After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, I muster the courage to say (no matter how much my mind is against it) "I promise I won’t tell Shane."

"I know."

I close my eyes again as she leans her head on my shoulder. Why does this ***** have to be so complicated? I just need a clear answer with at least one of the many problems in my ***** life. Just one. Maybe with one problem solved I can solve another and another until they all go away. Maybe I should start with the problem of finding a solution to my problems.

"Jenny."

I open my eyes, breathe in heavily and look at Carmen. The concerned look is back. "Yeah?"

"What were you thinking about?"

I shrug. "Nothing really. I just–" I look ahead and see a dark figure walking briskly down the block. That uneasy feeling intensifies. I see Carmen follow my gaze. She doesn’t seem as threatened.

"What?"

My heart begins to beat rapidly as we approach the shadowed figure, and it skips a beat when it stops to look at us. Then, it changes its course and starts right for us. "*****." I mutter, feeling Carmen’s grip tighten around my arm. I see it reach behind its back.

*****…we’re going to get robbed.

"Hey." It calls out and I realize it’s a man. No, not a man…a boy. A boy barely into his late adolescent years. We both freeze. I can feel Carmen’s pulse through my arm. As he steps into the illumination of the street lamp, I can look at him from bottom to top, starting with his black converse sneakers to his overly tight black denim jeans to the black hoodie covered in punk and metal band patches. Some seem like iron-on, others are attached with safety pins. I look at his face, but it’s so shrouded by the oversized hood that all I can make out is the barely-there stubble on his chin. It’s a shocking black against pale white skin, but a natural black.

Then he pulls out the gun.

Carmen lets out an involuntary frightened moan and grips on to my arm so tightly that I’m sure it’s cutting off circulation. What a weird feeling it is, the feeling of having a gun waved in your face. It’s now that I realize what the theory behind living moment to moment actually is. Any moment can be the last. The black metal glistens in the lamplight, shaking, as if it were too heavy to carry.