Double Edge | WATTYS 2023 SHORTLIST + AMBYS 2023 WINNER

Chapter 04

August 7th, 2019

Brenda sat in the corner of my mom's living room. A toddler cuddled on her lap. My daughter. My pride and joy. The oxygen attached to her nose kept her breathing. I needed her to. If I didn't get my hands on two hundred thousand, I wouldn't have much longer.

Watching Brenda hugging Maggie tightly, I leaned against the opened door. The screen was shut in front of me to keep the flies out, but I watched my family through the mesh. What else could I do?

A fist gently punched my arm. I looked down at pale knuckles before meeting the hazel eyes that'd been impatiently peering at me for over an hour.

I blinked. "What, Ruben?"

"You really going to think hard about this? It's gon' be easy money." Ruben slid his hands over his combed-back hair. He pressed a few loose strands flat against his head.

I chewed on my tongue. "I mean..." What could I say? There was no such thing as 'easy money.' When Brenda got pregnant, I decided I couldn't stay in high school; I needed a job to care for them. But cashiering at Slim's store didn't bring much. Neither did hustling. We struggled—a lot. And with Maggie sick, I was at my wit's end. I couldn't lose my baby. No.

"He's right." Mark was next to Ruben. He'd been sitting there listening, nodding to every detail of Ruben's plan. But it wasn't Ruben's, was it? It belonged to the other dude on my porch. Someone I'd never met before. They introduced him, sure, but all I got was his name. Tommy. One of those 'friend of a friend' types of people, I couldn't trust new people.

I looked at Tommy, with his blonde hair and blue eyes, and frowned before turning to my friends. My school friends. And Mark, my best friend. I wanted to believe they had my best interests at heart but. "You came over, with my moms in the house, to talk about robbing people. A bank of all places. You know how much fuckin' time you get if you're caught?"

Ruben shrugged. "We won't get caught."

I gritted my teeth. "At a bank? This ain't the movies. Banks are serious shit. A small store, sure, but a fuckin' federal facility type shit?"

Ruben sighed. He pressed his fingers to his temple. "Bro, you won't get shit at a store. But you can get what you need for Maggie." There he went again. The guilt. He was using my needs against me. The money I'd get would help my daughter. Save her, and I'd have her with me forever. But if we got caught? It was over.

"Look, I can see your face. It's scary, yeah, but we need this. You need it more than we do." Mark nodded, folding his arms over his chest. "Besides, Tommy already cased it. It isn't even a big bank. We'll be in and out in under ten minutes."

I looked at Tommy. He nodded but nothing else. The entire time this guy had been on my mama's porch, he hadn't said a word. Why so serious?

"Look," I turned back to my friends, "just let me sleep on it."

***

Ruben sidestepped away from the door. It worked in my favor. I shut the curtain over the closed sign with him out of the way—no reason to let someone look inside.

"Hey, Gio." Ruben lifted his hands as he chuckled nervously. His face reddened. His elbow bumped into a shelf filled with synthetic oil; one rolled off and dropped to the floor.

When I looked at him and smiled, he jumped and accidentally kicked the can further down the small aisle. "Hey, man," he continued, voice trembling, "how have you been?"