I couldn't find Mr. Sanchez's address anywhere so I have to take the money to his store. I had called the hospital and they told me that he was discharged a few days ago in very good condition, so maybe he'll be back to work already. And if not, I'll just give the money to his wife or something.
"I'm not sure if this is a good idea," Sage tells me slowly as she's driving us through no man's land to get us to the next town over where Mr. Sanchez lives. "I think that it's nice that you want to give the money back but are you sure you want to go to that store? Where Robby... you know?"
"I'm sure," I confirm with a nod. "I have to do this before I change my mind. Robby is so pissed at me and I hate it when he's mad at me so I know that if I don't do it right now, I might never do it. And I have to. Robby doesn't deserve this money."
"I know. You're doing the right thing," She agrees with me. "I'm just worried about you is all."
"I'm fine," I promise her. "Well, okay, I'm not in the best shape but I'm doing okay. Robby will get over it, I hope. It sucks because he trusted me with it, you know? And I'm totally blowing his trust."
"You're staying true to yourself though," She reminds me. "Just because Robby is making bad life choices doesn't mean that he gets to drag you down with him. He doesn't get to turn you into a monster just because that's the path that he's chosen. Sorry. I didn't mean to call him a monster but you know what I'm trying to say, right?"
"Yeah, I get it," I nod and I look out the window.
"Anyway, Amber told me that you decided to help her with that mural. She's really excited about it," Sage changes the subject. "She really loves those little kids. She's going to school to be a teacher."
"That's nice," I sigh. Whenever Amber comes up in conversations, I can't help but try to find flaws in her personality because I have yet to figure out why Dex is cheating on her. A nice, caring girl who loves kids and has ambition. I don't get it. I know that I keep saying that it's none of my business but I just don't get it.
"She's a really sweet girl, I think that you'll have a good time creating the mural," Sage informs me. "Oh, and Ty's going to go visit his grandparents in Florida next week so I'm all yours for an entire week. What should we do?"
"I have to work," I remind her. "But other than that, I'm not sure."
"We should go to the pool," She suggests quickly.
"No. You know that I hate going down there," I inform her with a long sigh. The worst thing for a girl with chunky thigh issues is to wear a bathing suit. And if I wear shorts in the pool, I just look like an idiot. Most of the time, I can hide my insecurities with jeans but if I wear shorts in the pool, it's like shouting at everybody 'hey! Guess what? I hate my body!'
"It's so fun though," Sage protests. "And we can get a nice tan while we're there."
"I'm tan enough," I decide. "I'm not going to the pool."
"Alright, we'll find something else to do then," She easily gives up because she knows that I won't budge on this.
"They probably don't want to see me there," I say, not talking about the pool anymore but about the Sanchez family. I met him in the hospital but I didn't tell him who I was. I'm not sure how they will react when I tell them. How does one react to meeting the sister of the man who stabbed you and robbed your store? "The victim and his family, I mean."
"I think that they'll understand that you're just trying to do the right thing," Sage assures me. "And if they don't then you get to keep the money which isn't bad either. How much money is it?"
"I didn't count it."
"It could be a whole shopping spree in there," She says jokingly. "Because if they don't want it back, Robby sure as hell shouldn't get it, so that means that it's yours. Right?"
"I don't know if that's how that works," I laugh at her. I guess if they don't want the money back, I'll see how much it is and then decide what to do with it from there. I'll probably end up just letting Robby use it to get a good lawyer. That way, he can get the best deal possible if he pleads guilty. And hopefully, if the deal is good enough, he really will plead guilty.
"I know that you'll just give the money to Robby if they don't take it," Sage calls me out because she knows me that well. "And I understand that too. He doesn't deserve it but you do deserve to have your brother back as soon as possible."
"I'm not sure that he would want to be back after what happened when I visited him. He was so mad, Sage," I mumble as I recall that horrible day at the jail when I had told him that I was giving back the money. "I wouldn't be surprised if he just stops talking to me for a while. He is a child and you know how they are with their silent treatments."
