Griff:You’re running out of time, brother.
That was all.
Brother.
That word coming from him makes my skin crawl. Griff uses brother the way other people use a leash, like it means something. As if eight months in the same shit foster placement at fifteen gives him a claim on me that never expires. It doesn’t work that way. It stopped working that way the moment I understood who he actually was and what saying yes to him had already cost me. I wish I had never run into him again, that I’dbeen smarter and less desperate, that night I was stupid enough to let him back into my life.
I haven’t replied to that text and I’m not going to. Let him think the number is dead. Let him think it landed nowhere and dissolved into the silence of a phone that no longer exists.
I shove the wrench down onto the workbench harder than I intend to. It clatters loud against the socket set, the sound cracking through the quiet of the workshop like a small, stupid explosion.
I let out a rough breath and lean both hands on the edge of the car, head dropping forward, eyes fixed on the engine I have been staring at for two hours without actually seeing any part of it.
“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing anymore,” I say, the words ugly, honest, and uncomfortable as shit. Words that feel smaller as they come out than they did when they were inside you, which somehow makes them worse.
Rainer says nothing at first. That is one thing I have always respected about him. He doesn’t rush to fill silence just because it has teeth. He lets it stand. Lets a man hear what he just said. Lets the truth look around and decide whether it wants to stay.
Sometimes I hate him for it, but today I need it.
He gets up from his desk and exits his office, stopping beside the car.
“What part?” he asks.
“All of it.”
“That narrows it down,” he says. “You got out a few days ago, Zane.”
“I know when I got out.”
“Do you?”
My eyes cut to him.
“You’re walking around as if you should already know how to be out,” he says. “That’s not how it works.”
“You giving prison reintegration advice now?”
“No.” His voice stays level. “You’re not listening.”
“I heard you.”
“No you heard words. That’s different.”
I turn back to the engine because his face is too calm, which makes mine feel too exposed.
“I’m not built for this,” I mutter.
“For what?”
“This.” I gesture around the workshop with the rag. “Normal shit. Work. Food. Sleep. Talking to people without calculating who could hit first. Walking outside without wondering which corner is hiding something. Standing in front of a car without feeling like my skin is trying to crawl off my bones.”
Rainer stays quiet. So I keep going, because apparently once the crack opens, everything decides it is time to crawl out.
“I used to know who I was here. This place made sense. Cars made sense. You handed me a wrench and told me to stop being a mouthy prick every twenty minutes. I knew the rules.”
“You broke most of them,” Rainer says.
“Yeah.” I drop the rag at the edge of the car. “But I knew them.”
