“I’m clocking out now that you’re here. See you later?” Steve posed the statement as a question. Was he expecting an answer? Why would he see me later? It was a stupid thing to ask. But sixteen-year-olds weren’t known for their brilliance.

I didn’t say anything. I hopped up on the stool; pulled out the magazine I had left under the counter yesterday and popped a stick of Juicy Fruit into my mouth.

“Okay…see ya,” Steve said, a last ditch effort for my attention. I ignored him.

He finally left and I was alone in the empty store.

After a few minutes, boredom started to kick in and I began to wander the aisles, alphabetizing soup cans and making crazy designs with the boxes of pasta. That occupied about twenty minutes of my time.

Six more hours to go.

I grabbed a soda and a bag of pretzels and returned to my station behind the counter. I watched the security monitor from the camera trained on the alleyway behind the building.

It amused me how many dumb asses didn’t realize a camera was there. It was better than reality television. I filled my mouth with pretzels and watched as a guy and a girl started getting it on by the dumpsters.

I could think of better places to have sex than beside rotting garbage, but to each their own. It was a good thing there wasn’t sound, because it would have gotten down right  p**n ographic.

I turned away from the screen and started flipping through my magazine again. I pulled out a leaflet I had stashed in the back and smoothed out the creases.

Black River Community College was emblazoned on the front in a fancy, swirly font. The brochure was shiny, with bright colors, and pretty photographs meant to catch the eye. Smiling students on manicured lawns under a sunny sky.

It was all a bunch of bullshit. I had been over to the BRCC campus several times, mostly out of curiosity, and it looked nothing like the glossy pictures in front of me. It was pretty, don’t get me wrong, but it was a far cry from the perfection they were trying to peddle.

I had picked up the pamphlet from where it had been displayed at the free clinic. I had given my friend, Dania, a ride for her monthly prenatal checkup. It had been sitting there, lost in the pile of information about healthy eating and STDs.

But I found it anyway. And then my mind wouldn’t stop thinking about the pages full of minute details. The website address. The phone number. Just a mouse click away from a whole new life.

The thought of college was appealing. I had never let myself think about it before. I hadn’t even been able to graduate from high school. I had earned my GED while wasting away in Juvenile Detention until I was eighteen.

A girl with a rap sheet and no prospects was not exactly bright, shiny future material.

But I had allowed myself to pick up the brochure and slip it into my purse. And there it had stayed, burning a hole in my subconscious.

Until a few days later I had caved to my delusional thinking and made a phone call that could very well change the trajectory of my world. I had set up an appointment to go down to the college and talk about my options. After I had hung up I had felt sick, convinced that I had made a horrific mistake.

Because now my mind was occupied with possibilities.

If I wasn’t careful, I just might make myself start thinking that I had a chance. And that was a scary sort of insanity for a girl like me.

The bell droned miserably as the door swung open. I heard a tittering laugh and a guy’s unintelligible whispers.

“I knew you’d be here.” I looked up to see the two people who had been f**king like rabbits in the alleyway only moments before. My best friend Dania Blevins, wearing a tight belly shirt that exposed her growing baby bump, was wrapped around a random guy I only vaguely recognized as a regular at our regular hangout, The Woolly Mammoth Bar and Grill, a few streets over.

Dania picked up a few bags of chips and shoved them into her bag. “Take whatever,” she said to the guy, who swiped a chocolate bar and a pack of gum, which he looked like he desperately needed.

“You gonna pay for that?” I asked, knowing it was useless to ask.

“Ells, you are the funniest chick I know,” she chortled, opening the freezer and pulling out a Creamsicle.

I took the ice cream wrapper from her outstretched hand and threw it in the waste bin behind me. I would have to remember to put some money in the register to cover her sticky fingers before closing up tonight.

“Craig and I are heading down to Woolly’s. You wanna meet us there when you’re done?” Dania asked, slurping on her ice cream and giving Craig a lascivious look.

I shrugged, not wanting to admit that I couldn’t stomach another night watching her knock back shots of Jaeger, while she rested her hand on her swollen stomach. She was four months pregnant. She knew she was having a little boy. But it didn’t change her lifestyle one bit.

Sure the pregnancy had been an accident, caused by Dania’s promiscuity and lack of family planning, but that didn’t excuse her selfishness. She joked that she had been raised Catholic and subscribed to the pull out method as a form of birth control.

Obviously that had worked out really well for her.

So now she was twenty-two years old, set to give birth in five months, and still smoking like a chimney and drinking like a fish. And if I tried to say anything, she’d chew me a new ass**le. And she did it in a way that was vicious and cruel and usually very, very public.

But Dania was my oldest friend. We had been in the same foster home for two year before I had gone to juvie.

We had hated each other on sight. But that had ended when we realized that protecting each other from our pervy foster dad was more important than any dislike we had shared.