Lauren

The air was fresh and spring-like. Racing through her short hair, back and forth on her head. It was a little uncomfortable. Sometimes she missed her ponytail.

She was at the food bank. Volunteering gave her a small amount of purpose in her life, two days a week. It gave her some small value in her own world while she tried to stand on her own two feet again since her time in prison.

Now that the dining room was ancient history. While Lauren was jailed,d her grandmother had passed away, holidays split apart across the family, and she found that no one was actually in touch with each other. It made her think of how much time had really passed. Ten years. She sped around the corner that hugged Miner’s pond. Sunlight streamed through her sunroof, darting across her eyes.

Steven wanted to talk about everything. Everything. The diner sprang up in the distance, and she eased off the gas pedal. There were only a few cars there, but one was surely Steven. She saw him sitting and smoking his vile cigarette in the driver’s seat. She stood motionless, almost unable to move towards him. Maybe it was a bad idea. Then he turned his head and gave a small wave.

“Baby!” exclaimed Steven.

The diner door chimed when Lauren stepped inside, but the sound soon felt far away. The place smelled like burnt coffee and fryer oil; the vinyl booths were cracked along the edges. A waitress glanced up, then back down at the order pad.

Steven was in the corner booth, back to the wall, cigarette already put out in the ashtray he’d dragged in from outside. He’d lined up the sugar packets in a neat little row.

“Baby,” he said again, softer this time, as she approached.

“Don’t call me that.” Lauren slid into the booth across from him. The vinyl squeaked under her weight.

He gave a crooked smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “You look good.”

“Prison diet,” she said. “Highly recommend it.”

He flinched, just barely. “You want coffee? I can—” He half‑lifted his hand, then dropped it. “Still take it black?”

“I can order.”

They sat in a small, brittle silence until the waitress wandered over. Lauren ordered coffee. Steven ordered nothing. When the waitress left, Lauren stared at the condensation ring under his empty water glass.

“You said it was important,” she said. “So say it.”

Steven rubbed his thumb along the edge of the table, tracing an old gouge in the laminate. “Ten years,” he murmured. “Can you believe that? Feels like… like a bad week I can’t wake from.”

“It was longer,” she said. “Every day counts when you’re inside.”

He swallowed. “I know you hate me.”

“The first true thing you’ve said so far.”

He let that pass. His knee bounced under the table, rattled the spoon in its saucer. “I need you to hear me out. Just once. Then if you want to walk... I won’t follow. I swear.”

The coffee arrived. Lauren wrapped her hands around the mug, letting the heat sink into her fingers. “Talk, Steven.”

He watched her for a moment, as if trying to find the version of her he remembered. “What we had—before everything—it was real. You know that, right?”

She stared into the swirl of cheap coffee. “You didn’t ask me here to reminisce.”

He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “The last ten years… I wish we could just wipe them out. Start clean. You and you, like we were. None of this—” he made a vague gesture that seemed to encompass her record, his face, the whole town—“none of this hanging over my head.”

His jaw tightened. “I know it’s been hard.”

“You have no idea.”

He took a breath, let it outslowlyw. “I’m trying to fix it. That’s why I called you.”

Lauren lifted her eyes to him for the first time. They were flat, tired. “You can’t fix ten years.”

“Maybe not,” he said. “But I can fix what’s coming.”

Something in his tone made the hairs at the back of her neck rise. “What’s coming?”

He hesitated, then said, “I’m in trouble.”

She laughed once, a sharp, humorless sound. “Color me shocked.”

“This isn’t… this isn’t the usual, Laur.” His fingers shook as he reached for the ashtray, then thought better of it. “I owe people. Real people. Not some guy I can duck or some bill collector I can ignore. I messed up.”

“With the coke,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

He blinked. “You heard.”

“Small town,” she said. “Besides, your cousin tried to sell me a barstool story about how you ‘got clean for the kids.’ I knew that was bullshit before she finished her sentence.”

He winced. “I tried. I really did. But… it got away from me. And then I started selling just to stay ahead of what I was using, and then—” He stopped, pressing his fingers to his eyes. “It doesn’t matter how. Point is, I owe. A lot.”

Her stomach turned. “How much?”

He named a number quietly, and Lauren went very still.

“Jesus, Steven.”

“They gave me a deadline,” he said. “And they’re not the kind of guys who send reminders. They’re the kind who send… examples.” His voice dropped on the last word.

She thought of his kids—faces she’d only seen in photos, sticky with popsicle, grinning over birthday cakes. “And your wife?”

“Rachel’s had it.” His mouth twisted. “She says one more cop, at the door and she’s gone. She’s already packing boxes. If I don’t pay this back, I lose them. Or they lose me. Either way, it’s over.”

Lauren leaned back, the vinyl creaking. “So you drag me out here to tell me your life is a mess. I could have guessed that from the parking lot, Steven.”

