Blue Ruin

Prologue

If there's one thing literature has taught us, it's that giving into temptation leads to ruin. For mankind, it was a box. For Eve, an apple. For me, it was that iconic, electric blue concoction sold at 7-11.

My mother told me that slurpees were the "devil's drink." Now, of course, I can think of many more appropriate (and accurate) excuses she could have given: It's too expensive. We don't have time. You'll rot your teeth. I just don't want to buy one for you. But instead of reasoning with me, she'd simply made them forbidden.

So, of course, I secretly began to covet.

I vividly remember the first time I consumed one. While mom used the restroom out back, a man with grime under his fingernails and a red bandanna, who'd seen me looking at the slurpee machine, bought one for me. He'd said that I reminded him of his daughter and that she loved slurpees too.

I inhaled it between the ATM and the stainless steel case showcasing rotating lukewarm hotdogs. Like most good things, it hurt a little bit and induced a giddiness that bordered on hysteria. Sharp, icy cold shot to my brain. My limbs began to tingle as my heartbeat sped. I wasn't sure if I liked it, but that didn't matter. I loved it.

As mom reentered the store, I rolled the empty cup under the sanitation wipe and salty nuts isle and shot to my feet.

"Ready?" she asked.

For a moment, I couldn't even move. I feared she could sense what I'd done—that some part of me had irrevocably changed, or that the cup I'd thrown aside because the trash too far away was visible. But she didn't notice anything, so I'd simply nodded and followed her out of the store and that was that.

In stories, those who give into temptation are usually discovered and punished, but that isn't always the worst thing that can happen. Sometimes, getting away with it can lead to a far more devastating flavor of ruin.