“I think that’s the part that matters. My dad built something that keeps going even if I’m not the one running it.”
“Doesn’t really tell me why you have to leave the shop for someone to look after,” I say eventually, aiming for light and sounding somewhere near casual.
“Trevor also got me into engineering school here.”
I blink at him, not quite processing it. “He did what?”
“I applied to Cascadia Tech in November,” he says, steady like this is a completely normal sentence to drop into my evening. “Got into the January intake for the experienced practitioner pathway. Mechanical engineering.”
I fucking knew he still had it in him.
He keeps driving, one hand loose on the wheel. “Trevor handled most of the enrollment while I was dealing with the shop. But it’s been actively in my head ever since…” He glances at me briefly. “That conversation we had.”
That was in his garage, with me running my mouth and accidentally changing the trajectory of someone’s entire life, apparently.
George’s mouth quirks briefly, then fades. “When you left, I finally had time to think. I was lucky there were slots available for the intake. Had to write an essay and all that shit.”
I lean back against the seat, still trying to process the fact George apparently has homework now.
“You wrote an application essay,” I repeat slowly, “Like an actual student.”
His jaw tightens a little. “Don’t start.”
“Oh, I absolutely will. Did Trevor help you format your citations? You got a little backpack hidden somewhere?”
A rough sound leaves him, almost a laugh. “Fuck off.”
I grin before I can stop myself, and it hurts a little how natural it feels.
“What’d you write about?”
He nods once toward the dash. “The Torino.”
I lean back against the seat. “Okay, now I need to hear how you voluntarily wrote multiple pages about your feelings through automotive metaphors.”
A breath of laughter leaves him
“It started about the rebuild,” he says after a second. “Then it kinda stopped being just about the car.”
The city lights move across his face while he drives, pieces of color sliding over his jaw and disappearing again.
“Anybody can strip an engine down and replace parts,” he says. “The hard part’s figuring out what still matters enough to keep, and what you’re only keeping because it’s familiar.”
I stay silent.
“The Torino needed a full rebuild from the start. I knew that. But I still tried to save parts I should’ve let go of earlier, not because they were useful, but only because they’d always been there.”
He clears his throat once, and I can feel it—he’s trying so hard to put himself out there, something he normally wouldn’t let anyone see.
“And after a while, you realize hanging onto something out of habit can start costing you the thing itself. You can’t rebuild anything properly if you keep trying to force it back into what it used to be.”
The road hums softly under the tires.
“And sometimes the foundation’s solid enough that changing it doesn’t ruin what it was. It just lets it become something better than it was before. Same car, but now built to run better.”
Some beat stretches between us.
“Guess the whole point of the damn essay was…” He lets out a small breath. “If something’s mattered to you for a long time, you just stop being afraid of what it could become. You let it grow into something you can’t afford to lose…and can’t help but love. With all of you.”