“It’s not just that.” His gaze locked onto hers, desperate. “I have a way out. For both of us.”

Her fingers tightened around the mug. “No.”

“You haven’t even heard it.”

“I don’t need to. If it involves you, it’s bad.”

He shook his head quickly. “It’s one thing. One job. And then we’re clear. I can pay them off, get square, get clean, keep my kids. You get a cut that actually means something. You hate that apartment you’re in? You could walk away from it. Start over somewhere they don’t look at you like you’re a mugshot come to life.”

The word job hung between them like a bad smell.

Lauren’s voice was almost a whisper. “What did you do, Steven?”

He licked his lips. “T outs a bank. Out by Route 6. Friday mornings, they get a cash shipment. No guard, just a driver and two tellers inside. Cameras are ancient. Place is a joke.”

Lauren stared at him. It took a second for the meaning to land. When it did, heat rushed up her neck. “No.”

He rushed on, words tumbling over each other. “Listen, listen—this isn’t like before. I’ve got it mapped. In and out in three minutes. Nobody gets hurt. We take;hat we need; we’re gone. You disappear, I disappear. They don’t even look at you again because you already did your time, right? They’ll be looking for someone else. It’s perfect.”

Her chair scraped hard against the floor as she shifted back. The sound made the waitress glance over; Lauren forced herself to sit still.

“You’re insane,” she said softly.

“It’s just money, Laur.” His voice dropped, urgent. “It’s sitting there. It’s not anyone’s rent or groceries yet. It’s just numbers in a vault waiting to move. We take it before it becomes real for anybody. You know how this works.”

“I know exactly how this works.” Her hands were trembling now. She put them in her lap so he wouldn’t see. “I go along with one of your brilliant ideas, and when it blows up, I’m the one in handcuffs.”

He flinched again, guilt flashing across his face. “That’s not fair.”

She looked at him, really looked at him. The lines around his mouth, the thinness at his temples, the twitch in his jaw. “Isn’t it?”

“Lauren—”

“You set me up,” she said, voice low and even. “Ten years ago. At the store.”

His mouth opened, closed. “It wasn’t like that.”

“How was it, then?” she asked. “Because from where I’m sitting, you picked the night. You picked the place. You gave me the hoodie. You told me the cameras were shit. And when the cops came, they had my face, my record, your hoodie, and a bunch of cash in my drawer. You were nowhere.”

He dragged a hand down his face. “I was scared.”

“You were smart,” she corrected. “You knew if we both went down, nobody would be around to say it was all me. So you stayed away. Let the tape do the work.”

His eyes shone, whether from tears or nerves she couldn’t tell. “I thought… I thought they’d give you probation. I didn’t know the DA was gonna—”

“Stop.” The word came out sharper than she intended. A couple at the far end of the diner glanced their way; she lowered her voice. “Don’t stand there and tell me what you thought the system would do. You never asked. You never visited. You never even wrote. Ten years, Steven.”

He swallowed hard. “I couldn’t face you.”

“No,” she said. “You didn’t want to watch what you did.”

Silence settled over the table, thick and heavy. Somewhere behind them, a fryer hissed. A baby fussed in another booth.

He spoke first, barely audible. “I’m sorry.”

She stared at him, feeling … nothing. Or maybe too much to name. “Okay.”

“That’s it?” Panic flickered across his face. “I tell you I’m sorry and you just—what—you clock it and move on?”

“What do you want?” she asked. “Tears? A hug? You want me to absolve you so you can pull me into another mess?”

He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a fierce whisper. “I want you to help me. I’m drowning here, Laur. They’re not going to give me another week. I don’t do this, I’m done. I disappear in some ditch or some headline. And my kids grow up thinking I walked out on them.”

Her throat tightened. “You’re asking me to risk going back. For you.”

“I’m asking you to remember who we were,” he said. “Before all of this. Remember the guy who picked you up for school at six a.m. because you didn’t want to walk in the snow. The guy who worked doubles so you could buy books for that stupid community college English class. The guy who—”

“The guy who turned me into a felon,” she cut in. “Don’t forget that part.”

He sat back, as if she’d hit him. “I’m still that guy underneath,” he said quietly. “I screwed up. I kept screwing up. But I’m still the one who loves you.”

She laughed, a thin, exhausted sound. “You don’t love me. You love that I’m useful.”

“That’s not true.” His voice shook now. “If it was anyone else, I wouldn’t be here. You’re the only one I trust to keep their head. You’re the only one who knows how this stuff works and won’t panic and—”

“Take the fall?” she supplied.

He slammed his palm lightly against the table, the sugar packets jumping. “I would never let that happen again.”

“You ‘let’ it happen the first time.” She shook her head. “That’s the problem. You think any of this was an accident.”

