Robbers

seven

// seven //

        Ella didn’t sleep much that Thursday night, and during her classes on Friday, she couldn’t seem to focus on a single word her teachers were saying. All she could think about was what would be happening later that evening with Ryan Hunter.

        She didn’t see Ryan in school that day. Ella had been picking through her salad during lunch and looked up to see if she could spot him, but there was an empty seat beside Brett Anderson where Ryan usually sat. When she exited the school building after the final bell had rung, Ryan’s truck was absent from the parking lot.

        It was only when Ella returned home that she considered something might be wrong. She had assumed Ryan had simply skipped, but maybe he wasn’t feeling well and had stayed home from school? Or maybe he had changed his mind about tonight?

        Ella had holed herself up in her bedroom just minutes after Talia dropped her off, but the anxiety was growing and she knew she needed to make sure everything was okay. After a long moment of internal debate, Ella dug her phone out from the depths of her leather backpack to send Ryan a message.

        Ella: hey are we still on for tonight? did you skip school

        She clicked off the screen of her phone and chewed on her bottom lip, forcing herself to lie down on the bed. She desperately wanted to pace along the pale blue carpet in order to fight back the growing paranoia, but she needed to convince herself that nothing was wrong. There was no reason to worry.

        And there wasn’t, because her phone vibrated with a message from Ryan just ten minutes after she’d sent the first. Ella rolled over and nervously opened it, her golden-brown hair tangling against the pillow in her haste.

        Ryan: yeah i just skipped again

        Ryan: of course we’re on, i’ll see you at 8

        As she exhaled quietly and placed her phone back in the charging dock on the bedside table, Ella tried to untangle the pit of nerves that was still formed in her stomach. Nothing was wrong, everything was fine and she had no reason to feel so anxious.

        Of course, Ella knew it must be normal to feel so nervous about the fact that, in less than five hours, she would be helping Ryan steal money from a family who lived just twenty minutes away. If she thought about it for more than a few moments, Ella felt certain she would be sick.

        So she did everything she could to distract herself until 8. Ella attempted to read, splayed out on her white duvet cover, but she eventually had to toss the paperback to the side in frustration at her inability to focus. She ate dinner in silence while the rest of her family conversed animatedly, and afterwards she attempted to watch TV with Rosie. Somehow, her younger sister didn’t seem to notice the way Ella’s eyes stared blankly at the glowing screen without truly seeing it for well over an hour.

        When 7:45 finally rolled around, Ella felt no more prepared than she had five hours ago. She tugged on a black jacket with nervous butterflies in her chest, the nasty kind that made her stomach curdle and her palms sweaty. She had told her parents she was going to Mindy’s house with a couple other friends to watch a film, and she’d had to cancel Nina’s movie night plans with the lame excuse that she needed to babysit Rosie. She had texted Nina this several hours ago with no response, but that was the least of Ella’s concerns.

        The entire drive over to Ryan’s house was spent with Ella on the edge of the driver’s seat, her hands clutching the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. Her palms were so clammy that she was worried they would slip off the grey leather and send the car veering off the road. The idea of running into a tree instead of reaching Ryan’s house was beginning to sound very promising; Ella couldn’t push away the regret in her belly for offering to help him. What had possessed her to think she was actually capable of doing this?