“Seeing everyone. Showing Lincoln your work.”
My hands adjusted on the armrest. “A little. It’s solid lab data, but translating that to real-world conditions is a whole different challenge. I want his take on whether the concept holds up.”
“From what you’ve shown me, the concept’s sound.”
“The physics works. Whether it survives contact with actual players and actual impacts…? That’s the question I can’t answer in a university lab.”
Seth’s hand squeezed my thigh. “Lincoln’s not going to blow you off. He cared about your dad. He cares about this work.”
I knew that. Lincoln had been checking in on me since the funeral, sending occasional emails about research he’d come across working with the Breakers, asking how the capstone was progressing. He’d been one of Dad’s closest friends on the team, one of the few people who’d stayed in touch through the worst years of the decline. When Dad couldn’t remember his own son’s name, he could still remember Lincoln’s. Some days that had felt like a gift. Other days, it had felt like a knife.
“I just keep thinking about how Dad never got to see any of it,” I said. “He knew I was working on helmet design, but by the timeI had actual data, he couldn’t—” My voice cracked. “He couldn’t follow a conversation anymore. I tried to explain it to him once. He just looked at me like I was a stranger.”
The memory hit harder than I expected—Dad in his armchair by the window, his eyes vacant, his hands picking at the hem of his shirt while I talked about force vectors and impact absorption like any of it mattered. He’d smiled and nodded, the way he smiled and nodded at everyone by then, and I’d driven back to school and sat in my car for an hour because I couldn’t stop shaking. That was three weeks before he wrapped his favorite classic car around a tree while trying to prove he wasn’t completely dependent on Mom and me.
“I want Lincoln to tell me I’m on the right track,” I said, “but part of me wishes it was Dad telling me instead. And that’s never going to happen. He’s gone, and he never knew if any of this was worth a damn, and I can’t?—”
My breath caught. I couldn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t find the end of it.
“Hey.” Seth’s voice was firm. “You’re spiraling. I can hear it.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” He checked his mirrors and started signaling. “There’s a rest stop coming up.”
“Seth, we don’t need to?—”
“We’re stopping.”
He pulled off at the next exit.
The rest stop sat at the edge of a pine forest, the air sharp with resin when we climbed out. A few trucks idled in the far lot.I stood by the passenger door, arms wrapped around myself, trying to pull it together. Failing.
“Walk with me,” Seth said. Not a question.
A trail cut into the trees behind the rest stop—just a short loop, probably, something for people to stretch their legs. Pine needles crunched under our feet. The forest closed around us, blocking out the highway noise until all I could hear was our breathing and the wind moving through branches overhead.
“I keep waiting for it to get easier,” I said. The words came out rough. “Everyone says it does. Time heals, whatever. But some days it’s worse. Some days I forget he’s gone, and then I remember, and it’s like losing him all over again.”
Seth didn’t say anything. He just walked beside me, close enough that our shoulders brushed.
“The last thing he ever said to me that made sense—” I had to stop. Start again. “He grabbed my hand. Looked right at me, really looked, like he knew who I was for the first time in months. And he said, ‘You’re going to fix it, aren’t you? You’re going to make it so this doesn’t happen to anyone else.’” My vision blurred. “And I said yes. I promised him. And then he was gone again, and two weeks later, he was just gone.”
I stopped walking. Couldn’t see the trail anymore through the tears I’d been fighting since we’d gotten in the truck this morning. Since before that. Since always.
“I don’t know if I can keep that promise,” I said. “What if the research isn’t good enough? What if Lincoln looks at it and tells me I’ve been wasting my time? What if Dad believed in something that was never going to work?”
Seth stepped in front of me. “Give me your hands.”
“Seth—”
“Hands.”
I gave him my hands. He held them between his own, his thumbs pressing into my palms with steady pressure. The contact was grounding—warm skin, callused fingers, something solid to hold on to.
“Breathe,” he said. “In for four. Hold for four. Out for four.”
“I know how to breathe.”
