I pushed on the gas pedal.

     “See, I told you. It doesn’t work.” I flung my car keys onto the passenger’s seat and jostled the waves of my hair.
     “I believe you.” He smirked at my frustration.
     I narrowed my eyes at him but my sunglasses covered my glare. He had only met me a few times at the gas station and never took me seriously. He was clearly making assumptions about me, my leather gloves, my bright pink scarf, my puffy coat, and my flashy seventeenth birthday present that wouldn’t even drive. I got out of my car, slamming the flaming red door behind me. He stood there, giving me a perplexed look.
     “Why do you always wear those sunglasses?” He questioned me.
     “Excuse me?” I was dumbfounded.
     “You’re not blind, are you?”
     “No, what kind of question is that? What if I were actually blind?”
     “Well, I wanna know. Winter isn’t even over yet. So why do you want to cover up your eyes like that?” He tried to flirt, but all it did was annoy me. I was completely uninterested in answering his pithy questions.
     “Is there a manager or someone that I can talk to?” I was getting sick of the banter and stopped caring about being rude.
     “Yeah, I’ll get my dad for you.” He walked off in his all grey uniform and brown working boots.
     I rolled my eyes at his obnoxious, spiky black hair. The grease that he had clunked on was palpable from where I was standing twenty feet away. Ew. Seriously, he needed a stylist even more than I needed a therapist.
     “Hey, Dad!” I heard him shout as he disappeared behind a curtain that separated the garage from his father’s workroom or office or whatever was back there.
     I had never met his father. I didn’t know he worked here. The only other trips that I made to the gas station were for ordinary reasons– to refill the tank– but I had never come for repair services, so I guess that’s why I had never seen him before. If he was anything like his son, then I would want to keep this a brief pit stop.
     After a couple of moments, the boy strutted back out.
     “He’ll be right with you, Miss.” He teased.
     “Actually, my name is Amelia.” I scoffed.
     “I’m Gunner, pleased to meet you.” He stuck out his hand for me to shake but I didn’t take it.
     Gunner. He sounded like a redneck from Honey Boo Boo’s neighborhood.
     “Playing hard to get now, aren’t you?” He had a wild-eyed look on his face.
     I looked away, dismissively. This little rat was really gutsy. I certainly wasn’t playing anything. I just wanted to get my car fixed as soon as possible. Maybe when I left, I could talk to people I genuinely wanted to be around instead of this bum.
     “You said your father was coming shortly?” I repeated.
     He snickered, “I see how it is.”
     Thank goodness his father walked into the room at that instant.
     “Come on, troublemaker. Quit bugging this nice young lady. There’s someone waiting out front.” He yelled at his son.
     Gunner surprisingly followed orders and dashed outside.
     Now it was me– an impatient seventeen-year-old– and Gunner’s father. I looked at the name tag sewn on his all grey uniform. Blazen. Another unfortunate name. This family had to live with some tragic titles. According to their names, the gas station was clearly a boot camp with those packs of grungy men who rode motorcycles.
     He apologized, “Sorry about my son.”
     “That’s all right.” I didn’t think Blazen seemed too bad after all.
     “Does he bother you like that in school?” He asked.
     “No,” I shook my head. “I don’t go to public school.”
     “And how do you know my son does?” He commented defensively.
     “I don’t, but most people do.” I was slightly embarrassed.
     “Well, you’re right. He does go to the local high school,” he sighed. “So what’s the problem with your car?”
     I realized Blazen was doing the same thing Gunner did, judging me, but he did it in an educational way. I couldn’t really benefit from some immature kid my age, obviously making silent conclusions about me. I felt guilty.
     As Blazen was fixing the car, I changed my perception of him. I didn’t see him the way I saw his son anymore. Even though they looked strikingly similar, they were clearly two different specimens. Blazen was a modest man who made a decent living off of his ability to do good handiwork. His life was most likely satisfactory, which is why he considered himself pretty damned lucky. I thought that was an accurate analysis.
     “This is a great car.” He tried to make conversation.
     “Thanks,” I cracked a smile.
     “It’s new, isn’t it?”
     “Yeah. I got it for my birthday.”
     “How old are you?”
     “Seventeen.”
     “Same age as Gunner. I thought so.” Blazen had a smolder.
     It was almost identical to Gunner’s, but not quite. They both had a mysterious, tough guy vibe, but Blazen was more hardened and wiser. Much wiser. Much older. And that was a good thing. I was so sick of little boys.
     “So what’s wrong with it?” It didn’t seem as if he was doing anything.
     “The gas pedal must be stuck or something.” He shrugged.
     I sighed, “I don’t understand. Why is there a problem? It looks just fine.”
     “A lot of stuff looks just fine when it’s not.” He looked down; he seemed to be staring through the floor.
     I chuckled, “What do you mean by that?”
     “Are you fine?”
     “What?”
     “Are you feeling okay? I mean, you look fine but I don’t know you.”
     I took a deep breath. “I’m actually having a crappy day.”
     “See,” he looked through me. “Just by looking at you, I thought you were fine. But I guess not.”
     I wasn’t having a crappy day. I was just feeling like I had the world strapped to my back because that’s simply how I felt sometimes. My phone buzzed and that was only another reminder. Blazen stopped to check his pockets.
     “No, that was me.” I reached into my coat pocket.
     “Sorry,” he was studying the car, looking it up and down for any signs that something wasn’t right. “This one’s hard to read. I’ll try to push on it again to see if it’ll go.”
     I stepped back a few feet to let him take the wheel as I read the message on my phone. It was from my dad:
     “Hope things are going alright with the car, but you need to come home in time for your math tutor. If you do, then I promise I’ll get you something pretty. Love, Dad.”
     He knew what motivated me. Something pretty. I was getting antsier and antsier to get back. I had thirty minutes. I cracked my neck and sighed.
     Another message. Ugh, couldn’t I catch a break? This one was from Cal:
     “Babe, can’t wait to go to the baseball game tonight. Hope we hit a home run. ;)”
     He tried to be smooth but he just wasn’t. Did I want to “hit a home run”? No. Was I going to? Probably not, but he would keep pushing. We weren’t even going to a baseball game. I was just sneaking over to his house again. Even though we had been dating for almost five months, we never went out in public because we were still in some top secret relationship. He had to keep up his image of not falling for anybody or something. To be honest, it was a little frustrating, but at least he was cute enough to get away with it.
     I got so wrapped up in my own head that I didn’t even realize that Blazen had figured out what was wrong with my car. I looked up and the car had moved ten feet.
     He got out and walked toward me, “Hey, I did it. It was stuck, just like I thought. You’re good now.”
     “Thank you,” I nodded.
     “Are you sure you’re okay?”
     “I look fine, don’t I?”
     “Hey, if you want to stop by some other time to talk, I’m–”
     “Thank you. Bye bye.” I slipped into my car and slammed the door shut.

     What a creep. I was a seventeen-year-old girl. I had a life. Why would I want to talk to him about anything? I had better things to do. I guess little boys are safer to play with when you don’t want to grow up.