He opened his mouth, then shut it. His shoulders sagged.

“For what it’s worth,” he said hoarsely, “I wake up every night seeing you in that orange jumpsuit. Every night. I hear the cell door in my head. I hear you crying. I see your mom at the trial. I carry it.”

“Good,” she said. “You should.”

He stared at the table. When he spoke again, his voice was almost steady. “If I don’t do this, they come for me. Maybe for my family. You get that, right? You know the kind of guys I’m talking about.”

She did. She’d heard enough stories in the yard.

“And if I do it alone,” he continued, “I’ll screw it up. I know I will. I’m not… I’m not sharp anymore. I jumpy. I forget things. I panic. You were always the one who kept us calm.”

“Us,” she repeated softly. “Like we were some kind of team.”

He met her eyes. “We were. We could be again. One last time. Take the money. Walk away. No more owing anybody anything."

“Do you know what it’s like,” she said slowly, “to stand in your grandmother’s dining room after ten years and realize nobody called each other anymore because it hurt too much to say my name?”

He frowned, thrown by the sideways turn. “What does that have to do with…”

“She died while I was locked up,” Lauren went on, as if he hadn’t spoken. “I missed her funeral. I missed every Thanksgiving. Every stupid argument over the last roll. My mom aged ten years in one Christmas. They look at me now and they don’t know what to say. Half of them think I did it. The other half are just… tired.”

Her voice wavered, then steadied again. “You’re asking me to throw away whatever tiny scrap of normal I have left. The food bank. My little apartment. The way Milly still looks at me like I’m not a stranger. You want me to burn all that down for your debt.”

“It’s not just my debt,” he said. “You think you’re free, but you’re not. They’ll always see you as what you were charged with. This is a chance to be more than that. To have something to show for what you already paid.”

“Paid?” She blinked at him. “You think I want a payout for prison?”

“I think you deserve something,” he said stubbornly. “You lost ten years. Take something back.”

She sat there, feeling the low, constant hum of fear in her chest, the way it had settled there since the day they’d closed the cell door behind her. He was dangling escape in front of her like a set of keys.

The waitress drifted over again, glanced between them, and topped off Lauren’s coffee without a word.

When she left, Lauren spoke, very quietly. “Tell me the truth.”

Steven stilled. “About what?”

“About the store,” she said. “Say it. Out loud. I need to hear it.”

He stared at her, then down at his hands. When he finally spoke, the words were ragged. “I picked the night. I told you it’d be empty. I said the cameras didn’t work. I—” His throat worked. “I knew if anything went wrong, they’d see you. I made sure I was never on the tape. I knew if somebody had to take the hit, it would be you.”

Her eyes burned, but she didn’t look away.

“I told myself you were tough,” he whispered. “That you’d handle it better than me. That you’d… survive. I told myself I’d make it right someday.”

“And this,” she said, “this is you making it right? Dragging me into a bank?”

“It’s me trying not to die,” he said. “And yeah, trying to give you a shot at something bigger than stocking shelves forever.”

She let that sit between them. The hum of the diner filled the spaces his words left.

Finally, she said, “I’m not doing it.”

He stared at her like he hadn’t heard correctly. “What?”

“I’m not helping you rob a bank.” Her voice was low but firm. “I’m not going back. I won’t even stand across the street and watch. I am done being the one who pays for your bad ideas.”

His face went pale. “You don’t understand. If you walk away—”

“If I walk away, you deal with your own mess for once.”

He shook his head, panic rising. “Lauren, please. I’m begging you. I’m dead without you. They’ll come after me, and if they can’t find me, they’ll look for my family. You know they will.”

“You should have thought about that before you started using again,” she said softly. “Before you started selling. Before you put me in that hoodie?”

“Please,” he whispered. “Just… think about it. I’m meeting them tomorrow night. If I don’t have a plan—”

“You had ten years to think about what you did to me,” she said. “I think that’s enough time for both of us.”

They stared at each other, the world of the diner narrowing down to the space between their eyes.

He sagged back in his seat, eyes glassy. For a moment, he looked like a boy again—scared, cornered, small.

“I never stopped loving you,” he said. It sounded less like a confession and more like a last card he didn’t believe in.

Lauren stood slowly. Her legs felt unsteady, but they held. She dug a few crumpled bills from her pocket and laid them beside the coffee cup.

“I stopped,” she said.

He flinched as if she’d slapped him.

She turned to go, paused, hand on the edge of the booth. Without looking back, she said, “If you have any sense left, you’ll run. Take your kids and disappear. But whatever you do, you do it without me.”

The door chimed again as she stepped out into the pale afternoon. Sunlight flashed off the diner’s windows, briefly blinding her. She walked to her car without looking back at Steven’s, every step heavy and strangely light at once. Steven sat very still.