I should have listened to my counselor.

She kept telling me that hanging out with the wrong crowd was going to get me in trouble. And here I am, sitting in my two-decade old convertible with a missing side-view mirror and a jammed window, perpetually stuck in a halfway position while parked outside the old “Dine N’ Find” convenience store.

The scorching summer heat hovered directly over my front window. Felt like an ant getting fried underneath a magnifying lens. I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand, only smearing the sweat across my skin instead of drying it off. Exhausted, I clicked the AC button on my dashboard.

Of course it was broken.

My heart was racing. I drummed my finger against the frayed covering of my steering wheel, all while trying my best to not look suspicious. I kept staring into the window of the convenience store, but the tinted windows stopped me from seeing what was going on inside.

“Hurry up,” I said to myself as I swayed my head from side to side, trying to make it look like I was singing along to the radio. A couple of pedestrians walked between my car and the front of the store. I knew they weren’t thinking of me, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that they could blow the entire operation.

Rick had the brilliant idea to rob this place. He knew the manager pretty closely. The old man always took a lunch at two in the afternoon. Lazy bastard left the door to his office unlocked, even leaving the safe in plain sight whenever he stepped out.

My pal told me it would only take three minutes at most. But I took another glance at my watch. It had been four since he entered.

The second it reached five minutes, I was leaving. My eyes were glued to my phone, watching the timer tick towards 2:05. The second hand just passed fifty.

Then my worst fear came true; a single gunshot rang out.

Rick told me that the gun wasn’t loaded. Lying bastard. I pulled the stick into reverse and started to back out of the lot until Rick came running out with a black pistol in one hand and a plastic bag in the other. He pulled off his ski mask and revealed his crimson face, streaming with tears.

“Where are you going?” he shouted at the top of his lungs, almost like he wanted to grab everyone’s attention in the area. For some reason, I just froze. My foot slammed on the brakes, making the entire car shake.

The hand holding the bag fumbled for the handle before yanking it open. Rick then scrambled inside, his gun pointing all over the place.

“What did you do?” I yelled as I stomped on the pedal as hard as I could. I kept my eyes on the rearview mirror, staring at the terrified customers by the gas pump. Some poor mother was freaking out, holding onto her kid as she hid both of them behind a pillar.

“Just drive!”

Rick dug through the bag on the ground but kept the pistol clutched tight. He buried his face in the palm of his hand as he sobbed. Right before turning out the parking lot, I peeked at the bag on the floor of my car. A couple of hundreds and a candy bar spilled out onto the mat.

A knot formed in my stomach. I almost hurled all over my dashboard.

All this. For nothing.

“Why aren’t you driving, dude?” Rick shoved me in the shoulder. I snapped back into reality and looked through the front window. The light was green and the turn up ahead clear. “There are witnesses everywhere!”

“Because you were screaming at the top of your lungs!” I shouted back as my foot slammed on the accelerator. My engine roared as we darted into traffic; I made the driver coming through the turn almost spin out with how fast I pulled out. “Now the police are gonna be on us!”

“Just keep driving!” Rick’s voice turned low as he continued to cry all while clutching his gun tight in his hand. “We can’t get caught!”

“Running is only going to make things worse for us,” I replied, lowering my tone to sound less confrontational. Rick was an unstable guy. Never understood why I ever hung out with him looking back. The dude made me a good fake ID during senior year, so I guess I stuck around because of that, but hanging out with a career criminal wasn’t the best idea in hindsight.

“You’ve been to jail, Rick. You know much harder things get if you try to flee!”

“That was jail, man! Jail!” He almost snapped. He looked at me with bright crimson eyes. I only looked at his face for a moment, more concerned with the angle of his handgun. “Prison is a whole different story, dude. My uncle went in and he never made it out. All sorts of sick stuff happens in there.” He started hyperventilating as he looked out the side window.

