Page 1 of Wanted

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I'm recording everything that happens in the very likely scenario that my whole plan goes to shit and all that's left to tell the story is this journal. If you're reading this, I'm probably dead, and it's too late to do anything about any of it now. But, at least, you'll know the truth. And I won't hold back. I won't try to make myself look better than I am. I have no delusions about myself.

I began the day stealing from a department store and ended with lying to my new boss.

I'm no saint, but I'm far from the worst that exists. No, there are much worse specimens of humanity than me. They're the ones to be afraid of and the kind I'm trying to get awayfrom. But I don't think it's going to work.

After all, nothing in my life has ever worked.

I'm not trying to wallow in self-pity. I’m just being honest. Some lives shine with a kind of preternatural luck that follows them around. Others live under a perpetual storm cloud.

My life is the latter.

But who knows, maybe the weather is turning in my favor for once.

You never know, right?

* * *

Steala little and they'll jail your ass, steal a lot and they'll make you queen. It's a Bob Dylan quote with my personal spin on a few of the words. And it's all I could think about as I walked casually through the exit of the department store with new as-yet-paid-for dress and shoes shoved into my oversized purse.

It was only a borrow. I'll return them tomorrow.

However, stores generally frown on you taking their shit without paying, so I schooled my face into a bored housewife expression and causally browsed a few items lining the back of the store on my way out.

Why do they put shit past the checkout stands? You don't pass them when you come in, only when you go out, and by then you've already paid. What's the point?

Fortunately for me, the store alarm didn't go off. No one tried to stop me. In fact, one of the employees nodded his head in my direction with a smile as I left. "Have a nice day," he said with a wink. "And come back again soon."

He looked college-aged, with a sweet grin and kind brown eyes.

"Thanks," I said blandly, not giving into the temptation to flirt back.

He was cute and it could have been fun, but he looked too innocent to handle the skeletons piling up in my closet. And by the time this blistering summer is over, there will be more.

I sighed deeply once I was safely in my beaten-up old car, doors closed and locked, air conditioning drying the sweat dotting my skin.

I studied my hands gripping the steering wheel as they shook, my fingernails bitten down to stumps, my cuticles in need of some serious TLC. You'd think this was my first time stealing, the way my heart fluttered in my chest like a hummingbird on crack.

Closing my eyes, I steadied myself with a few deep breaths.

A sharp knock on the window startled me back to the present and scared the living hell out of me.

It was the cute store guy.

Jesus.

I rolled down my window and put on my best 'polite but I'm in a hurry' smile. "Is something wrong?"

If I got caught, I'd be ruined, and I wouldn't be the only one to suffer.

He held up a cell phone. "I think you left this in the store?"

With a relieved sigh, I took it from him, feeling twice the idiot. How could I be so stupid? "Thank you. It must've fallen from my purse."

This time, my smile was one hundred percent genuine. Losing my phone would have been Bad-with-a-capital-B.

He glanced inside my car, towards said purse, but fortunately, I’d zipped it shut, the stolen items safely tucked out of sight.

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