I look up from my book.  I'm at my second job, the zombie shift (11:00 p.m.-5:00a.m.) at a gas station in a nowhere town.  This girl is the first living being I've seen in about half an hour. I can't help but wonder what a sixteen-year-old (or thereabouts) is doing at a gas station at 2 a.m., but to each their own, I guess. I think she's high.  She looks somewhat dead, half-tired and half- empty, swaying like a skyscraper on a windy day. She fumbles half-restlessly at the hem her oversized sweatshirt, bringing it a couple inches lower in her legging-ed thighs. She runs a hand through long, limp, mussed-up hair as she stares, somewhat disoriented, at the Monster selection. Eventually she picks one up and brings it to the counter, only then realizing that she didn't have any money on her. As she starts to pick it back up to take it back to the fridge, I notice something in eyes that are not bloodshot, but blurry. The thick eye-makeup that looks like it's but rubbed around and slept in. The look of vague embarrassment on the pretty face. She's not high. She's on a lever I was at once. Not hurting or happy or empty, with clear perspective and yet hopelessly confused. 
I pull a couple dollars out of my pocket. "It's fine," I say. "Take it."
He eyes widen a bit, but then she bites her lip, and then she smiles. Half-heartedly, but genuinely. She nodded and walked out, forgetting the energy drink.
***
She walks back to her house, half an hour from the gas station, feeling incredibly stupid but also not caring. If she didn't beat the light home, her parents would know she was gone. She doubted they'd approve of her midnight stargazing from the highway. She jogged for about thirty seconds, then decided it wasn't worth it. She would get there when she got there.