"He loves you," She reminds me. Buildings start popping up around us from gas stations to a movie theater and I can tell that we're starting to approach the town so it's almost time to woman up and introduce myself to Mr. Sanchez. "He's not going to stop talking to you just because you want to do the right thing. He's upset right now but in the long run, he'll understand."
"I think that you overestimate Robby," I sigh with a small, humorless laugh.
"I think that you underestimate how great you are," Sage quips. "He knows what he'd be missing out on if he stayed mad at you for too long."
I want to believe that she's right, that he won't stay mad at me, but I'm not so confident. He may not forgive me easily for this but I know that I have to do it because if I don't, I know that I will never forgive myself.
I'm still nervous though, still unsure about how they will react when I explain the situation to them. So when we pull up to the front of the store, I'm having a hard time catching my breath.
"You could just leave the box in the store," Sage mentions. "Or I can do it, just put it on the counter and leave. You might get some weird looks but they'll get the money and you won't have to talk to them."
"No, I want to do this," I decide as I take a deep breath and, clutching the tin box of money, I get out of the car. Sage comes with me, following behind as I walk slowly up to the store.
It's an antique shop; in the window, there are tall old lamps that mostly just look dirty and tired with crème colored tassles hanging off of the shades.
When I go inside, the bell rings above my head. The store smells like old people and dust, like the smell of an old book. There's a middle-aged woman behind the counter who smiles at me when I walk in.
With a wide, white toothed grin, the woman asks us, "Hello ladies, is there anything that I can help you find today?"
Sage urges me forward as my fingers hold the tin box so tightly that I worry that it might start to dent. I clear my throat and speak up. "Are you Mrs. Sanchez?"
"Yes," She continues to smile at us but looks a bit thrown off by my question. "How can I help you?"
I sit the tin box on the counter and I suddenly start thinking about where that tin had come from. It'd been hiding under my bed when I was looking for something to put the money in for Robby. It's an old box that once held sugar cookies and when it was empty, I wore it like a hat for an entire week when I was seven. I felt like a warrior.
Then, my mom gave me a handful of slips of blank white paper and told me that I should use the box to hold my dreams. I should write them down and put them in the box so that I wouldn't forget them when I grew older.
Sage clears her throat beside me to urge me to say something when I've went off in my mind for too long. I blink a few times and then I sit the box on the glass counter that also acts as a display case for old jewelry and accessories. "My brother is the man who stabbed your husband. He took this money so I'm giving it back. I'm sorry."
I take off the lid of the tin box and the woman looks at me in bewilderment before she looks down into the box where there's a stack of bills.
"This is the money from the register?" She asks me slowly and then looked up at me. "Why are you bringing it back?"
"He was going to use it to hire an attorney and he doesn't deserve it so here it is," I say to her quietly. I understand that she might have questions but I just want to give her the money and get out of here. There's a smoothie shop down the strip of this shop area that Sage wants to hit before we head back home.
Mrs. Sanchez looks into the box again, her wide dark eyes staring down almost in disbelief. She purses her red lips and then says, "So this is the price of my husband's life," She then looks back up at me. "I don't want this."
"She's just trying to do the right thing," Sage speaks up.
"I understand that, and thank you for the thought. This money has my husband's blood on it now," She informs me as she takes the tin lid of the box and places it back on top, sealing the money from view again. "We don't need it, we don't want it."
"Okay," I'm obviously not going to force her to take the money so I take the box back off of the counter and prepare to leave. "I hope that your husband has a quick recovery."
"Thank you," She responds smoothly.
Sage starts heading for the door with me but we only get about halfway there before Mrs. Sanchez starts speaking again.
"He wanted this," She tells me. I turn back around to see that she's pointing to something in the display case. She's pointing to a silver chain necklace with an emerald pendant. And emerald being my birthstone, I can only imagine that Robby would want that necklace to give to me. "I blocked his way to the display and when he pulled out the knife, Lenny stepped in front of me to protect me."
I wonder how many of the things that Robby has ever given me were stolen. He got me a pair of shoes for my last birthday that I had really wanted. And some expensive charcoals that I had my eye on for Christmas. Does he steal everything that he gets me? How many of my things are illegal, stolen from somebody else?
