Let's Get Lost by Adi Alsaid Page A

just like one in Reno, down to the surrounding trees, the streak on the front window. She and Alexis used to stop there to pick up snacks to sneak into movies, back when Alexis had just started to drive and their dad was sick—well, before Alexis met her fiancé, Matt. Skittles and a bag of chips, always.
    â€œI know what you mean,” Leila said. She did that thing where she chewed on the skin between her thumb and forefinger again. “Want anything from inside?”
    â€œI’ll come with you,” Bree responded. She let Leila start walking and then grabbed her duffel bag from the backseat and swung it over her shoulder. They passed a man in his twenties working the credit-card reader at his automated pump. He noticed them walk by, and Bree could almost sense the stupid and insulting pick-up lines in his eyes. She suppressed the urge to throw something at him and entered the convenience store.
    The clerk was tall and sporting a moustache. His build must have once been athletic but was well past its best days. He glanced at them disinterestedly, then went back to watching something on a small TV beside the register.
    Leila led the way to the back of the store, which was made up entirely of coolers shelving beverages. Bree joined her and crossed her arms, then looked back to see if the clerk was still distracted. She unzipped her duffel bag and shifted it over to her right side, where Leila was standing. Then she opened the door to the cooler and quickly but casually placed two bottles of water and a tall can of iced tea into her bag. She closed the cooler door gently and stepped away, crossing her arms again.
    Leila sidestepped closer to Bree, keeping her eyes on the drinks in front of her. Bree noticed that she was quite a bit taller than Leila, maybe five or six inches. She was also thinner from her months on the road. Her skin was darker, worn by the sun, and perhaps not at its cleanest. Leila leaned in toward Bree with a slight grin. “What was that?”
    â€œMy soul’s itchy,” Bree said. “Have you ever shoplifted before?”
    â€œNo, not really.”
    â€œIt sounds stupid, but it’s kind of a thrill.”
    Leila didn’t look too sure, glancing over at the clerk.
    â€œSeizing the day isn’t always about something meaningful,” Bree said, slipping another tea into the bag. “Sometimes it’s just about indulging in stupid whims that make you feel alive.”
    Leila made a why-the-hell-not kind of shrug and moved toward the cooler directly in front of Bree. She opened it, keeping her back toward the clerk, and reached in blindly, pulling out the first thing she got her hand on. She slipped it inside Bree’s bag, and her eyes widened with excitement.
    â€œYou feel it?” Bree asked.
    Leila grinned, then whispered a little too loudly, “Let’s take more!”
    They took a couple of sodas and an energy drink; then Bree grabbed a small bottle of water and kept it in her hand for appearance’s sake. The clerk was oblivious or simply too far gone to care. Keeping their faces as stoic as possible, they moved over to the row of candy bars, which proved to be a little too easy. The chocolate bars fit snugly in the palms of their hands, their wrappers too tight to crinkle. They siphoned off a couple of handfuls anyway, and Bree tucked them into one of her shirts inside the bag.
    They turned the corner, and Bree nearly bumped into the chips display. Now, this was a challenge. The aisle was closest to the clerk, most of it in plain view if he happened to look up. And there was the way chips bags rustled as soon as they were picked up, as if they were setting off an alarm. And somewhere beneath all of that was the memory of her and Alexis in the movie theater all those years ago, trying to extract chips without making noise, their own version of Operation.
    Bree’s bag was heavier than it had been in a long time, its strap pulled down