19. Wes
WES
The afternoon bleeds into the quiet hours.
The shift change buzzes and settles, tools find their places on the pegboard walls, and the station’s heartbeat slows to a low, metallic thrum.
I lean against a steel support column, arms crossed, watching the scene play out from the edge of the bay.
They’re getting ready to leave. Jordyn is talking to Tate, her posture looser than I’ve ever seen it.
Brody isn’t attached to her hip. He’s over by my locker, tracing the letters of my last name stenciled across the front of my turnout coat.
His fingers follow the blocky white shapes with a slow, deliberate focus.
He moves like he owns the space between the engine and the wall.
A week ago, the kid was a bundle of raw nerves, stuck to his mother like static.
Any sudden noise—a dropped wrench, a radio squawk—and he’d flinch like he was taking a punch.
Now, he barely blinks. The air compressor kicks on with a loud hiss, and his head turns toward the sound, not in alarm, but in curiosity.
He processes it, files it away, and goes back to the coat.
It’s not some feel-good miracle. It’s an equation.
Predictable chaos. The station is loud and full of sharp metal edges, but it runs on a system.
Alarms mean something specific. The trucks live in the same spot.
The gear hangs in a precise order. There are no social curveballs here, no hidden meanings in the way someone says hello.
It’s a blueprint, and this kid knows how to read it.
He’s not healing. He’s adapting. Finding solid ground in a world that’s been nothing but quicksand.
He drops his hand from my gear and pivots, his eyes scanning the bay with a methodical sweep. He’s mapping it. Memorizing the layout, the equipment, the exits. The same way I would on a walkthrough of an unfamiliar building. He’s not just looking; he’s assessing.
And I get it. I see the world the same way.
Strip away the noise, find the structure, and figure out how it works.
This place works for him. The unfiltered logic of it hits me with the force of a door kicked open.
It’s not about Tate being a kid-whisperer or me handing him a piece of brass to hold.
It’s the station itself. It’s the one place that makes as much sense to him as it does to me.
Her gaze follows him. Jordyn. She leans against the massive front tire of the engine, her arms crossed, but the knot of tension that usually lives between her shoulder blades has vanished.
Her head is tilted, a small, unreadable expression on her face as she watches her son.
She isn't scanning for threats anymore. She’s not mapping the quickest route to the door.
Her boots are planted on the oil-stained concrete like she might actually trust the ground not to crumble beneath her.
It’s barely a change, a fractional softening around the edges, but it’s there. A splinter of light in a locked room.
Miller, one of the B-shift guys just clocking in, ambles past with a gym bag slung over his shoulder. He grins, gesturing with his head toward Brody, who is now running his hand over the polished diamond plate of the engine’s running board.
“Looks like he’s ready for the academy. Bet you’re counting down the days until summer break starts, huh, buddy? No more school for a while.”
The words waft through the air for a half-second. Benign. Friendly. And completely wrong.
Brody’s hand freezes mid-swipe. His fingers curl inward, pulling back from the metal as if burned.
His shoulders, relaxed just a moment before, hike up toward his ears.
His spine goes rigid. The light in his eyes doesn't just dim; it snaps off. The open, curious boy vanishes, replaced by a small, tight knot of a stranger. He stares at the ground, his whole body a single, hard line of refusal. The switch flips. The door slams shut. And just like that, he’s gone.
My boots move before I think. I cut across the concrete, ignoring the bewildered look on Miller’s face.
I don’t look at Jordyn. My world narrows to the small, rigid shape of her son.
From the nearest workbench, I grab a heavy brass nozzle coupling.
It’s solid, intricate. An anchor. I crouch beside him, not getting in his face, just entering his space from the side. I hold it out.
“Hold this.”
He doesn’t look up.
“I need you to check the threads. Both hands. Make sure they’re clean.”
His gaze flickers to the piece of metal.
It’s a thing with a purpose. His small, trembling fingers reach out and wrap around the brass.
It’s heavy. Grounding. He turns it over, his focus latching onto the methodical task.
The high, tight wire of tension in his shoulders loosens its pull.
His breathing, caught in his throat, finally releases in a slow, uneven exhale.
He’s still a million miles away, but I have a hold on the line.
A few minutes later, the storm has passed. Tate has him again, showing him the ladder controls on Engine 2, letting Brody’s focus rebuild itself on the mechanics. The nozzle coupling rests on the truck’s running board, its job done.
Jordyn leans against the open bay door, watching them. The mask is back in place, but I detect the cracks around the edges. I walk over, blocking her escape route to the car. She glances at me, her expression instantly guarded.
“The kids at school giving him a hard time?” My voice is low, just for her.
She flinches. It's a tiny, fractional movement of her shoulders, but I see it. She gives a quick shrug and looks out at the parking lot, anywhere but at me.
“It’s a new place. It takes time to adjust.” Her voice is clipped, the answer polished smooth from overuse.
I don’t move. I cross my arms over my chest and wait. The silence hangs between us, thick and heavy. I let it sit there. She can build her walls as high as she wants. I know exactly what they’re made of. I’ve lived in a house with the same damn blueprints.
Finally, she looks at me. Her eyes are flat, unreadable. The kind of look that says she's done talking without saying a word. She pushes off from the doorframe, straightening to her full height, which puts the top of her head somewhere around my collarbone.
"We should go. It's getting late."
I nod once. Clean. Simple. Like I'm agreeing with her assessment of the time instead of filing away everything she didn't say.
Because that's what this is—a conversation built entirely on what's missing.
She didn't deny it. Didn't laugh it off or tell me I was reading too much into Miller's careless comment.
Didn't give me the standard line about kids being kids or how Brody just needs time to find his place.
She went straight to deflection and then to exit strategy.
That tells me everything I need to know.
I watch her walk over to Tate and Brody.
Her stride is controlled. No hurry, but no lingering either.
She's good at this—the careful extraction, the graceful goodbye that doesn't burn bridges but also doesn't leave openings.
I've seen it before, in people who've learned that staying too long in one place means giving someone else the power to hurt you.
Brody looks up from the ladder controls when she approaches. His face is open again, the earlier shutdown completely erased. He's holding a small flashlight Tate must have given him, turning it over in his hands like he's memorizing every detail.
"Can I bring this home?"
"What do we say when someone gives us something?" Jordyn's voice is gentle, patient.
"Thank you." He looks at Tate with those wide brown eyes. "Thank you for letting me see the trucks."
Tate crouches down to his level. "You can come back anytime, buddy. This place is always here."
The kid nods seriously, like he's filing that promise away in the same mental catalogue where he keeps the station layout and the sound of the air compressor. Jordyn's hand finds his shoulder, a light touch that somehow manages to be both protective and guiding.
My jaw tightens as I watch them head toward the car.
Brody walks next to Jordyn, chattering about hydraulic pressure and ladder extension ratios.
Normal kid stuff, if your idea of normal includes eight-year-olds who can explain mechanical advantage better than half the rookies who come through here.
But I'm not thinking about hydraulics or ladder trucks.
I'm thinking about the way his whole body locked up when Miller mentioned summer break.
The way Jordyn's shoulders went rigid when I asked about school.
The careful, practiced way she deflects questions about anything that might require her to admit they need help.
I settle back against the bay door and light a cigarette, watching their taillights disappear down the street. The station settles back into its evening rhythm around me. Radio chatter, the distant hum of traffic, Tate cleaning up the tools Brody had been examining.
Some things you file away for later. Some things you let go. And some things you decide are worth remembering, even when—especially when—nobody asks you to.
This is one of those things.