6. Beck
BECK
Iwake up thinking about her.
This is a problem because I haven’t even opened my eyes yet and she’s already taking up all the available space in my head.
The smell of her hair. The sound she made when she laughed in my truck.
The way she curled into me like I was something safe.
Safe is not a word anyone has ever associated with me.
I get to the shop early. Pull up the bay doors, start coffee, check the service schedule. A Tacoma needs brake pads. The fire district wants me to look at a pump issue on Engine One. Normal Friday.
Except nothing feels normal, because my phone has a text from a number I saved three days ago under “Wrong Number” and the text reads, Bringing you a coupon whether you want one or not.
She shows up at 8:15 with two coffees from Lea’s and a single coupon, which she tucks into the chest pocket of my shirt while I stand there holding both cups like an idiot.
“Ten percent off any hiking boot,” she says. “You’re welcome.”
“I don’t hike.”
“You drove me up an entire mountain last night.”
“That’s driving. Not hiking.”
She grins and takes her coffee back from me, and something settles in my chest that I don’t recognize. It takes me a minute to place it. It’s ease. I can’t remember the last time something felt easy.
She stays while I work on the Tacoma. Sits on the stool by the parts shelf, legs crossed, drinking her coffee.
She asks questions about the brake job, the way she asked about the MOSFET.
I catch myself explaining rotor wear patterns and realize I’m talking more than I’ve talked in a week. Maybe a month.
I don’t hate it.
Her phone rings at 9:30. She glances at the screen and something shifts. Small, barely visible. A flicker across her face that reminds me of a circuit breaker tripping. Everything still looks fine on the outside, but the power just cut.
“Hey, Mom.”
I go back to the brake pads. I’m not trying to listen. But the shop is quiet and sound carries, and I can hear both sides of the conversation because her mom’s voice is loud. Bright and exactly what I’d expect from someone who raised Callie Wynn.
“Just checking in, sweetie. How’s the little outdoor job going?”
Little outdoor job. I feel my jaw tighten.
“It’s good,” Callie says. Her voice is still cheerful. Still sunny. But the frequency has shifted, tuned to a different station. She sounds like a performance of herself. “Busy with summer tourists.”
“And you’re still doing the ski thing in the winter?”
“It’s not a thing, Mom. It’s a certification program. I’m going for Level Two.”
“I know, I know. I just worry. You’re twenty-three, Cal. Ashley got promoted to regional coordinator last month. Did I tell you that? Twenty-five and she’s already managing a whole division.”
“You told me.”
“I’m not comparing. I just think you have so much potential, and I hate to see you waste it on something seasonal. You could do anything.”
“I am doing something.”
“I mean something with a future, honey.”
The conversation goes on for another two minutes.
Callie’s mom isn’t mean. That’s the thing that grinds into me as I listen.
She’s warm and loving and completely, casually devastating.
She talks about Callie’s cousin who just finished law school.
Mentions a job opening at a marketing firm in Denver that would be “perfect for someone with your personality.”
Every sentence is a small, soft dismissal wrapped in a compliment, and Callie takes each one with the same bright, practiced cheerfulness that tells me she’s been taking them her whole life.
She hangs up and sets the phone on the parts shelf, screen down.
“Sorry about that,” she says. Same smile. Same voice. Completely hollow.
“Callie.”
“It’s fine. She means well. She just doesn’t get it.”
“She’s wrong.”
“I know she’s wrong.” She picks up her coffee, but it’s empty, and she stares into it for a second before setting it back down. “It’s not about knowing. It’s about hearing it from the people who are supposed to believe in you and getting…this instead. Every time. For years.”
She’s shaking. Just barely. If I wasn’t watching her the way I’ve been watching her for the last three days, obsessively and against my better judgment, I’d miss it.
“She compared you to your cousin,” I say.
“She compared me to everyone. Ashley got promoted. Jamie passed the bar. My old roommate just got engaged to an investment banker.” She laughs, but it’s wrong. It’s that bright, bubbly sound rearranged into something brittle. “And then there’s Callie, handing out coupons and chasing a ski dream.”
“It’s not a dream. You have a certification and a plan.”
“I know that, Beck.”
“Then why are you—?”
“Because knowing doesn’t help when every person in your life looks at you like you’re wasting your time.
” She slides off the stool and picks up her phone.
The motion is smooth and practiced. She’s been leaving rooms after these conversations for years.
I can see it in the way she gathers herself, chin up, smile back on, armor clicking into place piece by piece.
“I should get back. Kendall’s opening alone, and the morning rush is starting. ”
“Callie.”
“It’s fine. Really. Thank you for the coffee. Well, technically I brought the coffee, so thank you for the company.” The smile is flawless. Bright and warm and completely sealed shut. “I’ll see you around, Beck.”
She walks out.
The door scrapes closed behind her, and the shop is quiet again, the way it was before she started showing up with her wrong numbers and her coupons and her laugh that filled every corner.
I stand there with brake dust on my hands and two empty coffee cups on the parts shelf and a coupon in my shirt pocket, and the ease I felt thirty minutes ago is gone.
I know what just happened. I watched it happen in real time and I couldn’t stop it.
She didn’t pull away from me. She pulled away from everything, the way people do when they’ve been told enough times that what they want doesn’t matter.
She smiled and she laughed and she left, and every bit of it was a door closing.
I know that move. I’ve done that move. Every time someone calls me to fix something and hangs up without asking how I’m doing. Every time the fire district drops off apparatus and picks it up without a word. Every time I’m the tool in someone else’s toolbox and never the person holding it.
She’s not taken seriously. I’m taken for granted. Same wound, different scar.
I pull the coupon out of my pocket and look at it. Ten percent off any hiking boot. She’d drawn a little smiley face next to the expiration date.
I put it back in my pocket and go to finish the brake job, but my hands aren’t steady and my head isn’t in it.
I keep hearing her mom’s voice. Something with a future, honey.
Like teaching people to love the mountain isn’t a future.
Like the woman who researched MOSFETs on her lunch break and explained them back to me better than most technicians could isn’t someone worth believing in.
The Tacoma can wait.
I wipe my hands, grab my keys, and lock up the shop.