press and pull to get it loose.

It must be because of the little boy in the photo. My brother. My brother who I don’t remember with my stupid brain, but whose presence is still somehow encoded in my body’s memory. Just like driving a car, the memory of how to unhook a car seat has been there all along, tucked away until I need to use it. Will my brain ever decide to give me back any really useful information? I squeeze the car seat over the back seat and into the cargo hold, then follow it with the skateboards and backpack. I curl up on my side with my feet behind Ty.

From this angle, I can see his profile as well as his eyes in the rearview mirror. He’s concentrating so hard on getting us out of here that he doesn’t notice me watching him. To keep my mind off my fear that we’re about to get caught, I take inventory of this guy I’ve known less than a day.