Stealing Heat by Alex Juffer

Serenity berates the McDonald’s intercom and shakes a fistful of dollar bills, yelling

“Cold hard American cash” until the truck behind her honks.

“Remove yourself from the line,” a buzzy drawl replies.

They won’t take her order on foot, but the lobby is closed due to understaffing even

though she never heard back about her job application. Go figure. All the breakfast sandwiches on the drive-thru menu twinkle at her.

Serenity’s feet don’t hurt anymore because she can’t feel her feet. She cups her hands and huffs a breath and holds the warm air as long as she can. Thinks about her dumbass little brother, D, who took his girl joyriding last night and ran the gas to empty in the parking lot, keeping themselves warm so they could fool around.

The truck driver blares the horn again. Serenity flicks him off, double birds, and he

laughs which makes it worse. He’s all hat and sunglasses behind the steering wheel.

She moves to the first window. Once they see her, they’ll have to let her order. Surely.

Working the register is Alphonso from study hall, 1st period. Senior like her. Serenity

smells the hot grease of hash browns seeping through the cracks and knocks on the retractable plastic. Alphonso doesn’t open the window, just stares behind his ink-black mustache and headset and visor.

“Coward,” she yells, but her heart's not in it.

She walks across the county highway that cleaves her town in two and up towards the

convenience store. Wants to cry while she’s alone and can afford to, but knows that will lead to shame, and the shame will lead to fury, and the fury will cause her to snap on someone–to use words she despises–and then she’ll retreat to her room to chew on benzos, tracing the grit along her back molars late into the night.

Instead, she throws her red hoodie up for blinders against the cars that blur past and kick up sleet. Her daddy took her to the horse track when she was young enough to still call him that. The horses wore blinders too and one snapped its leg racing so they hauled it off.

“Where’s it going?” she asked but he just crumpled his exacta bet and tossed it.

The 4 Corners corner store has an empty, ice-skate parking lot and padlocked door.

Handwritten sign in the window says SORRY. OUT OF BUSINESS 4EVER. When the hell did

that happen, Serenity wonders. She feels her eyelashes freezing and weighing heavy on her lids.

Her body tells her to head home now but she mentally tabulates what’s in the cabinets:

two sleeves of saltines, hot chocolate mix, fruit snacks, and the boxed stuffing leftover from

Thanksgiving–if D didn’t make it for his girlfriend when they were high. She’d have to kill him

then. One less mouth to feed.

When Serenity cups her hands to the frosted glass to see inside she can make out canned peas and dish soap on the nearest shelf. She punches the windowpane. It spiderweb cracks but holds. Front knuckle yelps in pain and she shakes it out.

Hears Dad: If you’ve got anger put it to work.

She tucks her chin to the wind and heads up the railroad tracks to the gas station. Past the rotting basketball nets of the park. Past the army of gnomes with their cheeks flaked to black.

To the sprawl of the pumps, lights, and deluxe car wash. Inside, the biggest grocery

section in town. Serenity grabs a basket. There’s slushies gyrating and taquitos rolling under heat lamps and neon candy that her brothers love to slurp. Serenity is jealous of their boyhood, but glad someone gets a childhood all the same.

Cashiering is Ms. Carletta, the school lunch lady who picks up weekend shifts. Still using

a hairnet. Serenity waves, but Carletta just works her gum.

Serenity stacks breakfast sandwiches into neat rows. They have a spongy give and smell of butter. Pockets of warmth. Does the math against what’s in her pocket–doesn’t add up, but she didn’t expect it to. Stacks more sandwiches for lunch, dinner, tomorrow. She came this far.

Serenity feels prickles of heat on the nape of her neck from being watched. Carletta

repositions for a clear sight line down the aisle.

An itch of indignity in the veins on the backs of her hands.

“A born fighter,” Dad would say, the only time she made him proud was beating up

middle school boys who picked on her brothers. A wet washcloth to her bruises as if the fever in her blood could be cooled. Things were better when the fights were clear.

She puts her hands under the heat lamps, fingers spread wide, and watches the stark white cold get chased away.

Always has to find her own heat. No boyfriend to stroke her back, to sneak his hands

under her hoodie pouch. D’s girlfriend stealing the warmth of the stove, letting it run when

there’s nothing to cook until everyone is too calm and tired. Her brothers taking long showers

and stealing the hot water, the clouds of trapped steam causing the ceiling to buckle.

She walks towards the exit and looks to Carletta, who shakes her head, but Serenity’s

mind is made up. They know where she lives, of course. Flashing lights will pattern the curtains eventually, but not before the food is gone or hidden.

She opens the door. The bell dings.

Alex Juffer lives in a small town in Minnesota with his wife, son, two dogs, and a family of attic squirrels. He’s won competitions, been a Wigleaf Top 50, and has publications in Epoch, Passages North, Monkey Bicycle, Vestal Review, The Los Angeles Review and more. He is a 2026 Smokelong Fellow and teaching artist at The Loft Literary Center, where he was awarded an Excellence in Teaching Fellowship.