"It's really beautiful," I tell the woman. If Robby had gotten away with this robbery and he had given me that necklace, I would have loved it. I would have worn it all over the place, barely ever taken it off. "You have a really nice store."
"Thank you," She responds and then I head back toward the door. I look for any signs that there was a struggle here like a pool of blood staining the hardwood or anything like that but I don't see anything. They must have cleaned it all up which makes sense considering the fact that this whole thing happened a few weeks ago now.
So with the tin box of cash still being clutched in my fingers, Sage and I leave the antique store and we walk down the sidewalk to the smoothie shop.
"That wasn't terrible," Sage speaks up first. "How are you feeling?"
"Sick," I mumble in response. "I think that I just want to go home now."
"Yeah, let me just grab this smoothie and we'll head home," She promises me. She gets some tropical blend of fruits in her smoothie and it sounds really good but my stomach feels so twisted right now that if I tried to put anything in my body, I'd just throw it up.
Once we're back in the car, Sage tries to find ways to make me feel better. "It's nice that he was trying to get something for you. He really does care about you so much, you know. He just shows it in these weird, fucked up ways."
"I know," I sigh, leaning my forehead against the window. "I just don't get why he does this. For me? He doesn't do it for me and if he does, that just makes it worse that I'm causing all of this trouble."
"You're not causing anything," She assures me quickly. "Even if he did all of this stupid shit for you, it's still his fault that it's happening. What are you going to do? Blame yourself for just existing? How does that work?"
"I'm not sure."
"Because it doesn't make sense. This is all Robby. He's impulsive," She informs me. "And he can be stupid a lot too. So it's not your fault that your brother makes terrible decisions."
"I guess that you're right," I mumble.
"I know that I am."
When we get back into our town, I ask Sage to drop me off at an intersection near the train station. She doesn't ask any questions, thinking that maybe I just want to walk the rest of the way home to get my head on straight.
"Everything will work out, Yaz," Sage promises me as I'm getting out of the car. "I'll see you tomorrow?"
I nod. "Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow," And then I shut the door and wait for her to drive away before I walk down the block to where the train station is. I remember what she had told me about Dex jumping into a train and making it to Chicago. I'm not running away, I don't think, but I would like to get out of here at least for a little while.
The trains are moving down the tracks but very slowly. They are old cargo trains with carts like platforms, some carts have walls and ceilings too. Some of those carts have their doors open so that if I wanted to, I could just jump up there and go to Chicago.
I put the box of money in my bag. I could use that money to get a hotel or something. Or an apartment, I could stay there forever. What would I be missing out on here? My drunken father and my inmate brother? Sage could come visit me, she could come live with me if she wanted to.
I could get a nice job in the city, I could really do all of this. I just have to jump on the train and all of the pain that this town has caused me will be gone. I could start fresh, nobody would know me at all. They wouldn't know about me or what my brother has done. Everything could be different in Chicago.
I stare at the trains for a long time. They aren't moving quickly, I can just jump into one of the open carts. Take a nap, I'll wake up in a new place.
After staring at the moving trains for so long, I decide to just go with it. I have to get out of here. I start walking and then I'm jogging alongside the train. The platform is higher up than I thought that it would be, it comes to about my waist. I'm not too athletic so I'm not sure if I can do it. I have to try.
Dex did it. He got all the way to Chicago and, for some reason, he came back. I don't know why. Maybe he did it for Amber or Gabby. Maybe he came back just because this is what's normal and as much as people may think that he's fearless, it could have scared him to be somewhere unknown.
It doesn't scare me.
And so I jump.
I scratch my leg on the edge of the cart and I yelp out in the burning pain but I manage to use what little strength I have in my arms to hoist myself all the way into the cart. I watch the land moving past me, it feels like I'm floating in this train car. I have no idea where it's taking me and I don't care. As long as it's not this town, I don't care. I want out.
But then it stops moving.
The land stops floating past me as the train slows to a halt just a few blissful seconds after I'd gotten enough courage to jump on.
What a journey that was.
With my leg now bleeding and the feeling of suffocating in this place, I start to cry. Because deep down, in my heart of hearts, I know that I'm not going anywhere and neither are any of my problems.