Fight For It

1 Jenny Owens ran across the snow covered lawn to her Subaru Legacy hatchback. She pulled the door open and slid inside, reminding herself not to slam the door and wake up the whole street. She turned the key and heard the engine purr to life and immediately cranked the heat on. She blew a deep breath into her hands, trying to warm them while her car was heating up. She peered through the dark to see if her windshield was covered in snow or ice and dared to run her wipers across the surface. The telltale sound of ice scraping made her curse. Jenny reached into her backseat and grabbed her snow brush. She took a deep breath and opened the door again. Jumping back and forth in her sneakers she lectured herself for not wearing boots. And gloves. Shit it was cold outside. Jenny pushed the scraper across her windshield, praying it was working. It would be easier if she could turn on a light, but she promised her parents she wouldn’t. And she didn’t want to wake them up. They already weren’t happy she was going out at 3 am. When Jenny didn’t feel anymore resistance of ice scraping off she jumped back into her car and slammed the door behind her. “s**t,” she said aloud. She sat silently, looking at the house. When no lights came on she figured she was safe and started to back out of the driveway. Once on the road Jenny turned her headlights on and steered south. She passed by her sister, Lizzy Greenwood’s, house and her boss, Cat Hawkins’s, house as she left the neighborhood. Jenny loved her hometown of River Pointe, New York. When she graduated college she didn’t hesitate about moving home from Syracuse. But almost a year later she wondered if she should have been more willing to branch out. Jenny drove down the streets she learned to drive on. The roads that were as familiar to her as her own home. But she’d been feeling restless lately. It didn’t help that her parents were forcing her to live by their rules instead of treating her like the twenty-three year old woman she was. Her boyfriend, Matt Hampton, wasn’t helping matters either. Since she’d moved back home she’d only seen him a handful of times. He was finishing up grad school in the spring, but he hadn’t talked about their future. Jenny kept telling herself they would be together when he was out of school, but Matt hadn’t actually said that. Jenny finally made it out of River Pointe and onto the road to Niagara Falls. It was quiet, as she expected. She knew there wouldn’t be many people out, but the stores would be busy. They always were on Black Friday. Jenny ran through her list in her head. She didn’t have that many people to buy for, but since she was staying with her parents she also didn’t have many expenses. She wanted to spoil her niece and nephew for Christmas. At eight years old and sixteen months they were fun to shop for. Jenny also added her parents, Lizzy and her husband, Aaron, to her list. Plus, her boss, and Lizzy’s best friend, Cat, Cat’s husband, Ryder, and his daughter Kylie. Cat was pregnant and Jenny wanted to get something great for the baby. Then she thought about Matt, of course. He promised to visit her for Christmas. Her parents always left right after Christmas for Florida until the spring so Jenny was alone. It was the perfect time for Matt to visit. Jenny also wanted to get something for her best friend, Erika Grey, and maybe even something for herself. Her mental tally said it would be twelve people plus whatever she found for herself. She knew shopping on Black Friday would be a great way to load up on great gifts and not end up broke. Jenny merged onto the expressway to work toward Niagara Falls Boulevard. Her first stop was going to be Kohl’s, followed by Target, and then maybe Best Buy if she hadn’t found anything for Matt at the other stores. Maybe Aaron and Ryder too. Jenny sang along with the radio, pretending she was Katy Perry. She was psyched Cat had given her the day off so she could shop, but she still wished someone was going to meet her there. She tried, but no one wanted to go out shopping. Not that she blamed them. Usually Jenny avoided Black Friday like the plague, but she felt it was something she had to do once. Even if she hated it. The deserted road swallowed up Jenny’s lights as she drove. She checked that she’d locked the doors and kept her eyes scanning the road for deer. As she got closer and closer to her exit she finally felt herself relaxing. Soon she’d be surrounded by a bunch of people and wouldn’t worry about the roads or the darkness. “s**t! s**t, s**t, s**t!” Jenny screamed into the empty space around her. She fought the wheel and righted her car, careening wildly across the road. Her tires gripped the icy road and finally began to slow. She muscled the car over to the side of the road, panicking. Her heart pounded in her chest, trying to escape and run from the wreckage she was sure her car had become in those few seconds. Jenny released her white-knuckled hands from the steering wheel and forced herself to breath. She looked around inside the car and realized not much was out of place. Her purse sat on the seat next to her like it was asking her, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ The radio pounded in the background and the heat still blasted through her car. It couldn’t be that bad. Jenny checked the road for lights coming toward her. She was swamped in darkness so she pulled the handle and stepped into the night, cell phone in hand. She activated her flashlight app and started making a tour of her car. Anxiety gripped her as she tried to think of the possible scenarios that would have sent her car flying wildly across the road. And the noise. The boom. What caused that? When she got to the front passenger side she saw it. Her beloved Subaru Legacy Hatchback sunk into the frozen ground on the side of the road. And it wasn’t because of the soft ground. Her tire was flat. And not just flat, but completely pancaked. Jenny kicked it. Now what? she wondered. Walking back around her car Jenny climbed into the driver’s seat and locked her doors. “This is the last time I will ever go shopping on Black Friday,” she mumbled to herself. Jenny scrolled through her contact list and tried to figure out who she could call. Lizzy would be sleeping, like everyone else. She knew her sister would come, or send Aaron, but Jenny didn’t want to risk waking up the kids. Cat was the same, but Jenny knew Cat had started having trouble sleeping over the last few weeks and wasn’t willing to risk interrupting what might be her one good night’s sleep. Erika was up, Jenny knew that. But she was out shopping with her mom, 45 minutes away in Orchard Park, on the other side of Buffalo. Even if she did call her, she would never hear the end of ruining their annual Black Friday shopping trip. Matt wouldn’t be any help and Jenny knew better than to call her parents. They would never stop lecturing her. At the end of her contact list she went back up to the top, hoping she’d missed someone. “This is not happening,” she said. “There has to be someone I can call at three in the morning to come pick me up!” A knock on the window made Jenny scream. She jumped back, ready to attack whoever was outside her car with her cell phone and the scraper she had somewhere. “I can help you,” a voice came through the window.