Charlie was slouched against a gas station pump with his hands in his battered sweatshirt pockets looking like a typical teenage deadbeat with a "fuck you, world" complex. The only inconsistency with his image was the lollipop stick poking out from the right side of his mouth. Behind him was a small, poorly-lit convenience store. Just a few minutes ago, he had decided to use his break to buy a pack of cigarettes: his first one. As he walked in, he saw a box of candy sitting on the register marked 50% off. The low cost wasn't the thing that caught his attention, though. As an employee, Charlie didn't have to pay for it. The candy had appealed to him for an entirely different reason.

At this point the lollipop was making his cheek raw and grainy, so he switched it over to the left side. He was debating on whether or not to purchase the cigarettes once he was done with it. If his mother saw him, she would have gone absolutely nuts: the baggy clothes, the greasy hair, the fact that he had dropped out of school to work at a gas station of all places would have been enough to get him a front row seat to a three hour lecture on the importance of taking care of himself and his future. But Charlie would have listened to every word of that lecture if he could. For 15 years of his life, he had sat through plenty of them, and each one ended with a helpless sigh, a desperate hug, and an offer to eat whatever sweet treat she had made that week. (His favorite were her chocolate crinkle cookies). The memory was enough to make him smile, but it was shortly followed by a grimace from having stretched muscles that hadn't been used in years. Nevertheless, he decided he wouldn't buy the cigarettes. His youth would be preserved for another day.

A red SUV rolled up in front of him. It was a family of four: the father in the driver's seat, the mother in the passenger's seat in deep sleep as it was late and she had been driving for the past 3 hours, and 2 little boys a between the ages of 6 and 8 in the back enjoying the $1 vanilla ice cream cone from McDonald's their dad agreed to buy for them so late at night contingent on the fact that they wouldn't tell their mother. Charlie could feel another smile coming, this time more easily. Just seeing it was enough to make him feel like he was a kid again. He was ready to hop in the car with his parents and his brother and drive to whatever mystery destination his father had spontaneously picked like they did every year before the accident. As the window rolled down, Charlie almost expected to see exactly that, but he knew that was impossible. He scoffed at his imprudence. He filled the car with gas, swiped the man's credit card at the register, and watched the car drive away into the night as he returned to the position he started in: slouched against the gas pump with his hands in his pockets with a slightly soggy lollipop stick in his mouth, wondering if today was the day he would give up on his youth for good.