Two weary eyes find me from the edge of the Olympic-size pool. Light, light brown.
No light at all.
She sends me the barest smile, then jumps in, making her laps.
Minutes tick by. People scatter, distracted.
My father cracks a joke, nudging my shoulder with his fist as he guffaws. I turn to face him. We share a smile, a few words. A few minutes.
I don’t remember the joke, but I remember the moment after.
The screaming. Commotion.
A blur of frantic movement, pitching voices, bodies scrambling in and out of the water.
And there—
My sister.
Floating.
My feet move. My brain shuts down. My voice splinters with agony.
I dive.
But there’s nothing I can do.
***
By day, I shape the unshaped.
In a hollow warehouse that reeks of sawdust and varnish, I skim my hands over coarse slabs of wood, studying their imperfections. I carve, sand, and stain, coaxing each piece into something valuable.
Tables that will hold family dinners. Bookshelves for cradling stories. Beds where people will dream.
It’s honest work. The kind where effort equals outcome with every pass of the chisel, every stroke of the brush.
By night, I build something else entirely.
I trade in sanders for soldering irons, chisels for circuits. My living room workbench becomes a different kind of warehouse, scattered with wires, pickups, and polished wood waiting to be transformed.
I mold guitars that don’t just play music. They breathe it. Instruments with bodies carved from exotic woods, necks reinforced with carbon fiber, touch-responsive LED fretboards that glow beneath my fingertips. Sound that doesn’t just echo but bends, warps, evolves.
Each one is a puzzle. Pieces of a dream that becomes more whole as the weeks sail by.
By day, I build for others.
By night, I build for me.
And on a lonely Saturday evening in early June, I finally build for something bigger.
I text her.
Me:Hey. It’s Chase.
Me:I think I might be in.
Ten minutes later, I hear my phone ping as I’m mopping up a puddle near Toaster’s water bowl. My head pounds, chest squeezes, and my nerves multiply.