“I know, I know.” I couldn’t focus on the road. I slowed down because if I went any faster, I probably would have rear-ended the pickup truck in front of me. “But you picked the worst place to rob, man. You go there all the time. People know you. The manager knew you. It’s only a matter of time before the cops put the pieces together and come knocking on your parents’ door.”

“I’m not going to prison.” His voice turned serious as he fervently shook his head. “Not doing it. Promised my mom that.”

“Rick!” I shouted with my eyes focused on the upcoming turn. I kept my composure for long enough so that I made it around the bend without running over the curb. Just a straight line across the bridge and we’d be back in our neighborhood. “You’re not thinking straight, man!” I took one hand off the steering wheel to tap my forehead. “Use your brain, dude! They’ll be coming for you. For us! I’m gonna get in trouble just for having you in the car! Think of—”

I made the mistake of looking at Rick. There was a look of pure fury on his face. “That’s the real reason you want to go back, right?” he yelled, his face now covered in tears. “You’re trying to sell me out to save your own skin!”

“I’m trying to save both of us! There’s no point in running when it’s just going to make things worse!”

Police sirens went off. I saw the red and blue lights flashing in my rearview mirror. Rick kept his gun pointing forward as he turned his back to look out the rear window. “Oh no...” he groaned.

I kept my eyes staring at the rearview mirror. They were coming for us. The sirens were getting louder and I saw the squad cars closing in right behind us. I put my foot on the brakes and started turning towards the emergency lane.

“What? What are you doing?” Rick looked at me dead in the eyes.

“I’m pulling over!”

“Oh man, oh man, oh man...” Rick started hyperventilating, his gun flailing about. “I’m not going to prison dude. I told you, Conrad!”

“I know what I’m doing! Trust me, it’ll be best for both of us.”

I reached for the gearshift only to have the cold metal of Rick’s gun touch the back of my hand. My entire froze with my foot still resting on the accelerator. I gazed back into Rick’s eyes. There was fear. There was anger. There was sorrow.

“Keep driving.” He didn’t yell. He said as calmly as possible. As I looked towards the road, I saw Rick point the gun at my head.

My heart stopped. My skin was coated in a thin layer of sweat. But even with the threat of lead piercing my brain, I kept the car cruising so that the police could catch up.

“Pick up the pace!” Rick raised his voice and put the gun closer to my head. “I can’t go to prison!”

I couldn’t stop the tears from streaming. I stomped on the accelerator. The car jerked forward again and my life flashed before my eyes. I thought the sudden motion would have made Rick squeeze the trigger, but I was still breathing when I opened my eyes again.

“Y-you’re crazy, Rick. You know that? Absolutely insane!”

Rick didn’t respond. He reached over with his other hand and took hold of the wheel and veered the car back into traffic.

“You’re gonna get us killed! And someone else!” I wrestled with him for control, turning the car back into our own lane while moving my foot over the brakes. I guess the officer behind us didn’t appreciate my sudden change in acceleration because a blunt force hit the rear of my vehicle and jerked us forward.

The car plowed through the railing, leaving us teetering over the edge of the bridge. Rick and me both leaned forward and stared out the front window; waves crashed against the pillar that kept us elevated what felt like hundreds of feet in the air.

Instead of arguing with each other, we both just yelled. At the top of our lungs. My car slowly leaned forward, tottering closer towards the deep blue below. I wanted to climb out the car, but the side door was over the water, meaning that one step would send me into the high tide.

Rick freaked out. He unbuckled his seatbelt and climbed over his chair towards the back of the car. For the first time in his life, he had the right idea. I fumbled around with my seatbelt, but in my panic, I couldn’t press the button right. By the time I got a firm grip on the belt, it was too late. My car turned completely vertical and we plummeted towards the ocean.

The fall was in slow motion. Felt like we were in the air for an hour. The last thing I remember was water crashing through the windshield and spewing shards of glass everywhere. Despite the blunt force to my face, everything felt... peaceful.

The sudden rush of cool water over my body was relaxing, almost pleasant.

I closed my eyes and enjoyed the summer ocean once last time.