He takes his time with it, the lamp drifting over the engine. He then straightens up and focuses on me across the open hood.
I know that look. It means I’m about to sit through the “remember when I told you this would happen” sermon, thanks to my own stupidity.
He stays rooted there like he’s replaying the whole thing in his head, figuring out exactly where this started going sideways. In this case, the car isn’t really the problem. It’s me.
George lowers the hood and picks up the lamp, setting it on the roof of the car. The thud of it carries across the ridge. “It’s the alternator. I told you to have the car dropped at the shop.”
There it is. Knew we’d get here inside the first few minutes.
“You mentioned it,” I cut in.
“I didn’t just mention it.” His voice stays level, which somehow makes it worse than if he’d come out of that truck already angry. “Told you to get it looked at. So walk me through how you sawthat battery light every day and still thought, ‘yeah, this’ll probably sort itself out.’”
“The light only came on sometimes at first, and it was still starting every time I went, so I kept telling myself I’d get to it.” I scrub a hand over the back of my neck, already knowing how it sounds. “I should’ve just dealt with it. I know that. I just…didn’t.”
“Booking that appointment would’ve taken five minutes,” he says, the calm starting to crack. “Would have taken only one phone call to my shop. You know every guy working there. They would’ve squeezed you in the same day.”
“Figured it was a problem for Future Lance…which, yeah, not exactly my best call.”
Something moves in his jaw. “You just going to make every single thing in your life a joke?”
I push off the car to walk toward him. “What do you want me to say, G? Sorry you drove all this way in the rain just to confirm I’m still useless at taking your advice? Fine.” I spread my arms wide, the mist now turning into more of a drizzle, dampening my sleeves. “I’m sorry. There. You happy now?”
He steps around the hood, closing half the distance between us.
“This isn’t about me being happy. You always do this shit.” Rain beads along his jacket as he points toward the car. “The thing jerks every time you hit the gas, grinds like hell on cold starts, and that battery light’s probably been flashing at you for weeks. But you keep driving it anyway like the problem’s gonna magically disappear if you ignore it long enough.”
His jaw tightens. “And then one day the whole damn thing dies and you stand there acting surprised.”
I gesture toward the car between us. “Well, I guess that’s the difference between you and me. You catch things early and handle them before they turn into this. Nothing gets past you.” I shake my head. “Don’t worry. This will be the last time you need to do this kind of thing for me.”
“You know I don’t mind helping you out,” he says, leaning back against the car with his arms crossed, looking at me like he’s been waiting to say this for a long time. “That’s not the problem. Problem is you don’t listen. You think you can just keep doing what you want and everything will work out. Not everyone has a safety net like you, or can coast through life like you. Some of us can’t afford to let things fall apart bit by bit. We don’t get warning signs.”
His words sink in deep, stripping away the last bit of buffer we had left. After all these years of never really yelling at each other, the thin layer of friendship we’d been holding onto finally shreds apart.
“I’m not like you,” I say, louder now, rain on my face and nowhere left to be guarded. “You walk into everything already expecting the crash. I was no different. You were never really in it because you’d already called the whole thing off in your head.”
George turns slightly, water beading on his jacket now, and meets my eyes across the wet metal. “If that’s true, I wouldn’t have been there for any of it.”
I feel the hurt before I can even make sense of what exactly hurt me. “Is that what it was? You were just there for it, like some kind of a fucking favor? Because I was a confused friend and you figured you’d help me sort myself out?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“But that’s what happened, isn’t it?” I hear my voice starting to unravel and I can’t stop it. “I was the guy who didn’t know what he wanted, and you were just…you, the one who always knows what to do. I’m just another thing you fixed when it needed fixing. Well, here’s what. I didn’t want to be another thing you fixed, George. I wanted to be the reason you stayed.”
Cold rain starts to come down harder now, thickening into a steady sheet. A shadow crosses his expression, brief and sharpbefore it’s gone. He turns slightly, his eyes fixed on me, charged with anger.
“You’re smart. Leaving this place is just another thing someone like you would have to do to get to where you’re supposed to be. You’ll go home to Seattle and you’ll fit right back in. You’ll have everything, Lance.”
“Everything.” The word tastes bitter as I spit it out. “Fuck everything. I lose it the moment I leave you here.”
“Fuck. Don’t,” he says, raising a finger and stepping closer, rain running down the side of his face.
“Why?” My voice almost giving way now despite how hard I try to hold it steady. “It stopped being about me figuring things out a long time ago, or whatever bullshit excuse we both came up with to justify what we want from each other. I’ve got it all worked out. I would have stayed here, helped you with the buyout troubles, and still had gone to see Mom in Seattle.”
He drags in a heavy breath, the dark valley stretching wide behind him.
“You could be gone for months, Lance. At first you’d check in. A text here and there. Maybe a call when you remembered.” His mouth thins into a hard line. “Then it’d slow down. That’s how this shit goes. You’ll accept that job at Hearthside. You’ll meet people, build a life. And eventually I’d just turn into some guy you used to know back here.”
